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You're getting an earful right now.
To all the people that supported Awlaki's killing, what do you have to say about this?
You're getting an earful right now.
Collateral damage sucks but I can't sympathize. Why is this kid in the vicinity of these people? It's like they don't realize the consequences of hanging around with assholes. It's like I told a friend of mine awhile back. If you're dumb enough to play cards at your drug dealer friend's house don't be shocked when you're sitting in jail with him after the cops raid his ass. What happens a few months later...dumb is sitting in jail with his friend on drug charges. Why? Because he was stupid enough to hang around with that idiot. You don't want to get blasted by drones? Stay away from people with targets on their back...it's that simple.Yemeni officials said the dead from the strike included Ibrahim al-Banna, the Egyptian media chief for al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate, and also a brother of Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaeda operative who was indicted in New York in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden.
Was he targeted by the strike or was he collateral damage. If it was targeted for him then that is ed up to all else.
Maybe because he was entrusted to them by his father, who knew he was wearing crosshairs; and because he was a minor child and therefore under the control of his guardians, not at liberty to move as he pleased.Why is this kid in the vicinity of these people?
Is that enough reason to waste his ass without further ado or explanation?
2 separate strikes?
Great, so the father who has a target on his back because he's a loudmouth hate-mongering asshole entrusts his kid to other assholes with targets on their backs as well? Yeah, that's smart.
It's a killing offense to fall in with the wrong crowd, apparently.
Hint: we're talking about a US citizen here.
The only offense I see here is towards common sense. U.S. citizen or not I don't sympathize with that kind of stupidity. Even the biggest moron can deduce these guys have targets on their backs, it may be a little dangerous to hang with'em.
If his daddy handed him over to those kind of people then he was a in moron, point blank. Hypothetically speaking, am I going to let my kids ride around with my drug kingpin brother? Am I going to name him godfather of my kids if something were to happen to me? no lol. Who's dumb enough to put their kids in harm's way?
2 separate strikes, 2 weeks apart.
Now stupidity is a killing offense. Tough crowd.
No butt if it was unknown to those that issued the order that he was to be present but they rather they issued the order to attack the others that were clearly not compromising targets its pretty hard to point the finger.
It would be the same as if an American reporter who is clearly not a target getting hit by such an attack.
Vietnam was run with all the second guessing nonsense and you cannot formulate mission based on that.
Is it tragic? Certainly but at the same time the military operations against the training and organizational grounds in Yemen are a tactical and strategic necessity.
Are they a tactical and strategic necessity, or just another step in a game of for tat? How many young arabs connected directly or indirectly with those killed in Yemen will grow to hate the US for drone attacks that are, be honest, just as cowardly as suicide bombers? Collateral damage only works when you are on the same side, otherwise its just murder of innocents, be it at the hands of a drone or a suicide bomber.
I remember the same argument being used for the cruise missile attacks in Sudan that took out a pharmaceutical plant and a candy factory. A year later, 9/11 happened. What guarantee do you have that this supposed "tactical and strategic necessity" will keep Americans safe? Is it worth forfeiting the higher moral ground, your ideals, without a guarantee that you will gain something from that?
in any case, the truly distrubing thing about this is the secrecy. If the US govt decided that these people are important enough of a threat as to violate the cons ution and principles of sovereignty to eliminate, ok, there could be a case for that. But when they dont even acknowledge that they are doing it and give faulty intel to justify their actions, that doesnt inspire confidence, it just makes it all the more sinister.
^^^ well put.
Well if you do not believe that the attacks on various US military and civilian sights, various commuter stations in Europe, various embassies across the world et al originated from those Yemeni bases then so be it.
If you do admit that they originated from there then we can talk because at that point they were the base of operations for worldwide attacks and continued to be so.
Its the whole Osama Bin Laden Story. He bankrolled early jihadist nonsense in Yemen in the early 1980s. It was from that base of operations that he got involved in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and galvanized support for the organization across the region. His base of support was still on the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen the entire time. Thats where he was from.
Well they didn't go away and they are still operating thus the presence of their propogandist and training personnel.
I have no idea about Sudan and quite frankly with the water shortages the last two years across East Africa the last two years I really do not know why that was necessary.
Maybe they were full of in their explanations. I did not make them and there certainly is such a thing as strategic and tactical necessities. I am not going to condescend as to leave at that. i think I have indicated what they are clearly and specifically.
But I do know that AQ and their bases in Yemen had a lot of their ideology of antiwestern sentiment from US military installations in Saudi Arabia and their proximity to their holy cities. Much of that rhetoric came from Bin Laden though and maybe a change in approach because of his death is needed but I have absolutely no problem with military action in Yemen.
