Who is up for a little extra-judicial capital punishment?

[fj1200]

Darn. You caught me Imitating you again! So I guess you are correct.

The box of rocks called; they said thanks to you, they have someone to laugh at.

[fj1200]

What I am going to ignore is the typically Left-wing attitude which invents all the excuses it can possibly come up with for minimal force, minimal remedial actions, against terrorists and suspected terrorists.

I already know that you will ignore anything that disagrees with your worldview which I've already stated quite accurately. But thanks for falling into the stereotype of demonizing anything/anyone that doesn't goose-step in line as "typically left-wing."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulrahman_al-Aulaqi

... Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi as a bystander who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

[Before you're tempted to comment, my understanding is that 'al-Aulaqi' and 'al-Awlaki' were the same person.]

Congratulations, you found a Wikipedia link that states what I already stated two pages ago.

^I do think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now, do you have any new information to add other than what you understand from Wikipedia?

Now, the individual you're discussing, I understand, was the son of an American born, but nonetheless loyal AL QAEDA TERRORIST. At the time he was killed, the son was in the immediate vicinity of another Al Qaeda terrorist, and a senior one at that. I ask: HOW COME, if he was such an 'innocent' ?

Try joining the dots here.

Besides ... if authorities such as the US military first found it necessary to exhaustively analyse not only the whereabouts of their enemies, but to identify and research anyone and everyone nearby before attacks were launched, THEY'D NEVER LAUNCH ANY AT ALL !!

Is this what you'd hope for ? If not ... then try applying a practical approach.

Now that you've successfully NOT laid out my position and have erected a strawman to argue against an imaginary version of me let me point out that you have now lined up your position squarely behind Obama. Congratulations, you have continued your stance that grants the State excessive power over the individual. Good on 'ya mate.

[Robert A Whit]

In the years following 9-11, the Bush administration had hundreds of American citizens arrested without a warrant and held with access to counsel. Some were never heard from again.
Somehow, this was acceptable, and those who opposed the practice were accused of being "terrorist sympathizers."

You are very talented. I seldom run into a promiscious woman that lies so much.

[Kathianne]

You are very talented. I seldom run into a promiscious woman that lies so much.

There is no reason at all, for using 'promiscuous' in your reply. Nothing in any post I've read from Gabby would lead to such a description. It's just rude and uncalled for.

[Robert A Whit]

There is no reason at all, for using 'promiscuous' in your reply. Nothing in any post I've read from Gabby would lead to such a description. It's just rude and uncalled for.

No, you simply missed the post where she told me. What is rude is you calling me out without you knowing the entire story.

[Kathianne]

No, you simply missed the post where she told me. What is rude is you calling me out without you knowing the entire story.

She told you she was promiscuous? Link up, please.

[Kathianne]

Robert, I've had you on ignore going on a month now, I'd like to think that some issues have been addressed. This type of attack on Gabby, from my point of view, is so wrong. Now you are saying she posted something to justify your attack on her character. So post the link or admit that your temper at her posts, made you malign her character, something that can happen to the best of us.

[Robert A Whit]

She told you she was promiscuous? Link up, please.

Since this is not your concern, and you stated you don't want to pick a fight, let's drop it huh!

Set this one out if you don't mind.

[taft2012]

No need to apologize but you're attributing statements not made. We're talking about assurances that citizens won't be targeted by drones without due process; it should be easy to not target.

It must have been statements like these throughout the thread that gave me a different impression:

Yep, and He's already killed over 100 childre... i mean collateral damage... who were not a threat.

I do think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, drone strikes create an image of an imperial force that acts with little regard to borders/consequences.

You don't blow up a house or a funeral procession for 1 man talking about killing others acorn. That's not "war" that assassination and mass slaughter.

I can't believe that anyone thinks it's ok to kill indiscriminately. Innocents are being killed at a faster rate than the terrorists and that makes the US no different than the terrorists.

was Alwalki ARMED and firing at Americans or with his finger on a bomb trigger when he was drone struck?

Was his SON ARMED and firing at Americans?

Thus we have so many innocents killed. I can see such for a bin Laden target, when it's 'a sure thing' to get him/her, but not the way it's being used on near weekly or less basis. Too many dead, that shouldn't be.

...and from you, yourself:

Yup, the kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out attitude you express. Are you going to ignore the "associated force" aspect too?

Please try to keep up with what's going on in your own thread, before dressing down (and failing in doing so) others.

