I'm just posting this as a marker to note it hasn't gone unnoticed that the forum that had a love-in for Obama turned out to be unprincipled and is silently accepting this government's giant leaps towards fascism that we're learning more about in each and every news cycle.
I guess the alternative is a love in with those lovely Republicans and their foreign invasions, pro gun laws, etc.
The trouble with a lot in the US, you're so scared of everything that you're self defeating.
I'm in the UK, well, we don't have guns handy at all times so 20 minutes isn't all that surprising. Would it have made any difference if they'd got there after 1 minute?
What a I don't understand about your stance is why Obama? Why not all of your governments?
I can't think that either the US or the UK have had a good one in my lifetime. Bollocks to all of 'em.
Regardless of outcome, don't you think that we should have an emergency service that is responsive? Were they to know at the time that little difference would be made if they made it there in less time? Unlikely. Does that mean they have no obligation to treat each emergency with the seriousness and attention it deserves?
20 minutes is unacceptable.
I agree with the OP here about the main point he's making. Obama's drone strike policies are breeding terrorists, his war against the "Occupy" protests and whistleblowers is trampling free speech and caused the US's position in the annual Press Freedoms Index to plummet a couple of years ago (although it's since been salvaged somewhat, but is still in a bad place). As Noam Chomsky has pointed out several times, Obama gets away with things in the name of the "War on Terror" that Bush never would have dreamed of getting away with. I'm glad that so many right-wingers are speaking out against the evils of the Obama administration, but I do wonder why they've only just started obsessing with this idea that the government might become tyrannical now. I mean, although Bush couldn't have gotten away with blowing up villages in Pakistan outright in order to capture one or two suspected terrorists, it was under Bush's administration where we saw the US actively heading down a police state road in their own country. Where were the right-wingers criticising their government and standing up for their freedoms then? (Okay, I know there were some, but these voices were seemingly drowned out by a very vocal sea of patriotism and blind allegiance to the government.)
I agree with the OP here about the main point he's making. Obama's drone strike policies are breeding terrorists, his war against the "Occupy" protests and whistleblowers is trampling free speech and caused the US's position in the annual Press Freedoms Index to plummet a couple of years ago (although it's since been salvaged somewhat, but is still in a bad place). As Noam Chomsky has pointed out several times, Obama gets away with things in the name of the "War on Terror" that Bush never would have dreamed of getting away with. I'm glad that so many right-wingers are speaking out against the evils of the Obama administration, but I do wonder why they've only just started obsessing with this idea that the government might become tyrannical now. I mean, although Bush couldn't have gotten away with blowing up villages in Pakistan outright in order to capture one or two suspected terrorists, it was under Bush's administration where we saw the US actively heading down a police state road in their own country. Where were the right-wingers criticising their government and standing up for their freedoms then? (Okay, I know there were some, but these voices were seemingly drowned out by a very vocal sea of patriotism and blind allegiance to the government.)
Perhaps this is what actually breeds terrorists...
The Arabic school textbooks which show children how to chop off hands and feet under Sharia law
Such things don't necessarily "breed" terrorists, but they certainly plays into the Islamic extremist mindframe and can be used for propaganda purposes and for brainwashing young children into their ideology. But what has a more disasterous impact is when your village is bombed by American planes, when members of your family who did nothing against America, and probably enjoyed watching American movies and eating at KFC just as much as anyone else in the world who goes about their normal day-to-day business, are killed by drones. The US uses "shock and awe" tactics, designed just as much to frighten the population as to kill suspected terrorists. And it works. These people can't eve leave their homes without the fear that America might attack at any moment.The architects of this policy seem to believe that they'll scare the population into toeing the line, and that any civilian killed is one less potential future terrorist, but the result is that these ordinary people start hating their bombers (quite understandably, don't you think?) and become more suseptible to the kind of propaganda you linked. So, no, those kinds of books certainly exacburate the problem, but they aren't what "breeds" the terrorists in the first place.
Drones save lives.
Looks like you drank the Chomsky Kool-Aid--the whole glass!
How many people were killed when the US dropped the atomic bombs on Japan? What about the hit or miss bombs dropped on North Vietnam?
How many Japanese and Vietnamese suicide bombers are out there? Hear of any terrorist plots by those two groups? Recently? Ever?
No, I think what breeds/fuels terrorists is a homespun ideology called Jihadism--a basic, long-held doctrine of the religion, Islam.
Drones save lives.
If you are against the use of military intervention--no matter what, then you will disagree... and, I might suggest, living in la-la land.
Actually, I'm not against the use of military intervention, no matter what. I wasn't against the principal of the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, for instance (although I very much oppose the direction that it took, but that's neither here or now).