None.
I'm familiar with the Yemeni influence, like I said before a case could be made against them, and in fact it would have been much more logical to me to invade Yemen/Saudi Arabia than Iraq/Afghanistan. Yemen is definitely a hub for Arab terrorism.
My points more specifically were
a) why the secrecy
and
b) what does bombing solve
Suppose AQ managed to assassinate the entire US and UK political and military leadership (huge stretch, but bear with me). Every last one, dead. You dont think a new leadership, more bent on destroying AQ, would rise up? And if the US assassinates the entire AQ leadership... you don't think a new leadership, more bent on destroying the US, will rise up?
This is the real world, not the Terminator saga. Killing specific people doesnt magically eliminate an ideological movement in one fell swoop. At best it disorganizes the hit faction for a while, but eventually new leaders rise and if they are any good at leading they will use history to frame their ideology and recruit members (unless you are talking total extermination, but again that will only inspire others to join the fray). Right now the history the US is creating in the ME is that they are willing to kill innocents and fabricate evidence in the name of revenge. That is a far cry from "we are the most civilized country in the world, a beacon of freedom, justice and prosperity (and that's why they hate us!)".
As for the argument that "you shouldnt keep bad company" someone else threw around, do you honestly expect the average Yemeni or Pakistani to be up to date on these affairs? These are people living in extreme poverty, they should move to another city because some AQ guys are living in their town? Life is hard enough as it is for them then to have to be preoccupied with the president du jour's hit list (as if it were readily available to them) and the whereabouts of the terrorists. When the US police starts using missiles to apprehend murderers then your analogy will work, and you can see just how feasible it is to expect people to "just stay away" from murderers. 2 year old nephew? Watch your company! Next door neighbor? Mailman? Taxi driver? Wrong suspect, woops! etc etc. FYI they dont make a loudspeaker announcement before firing.
Clambake said 2 separate strikes, 2 weeks apart, you forgot to count the failed attempt right after OBL got taken out, which I believe consisted of 2 separate attacks, and another attempt before that in which a Yemeni gov official was accidentally killed. Thats a lot of "collateral damage". Add to that supporting an unpopular (30 year) president, why would the average Yemeni be against AQ and for the US/democracy/capitalism?
for tat, again and again. The only good thing you can say is that you have much better weapons so your is bigger than their tat, but its still for tat.
As for Alwaki, AFAIK his biggest achievement was prepping the underwear bomber. Is it necessary to rehash all of the intelligence/bureaucratic failures that allowed that kid to even make it in the US? Its kind of mind boggling that the US is capable of sending unmanned drones deep into another country to take out a target, but incapable of adhering to their own immigration procedures. And the worst part is if I (father, homeowner, business owner, with US citizen siblings) apply for a US visa with a one way ticket and attempt to fly with no luggage, I'll probably be denied, but when a Nigerian kid accused of being a terrorist by his own father does it he gets his visa and makes it through two customs checkpoints. Clearly though, the problem is Alwaki...
oh, and IMO, the US is the closest to a beacon of freedom, justice and prosperity the world has ever seen, but that doesnt give it carte blanche to bomb the out of its enemies, more like the opposite-
What you said can be turned 180 degrees. The fashionable thing to say now is that precisely because the USA is the closest thing to a beacon of freedom, justice and prosperity that has ever existed, it is uniquely and infinitely justified for its enlightened mobilizations of force, wherever they may occur.
Secrecy on what level? We are having air strikes in Yemen. You are not going to get explanations on the rationale for scheduling for obvious reasons.
If you want to talk about Al-Awlaki and that memo then I will not disagree with you. it stinks of a coverup. That beings said. Military action in Yemen has clear strategic objectives.
As for the notion that killing them is just going to replace them with people even more militant and determined. That is horse . Killing them leaves a power vacuum. Who will fill that is anyones guess. i am assuming the next most powerful regional players. But its typically the most influential and powerful that are at the top. The next tier is the next tier for a reason.
You want to talk about killing our leadership structure. if you were to remove congress, the president as well as all the O7 and up then we would be crippled from a leadership perspective and who would come out of that power vacuum is anyones guess. This guarantee that it will have the exact same ideology yet amplified has absolutely no logical justification.
for tat? No its more like if we get intelligence of any AQ training activities in that region with what i am sure is a list of specific targets they all get the missile. We do not just do it in response to the latest embassy bombing.