[revelarts]

CIA drones are reportedly reviving the use of highly-controversial tactics that target rescuers and funeral-goers.
On Monday US drones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On May 28, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali.
And on Sunday, a CIA drone strike targeted people gathered for funeral prayers of militant victims killed in an earlier attack. The intended Taliban targets appear to have survived, although up to ten people died. A mosque was also struck last week – possibly accidentally – killing at least three civilian worshippers.
The tactics may not be confined to Pakistan. In the Yemeni city of Jaar on May 15, a possible return US drone strike killed between 8 and 26 civilians, according to a USA Today report.
The deliberate targeting of rescuers and mourners by CIA drones was first exposed by the Bureau in February 2012, in a major joint investigation with the Sunday Times. On more than a dozen occasions between 2009 and June 2011, the CIA attacked rescuers as they tried to retrieve the dead and injured. Although Taliban members were killed on almost every occasion, so too were civilians – many of whom the Bureau’s field investigators were able to name. The investigation also reported that on at least three occasions the CIA had struck funeral-goers.

http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com...s-in-pakistan/


U.S. drones targeting rescuers and mourners

A new amply documented report demonstrates the use of American tactics that are almost certainly war crimes

On December 30 of last year, ABC News reported on a 16-year-old Pakistani boy, Tariq Khan, who was killed with his 12-year-old cousin when a car in which he was riding was hit with a missile fired by a U.S. drone. As I noted at the time, the report contained this extraordinary passage buried in the middle:

Asked for documentation of Tariq and Waheed’s deaths, Akbar did not provide pictures of the missile strike scene. Virtually none exist, since drones often target people who show up at the scene of an attack.

What made that sentence so amazing was that it basically amounts to a report that the U.S. first kills people with drones, then fires on the rescuers and others who arrive at the scene where the new corpses and injured victims lie.
In a just-released, richly documented report, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, on behalf of the Sunday Times, documents that this is exactly what the U.S. is doing — and worse:

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed.
The findings are published just days after President Obama claimed that the drone campaign in Pakistan was a “targeted, focused effort” that “has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties”. . . .
A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. The tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.
Although the drone attacks were started under the Bush administration in 2004, they have been stepped up enormously under Obama.
There have been 260 attacks by unmanned Predators or Reapers in Pakistan by Obama’s administration – averaging one every four days.

As I indicated, there have been scattered, mostly buried indications in the American media that drones have been targeting and killing rescuers. As the Bureau put it: “Between May 2009 and June 2011, at least fifteen attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, Associated Press, ABC News and Al Jazeera.” Killing civilians attending the funerals of drone victims is also well-documented by the Bureau’s new report:

Other tactics are also raising concerns. On June 23 2009 the CIA killed Khwaz Wali Mehsud, a mid-ranking Pakistan Taliban commander. They planned to use his body as bait to hook a larger fish – Baitullah Mehsud, then the notorious leader of the Pakistan Taliban.
“A plan was quickly hatched to strike Baitullah Mehsud when he attended the man’s funeral,” according to Washington Post national security correspondent Joby Warrick, in his recent book The Triple Agent. “True, the commander… happened to be very much alive as the plan took shape. But he would not be for long.”
The CIA duly killed Khwaz Wali Mehsud in a drone strike that killed at least five others. . . .
Up to 5,000 people attended Khwaz Wali Mehsud’s funeral that afternoon, including not only Taliban fighters but many civilians. US drones struck again, killing up to 83 people. As many as 45 were civilians, among them reportedly ten children and four tribal leaders.

The Bureau quotes several experts stating the obvious: that targeting rescuers and funeral attendees is patently illegal and almost certainly constitutes war crimes:

Clive Stafford-Smith, the lawyer who heads the Anglo-US legal charity Reprieve, believes that such strikes “are like attacking the Red Cross on the battlefield. It’s not legitimate to attack anyone who is not a combatant.”
Christof Heyns, a South African law professor who is United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra- judicial Executions, agrees. “Allegations of repeat strikes coming back after half an hour when medical personnel are on the ground are very worrying”, he said. ‘To target civilians would be crimes of war.” Heyns is calling for an investigation into the Bureau’s findings.

What makes this even more striking is how conservative — almost to the point of inaccuracy — is the Bureau’s methodology and reporting. Its last news-making report, issued last July, was designed to prove (and unquestionably did prove) that top Obama counter-Terrorism adviser John Brennan lied when he said this about drone strikes in Pakistan: “in the last year, ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.” The Bureau’s July, 2011 report concluded that Brennan’s claim was patently false: “a detailed examination by the Bureau of 116 CIA ‘secret’ drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2010 has uncovered at least 10 individual attacks in which 45 or more civilians appear to have died.”...