Nor do I disagree with you on your assertion of the ideology behind fundamentalist Islam. The basic ideology behind this movement is, indeed, a problem. But this isn't what breeds terrorists. Terrorists are bred when people are driven towards this ideology in the first place. Sometimes they're born into it and indoctrinated from day one,
...other times something specific (or a series of specific events) leads them towards it, usually due to hatred and desperation. As my parents are from Syria, a proud member state of the "Axis of Evil" (or so our media leads us to believe), and having spent a considerable amount of time there and all over the Middle East, including another "terrorist breeding ground", the West Bank, I can tell you that the view of the Middle East regurgitated by every Western media outlet from the "liberal" BBC to the "conservative" Fox News is fundamentally skewed and incorrect. I don't have to have drank the Chomski Kool-Aid to know this, I've seen it over and over again. Most young Middle Eastern people I've spoken to, dined with, gone clubbing with and smoked shisha with, watch American media all day and dream of living in the US or Europe. But if Americans started bombing their homes and killing their families, many of them would quite understandably get a different interpretation of the US and start thinking that maybe the mad old men who rant a lot about the West have a point. If they lost their homes, their jobs and effectively their lives in the process, desperation could lead them to anything. It's just as well that America, so far at least, haven't kowtowed to the wishes of their best buddies, the Saudis (whom, by the way, are the authors of the textbook you linked to above, and are by far the worst culprits in the world in spreading fundamentalist Islamic messages across the world), by funneling military aid to Al Qaeda and the other Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who are currently operating in Syria.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some bleeding heart liberal who believes that military intervention can't solve anything, and that there is nothing within the tenants of Islam that could potentially inspire violence. But what I am against is flagrantly disregarding rules of war, attacking countries that you're not technically at war with (as the poster above mentioned), short-sightedness and media brainwashing that convinces well meaning people that this kind of thing is necessary and just.
With regards to your point about Japan and Vietnam, I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about it. But my understanding of it is that, as you alluded to yourself with your comment about Jihadism, it's a completely different thing entirely to what we're talking about. With Japan, at least, it was also the case that America helped the country to recover, which they're certainly not doing right now in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East (nor will they ever). Furthermore, America didn't keep on angering Japanese people with damaging foreign policy moves. How many times do the Bin Ladens of the world have to say that they don't hate America "for its freedom", but because of it's damaging foreign policy, for people to get the idea?
Looks like you drank the Chomsky Kool-Aid--the whole glass!
How many people were killed when the US dropped the atomic bombs on Japan? What about the hit or miss bombs dropped on North Vietnam?
How many Japanese and Vietnamese suicide bombers are out there? Hear of any terrorist plots by those two groups? Recently? Ever?
No, I think what breeds/fuels terrorists is a homespun ideology called Jihadism--a basic, long-held doctrine of the religion, Islam.
Drones save lives.
If you are against the use of military intervention--no matter what, then you will disagree... and, I might suggest, living in la-la land.
I think you need to strike a balance between self defence and suppression. Where you're seen as an aggressor, whether correctly or incorrectly, you're going to create enemies. I would imagine that most terrorists aren't great thinkers but are easily manipulated so while soldiers' lives may be saved on the ground by using drones, each time one of those drones strikes the wrong target it creates a propaganda tool for those who want to manipulate the masses.
This is after entering into wars without a proper mandate. I was opposed to both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not because I felt like neither regime could do with kicking into touch but because of the endless backlash that would come from it. We're never going to win a war in Afghanistan, not ever, we were never going to, so you have to ask yourself what's been the point of it all?
Personally I think if you enter a conflict then it should be winnable and there should be finality to the conflict once it's over. I don't understand how you can have a war against a belief system. In Afghanistan in particular, it strikes me that they love nothing better than a war there. Will drones defeat them or just make them more resilient?
I think we've got ourselves stuck in a vicious circle where we have a problem to deal with but because of how we're dealing with it we're also stoking it.
They also can prevent terrorist plots (saving innocent American and other lives) and reduce the risks of collateral damage (civilians in the vicinity.) Remember aerial bombing--mass-casualty warfare? Drones are the most casualty-minimizing technology in history. That is what I meant when I said, drones save lives.
That is how terrorism wins. It creates fear. Fear that our offense will instill hate and thus breed/feed terrorism. Is that how one plays chess? One cannot win if always on the defense.
Is it a war of ideologies (belief systems)? Pretty much. But aren't all wars? Wasn't the American Revolutionary War about opposing belief systems? What about the American Civil War? How about the Cold War?
Were the Bolsheviks a nation state? No. Al-Qaeda isn't either. But they are no less an enemy. And they are clearly defined. No flag needed.
We may not win anything. It isn't about winning, but rather, about not being bullied into submission. Do you want to live under Sharia Law? If we don't do all we can to stop this ideology from spreading, that just may be what the majority of the world's people will be doing in the not so distant future.
From our own history of terrorism it seems to me that the harder line you take the worse things get, it was certainly the case for us in the 70's and 80's.
I think the US will learn this in the long run.
While you can keep things in check with violence but when you bump somebody off someone else inevitably takes their place. While you can arrest somebody, if you arrest somebody and lock them up without trial this is the perfect propaganda tool for the manipulation of new Islamists, if you blow up innocent people again you will create new people who want to hurt you.
Then there is the bleeding obvious that we totally ignore in that many of the threats against us are home grown or from countries that we're friendly with.
Honestly, I think the War on Terror is the most ill thought out, self defeating plan that the West has ever come up with.
You may be right. What is the alternative, though?