7 Things Democrats Would Have Freaked Out About If Bush Had Done Them
Buzzfeed: Obama’s national security policy has continued some of the most controversial moves of the Bush administration. Silence from much of the left
"[E]ven as Obama said that “a decade of war is now ending” in his inauguration speech, a drone strike killed three suspected Al Qaeda members in Yemen. […]
If George W. Bush were doing this sort of thing, we’d be marching in the streets about it. Why does Obama get a free pass? (And on Bradley Manning? And on Guantanamo?) Anyone in the press want to ask the President about the legality & moral stickiness of drone strikes at his next press conference?"
kottke.org: Obama’s overlooked war and lethal Presidency (via hipsterlibertarian)
(via hipsterlibertarian)
"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."
Martin Luther King Jr. [From A Time to Break Silence] (via statistsgonnastate)
(Source: the-altar, via libertariancontrarian)
"Wars are seldom caused by spontaneous hatreds between people, for peoples in general are too ignorant of one another to have grievances and too indifferent to what goes on beyond their borders to plan conquests. They must be urged to the slaughter by politicians who know how to alarm them."
H L Mencken (via anarchei)
(Source: haereticum, via anarchei)
It's Official: The U.S. Army is Targeting and Assassinating Children
Via Washington’s Blog:
Obama and the American military label all young men – between the ages of say 15 and 35 - who happen to be in battle zones as suspected insurgents who they can target and kill.
Under the Bush administration, children were tortured.
Now, the U.S. military is starting to target children for assassination in battle zones. As the Nation reports:
In a despicable article in Military Times, the US military says that children are legitimate targets in the war in Afghanistan because sometimes the Taliban and other insurgents use kids.
In the original incident, which I cited in October, The New York Times reported it this way:
The…case of three children allegedly killed in a coalition strike was reported by local officials in Helmand Province’s Nawa district. The officials said that the children were killed in a NATO strike on Sunday afternoon as they were gathering dung to burn as fuel, a common practice in the desert reaches of southern Afghanistan where there are few trees.
***
The Marja governor said that NATO forces watched as improvised explosive devices were being planted, and targeted the insurgents planting them. “As a result two I.E.D. planters were killed and the shrapnel killed the three children who were wandering nearby,” he said. Other reports said that three insurgents had been killed.
A spokesman for the international forces, Maj. Adam Wojack, said that the coalition forces were aware of the allegations and that the episode was being investigated. “I.S.A.F. did conduct a precision airstrike on three insurgents in Nawa district, and the strike killed all three insurgents,” he said.
“None of our reporting shows any civilian casualties or any children.”
But on December 3 Gannett, which owns Military Times, ran an article headlined: “Some Afghan Kids Aren’t Bystanders.” It said:
When Marines in Helmand province sized up shadowy figures that appeared to be emplacing an improvised explosive device, it looked like a straightforward mission. They got clearance for an airstrike, a Marine official said, and took out the targets.
It wasn’t that simple, however. Three individuals hit were 12, 10 and 8 years old, leading the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul to say it may have “accidentally killed three innocent Afghan civilians.”
But a Marine official here raised questions about whether the children were “innocent.” Before calling for the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System mission in mid-October, Marines observed the children digging a hole in a dirt road in Nawa district, the official said, and the Taliban may have recruited the children to carry out the mission.
Shockingly, the article quotes a senior officer saying that the military isn’t just out to bomb “military age males,” anymore, but kids, too:
“It kind of opens our aperture,” said Army Lt. Col. Marion “Ced” Carrington, whose unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was assisting the Afghan police. “In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”
War crimes? It would appear so.
Why aren’t more liberals attempting to refute this? I deliberately tag things like this to trigger them.
They probably think that the guy in the middle is a cis, white-passing Islamic terrorist who doesn’t check his whistleblowing privilege.
It doesn’t fit their narrative that Obama is our anti-war savior.
(Source: texasronpaulgirl, via thecheekylibertarian)
Obama Administration to Congress: You’re Irrelevant
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta gave testimony in the Senate yesterday that was just breathtaking: asserting that the Obama administration believes it can go to war against Syria by obtaining permission from an international tribunal — the United Nations and/or NATO — and that no authorization from Congress is needed.
The people do not matter. The Constitution is void. All hail the king.
(via thefreelioness)
(Source: pax-loveandwar, via tylerferrari)
Watch what happens when S.E. Cupp acknowledges that Obama’s foreign policy is identical to George W. Bush’s on Bill Maher’s show.
The collection of liberal panelists here is so laughably stereotypical-looking/sounding.
And James Carville still has one of the scariest faces I’ve ever seen. Including Voldemort.
The 1%
I saw a little thing going around Facebook yesterday saying “I’m the 1% … ” and then it listed why the poster is in the 1%. It just so happened that 1% of the popular vote went to Gary Johnson.
That means that 1% of presidential voters voted to stop bombing people in other countries. ONLY 1% VOTED TO STOP BOMBING POSSIBLY INNOCENT PEOPLE IN OTHER COUNTRIES.
Thank you, 99%, for being a piece of shit.
(Source: timlebsack, via lalibertarienne)
"The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation."
Emma Goldman (via haereticum)
(via the-flame-imperishable)
A Vote For Drones
This is true in more ways than one. Not only is a vote for Obama or Romney a vote for a continuation of drone warfare, it is also a vote for the drones that are Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
(Source: fuckyeahmarxismleninism)
"
I have traveled this world much more extensively than either Obama or Romney, and I still do. I find everywhere, even in areas of conflict and economic difficulty, the vast majority of people are friendly, even kind, and have very similar aspirations, across cultures, to personal development and emotional [fulfillment].
The striking thing about [the] US Presidential “foreign policy” debate, is when it did occasionally discuss foreign policy, the world out there was discussed not as a place of vast potential, but as a deeply disturbing place full of foreigners who are, apparently, all evil except the Israelis, who are perfect. …
The correct attitude to all these foreigners that God so unfortunately and inexplicably placed on this planet, is apparently to maintain incredibly large armed forces, murder people with drones (they were both very enthusiastic on this one), place sanctions on them and declare them “currency manipulators”. The only surprising note was that both agreed that they could not kill everyone in Iran.
But “We can’t just kill our way out of this mess” was spoken with regret, rather than as an affirmation of the possibilities of cooperation instead. What a grim and joyless world view.
"Craig Murray, former British ambassador
(via election)
(via laliberty)