Al-Awlaki gave specific reasons to the FtHood guy why going on such a rampage would not be against Islam. In essence he gave permission but for sake he was in Yemen at an AQ training center when he got the missile.
first off, I apologize if I am coming off aggressive, I only mean to discuss the issue. I consider you a level headed poster and wouldnt bother to interject if I thought you were just another partisan tool (dont name them!)
It is obviously reasonable to be secretive about scheduling. But AFAIK there have been no formal charges against these supposed traitors, and were it not for the work of reporters we wouldnt even know about the air strikes and predator attacks. Forgive me if I consider it reasonable and necessary for the government to explain why they need to assassinate these people, at the expense of collateral damage and tax payer money, costs which are important for reasons foreign and domestic. Its not the same to announce it once it is done as it is to explain beforehand, and if these people are enemies of the state why must there be any secrecy about that enmity?
The root of this problem of determining strategic and tactical necessities is one of intelligence. Faulty intel, the kind that produces failed strikes, means you have all cost and no benefit. These strikes already have a complicated cost-benefit relationship but when you miss (killing innocents) it is very ugly. And again, as a society you depend on reporters to find out how effective the successes are and how costly the failures. If you are familiar with the story of Yemeni involvement in AQ, then you are also familiar with the substantial intelligence failures of the past 15+ years.
as for my other point about for tat, and it being logically unjustified to assume new leadership won't continue the same ideological course... Well, the whole concept of for tat, an eye for an eye is probably one of the oldest social constructs do ented. But beyond the history, the logical justification is that blood is thicker than water. The righteous indignation of the "innocent" victims is ripe territory for an ideologue to recruit followers, it is very rare to see cool headed logic and forward thinking prevail in that environment.
When I say the US is IMO the closest to being a beacon of freedom, justice, prosperity, I say it in large part because of important things like the legal system, gov transparency, press freedom, etc. But those are all being subjugated to the war on terror, to the point where it looks an awful lot like you are stooping to your enemies' level. You are en led to your opinion, what I question is to what point you can really say "this is a strategic/tactical necessity", both in the philosophical sense of ends justifying means yadda yadda, and in the practical sense of "did past bombing campaigns provide the US protection, or provide AQ with martyrs and zealots". IMO, the bombings fail on both counts, though I respect your opinion, particularly because it is much more difficult for me to trust a govt that, though I may admire your country is not and will never be my govt.
The whole "strategic/tactical necessity" can easily be turned around too from a philosophical standpoint. You could argue that 9/11 or other attacks were a "strategic/tactical necessity" for the bad guys, and that the people that died on them were "collateral".
Obviously, what ends up separating the sides is the proverbial "who is the good guy?" and this is where you go into the moral high ground terrain, who stands for what, who operates under what guidelines, etc etc etc, and part of the reason why you want to protect and remain respecting those tenets that built on that moral high ground to begin with.
Its real simple. Us vs them. You are right you can always make the moral waters murky. For them i can certainly see them making a strategic decision to bomb symbolic targets. You have heard me enough to know that I do not put any stock into arbitrary notions like good or evil as reagrds to policy. That religious subjective nonsense.
I'll just disagree that "it's real simple". From strictly a military standpoint, it might be. But when you enter the realm of civilians, "collateral" (a term I personally think attempts to desensitize, and that I truly despise), and the fallout from all that (lest we forget how our nation united and rallied after such an attack on civilians), it gets much more complicated. Just my opinion.
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administration_over_assassination_ secrecy/singleton/From a certain perspective, there’s really only one point worth making about all of this: if you think about it, it is warped beyond belief that the ACLU has to sue the U.S. Government in order to force it to disclose its claimed legal and factual bases for assassinating U.S. citizens without charges, trial or due process of any kind. It’s extraordinary enough that the Obama administration is secretly targeting citizens for execution-by-CIA; that they refuse even to account for what they are doing — even to the point of refusing to disclose their legal reasoning as to why they think the President possesses this power — is just mind-boggling. Truly: what more tyrannical power is there than for a government to target its own citizens for death — in total secrecy and with no checks — and then insist on the right to do so without even having to explain its legal and factual rationale for what it is doing? Could you even imagine what the U.S. Government and its media supporters would be saying about any other non-client-state country that asserted and exercised this power?
But there’s one abuse that deserves special attention here: namely, the way in which the Obama administration manipulates and exploits its secrecy powers. Here is what the DOJ said to the ACLU about why it will not merely withhold all records, but will refuse even to confirm or deny whether any such records exist:
So the Most Transparent Administration Ever™ refuses even to confirm or deny if there is an assassination program, or if it played any role in the execution of these three Americans, because even that most elementary information is classified.
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