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/05/u_s_..._and_mourners/

CIA Drone Strikes in Pakistan 2004–2013

Total US strikes: <big>364</big>
Obama strikes: <big>312 </big>
Total reported killed: <big>2,640-3,474</big>
Civilians reported killed: <big>473-893</big>
Children reported killed: <big>176</big>
Total reported injured: <big>1,270-1,433</big>

US Covert Action in Yemen 2002–2013

Total confirmed US operations (all): <big>54-64</big>
Total confirmed US drone strikes: <big>42-52</big>
Possible extra US operations: <big>135-157</big>
Possible extra US drone strikes: <big>77-93</big>
Total reported killed (all): <big>374-1,112</big>
Total civilians killed (all): <big>72-178</big>
Children killed (all): <big>27-37</big>

US Covert Action in Somalia 2007–2013

Total US strikes: <big>10-23</big>
Total US drone strikes: <big>3-9</big>
Total reported killed: <big>58-170</big>
Civilians reported killed: <big>11-57</big>
Children reported killed: <big>1-3</big>

And this is what can be gathered, on people Obama tells us are enemies of the U.S..
No data on the other 3 to 4 countries we are using drones to kill people in.

[taft2012]

The numbers fail to impress.

You start a conflict with an attack deliberately targeting innocent civilians, refuse to fight conventionally in military units with military uniforms and command structures, and hide among the civilian population...

... you forfeit all rights to bemoan civilian casualties, and so do your allies within the USA.

[revelarts]

The numbers fail to impress.

You start a conflict with an attack deliberately targeting innocent civilians, refuse to fight conventionally in military units with military uniforms and command structures, and hide among the civilian population...

... you forfeit all rights to bemoan civilian casualties, and so do your allies within the USA.

so the numbers of dead children and other civilians aren't big enough
and we do whatever the heck we want we're America. 911.
i hear ya Taft

[taft2012]

so the numbers of dead children and other civilians aren't big enough
and we do whatever the heck we want we're America. 911.
i hear ya Taft

Yeah, our civilian casualty count was plenty high on 9-11.

Our drone technology strikes are infinitely more surgical than, say, Bill Clinton's mile-high bombing of Kosovoa. Do you remember that? Where we didn't want to take any military casualties ourselves so we waged an air campaign from a mile high?

Where we hit the Chinese Embassy? When our intelligence failed to notice that location was the Chinese Embassy, in spite of the fact that it was listed in the phone book?

For the comparatively short period of military action, the civilian casualties were much more atrocious. Where was the outrage then?

Today's drones dramatically reduce that which you claim to despise; civilian casualties. To bemoan this advancement only indicates you resent America for its technological superiority.

I won't get concerned until our civilian casualty count at their hands outweighs theirs at our hands.

Yeah, we can do whatever the heck we want to protect the American people. Pakistan can do whatever they need to do to protect their people as well, which should include action a little bit more decisive than fence sitting between the USA and Al Qaeda.

But we all know what truly lays behind your opposition to drones; domestic marijuana field detection.

[revelarts]

Yeah, our civilian casualty count was plenty high on 9-11.
Our drone technology strikes are infinitely more surgical than, say, Bill Clinton's mile-high bombing of Kosovoa. Do you remember that? Where we didn't want to take any military casualties ourselves so we waged an air campaign from a mile high?

Where we hit the Chinese Embassy? When our intelligence failed to notice that location was the Chinese Embassy, in spite of the fact that it was listed in the phone book?

For the comparatively short period of military action, the civilian casualties were much more atrocious. Where was the outrage then?

Today's drones dramatically reduce that which you claim to despise; civilian casualties. To bemoan this advancement only indicates you resent America for its technological superiority.

I won't get concerned until our civilian casualty count at their hands outweighs theirs at our hands.

Yeah, we can do whatever the heck we want to protect the American people. Pakistan can do whatever they need to do to protect their people as well, which should include action a little bit more decisive than fence sitting between the USA and Al Qaeda.

But we all know what truly lays behind your opposition to drones; domestic marijuana field detection.

Taft you keep bringing up 911

Bin laden and those that committed that are long dead, in prison or unknown.
with the 10yrs of killing in the Afghanistan war, 7 years in Iraq (saddam talk to alqueada ya-know wink wink) and killing people in 7 other countries i think we've killed at least as many "enemies" and other people. many if not most not directly associated with the slaughter on 9-11.

And these so-called horrible -the U.S. will crumble to dust if we don't kill them 1st- terrorist enemies today, many of them were probably in their TEENS in 2001 and had NOTHING to do with 9-11 at all.
how much blood is t going to take before were done Taft?

there's that,
And here's my problem that you consistently ignore,
the president has NO legal authority to target people who he thinks MIGHT attack ONE DAY. It's not in ANY legal document in the US. period. 911 is not a legal blank check to do the same to anyone we THINK might try it.
And add to that those he knows are innocent are being killed as well and it just takes the whole operation into an area of serial killing and war crimes.

[jimnyc]

You are very talented. I seldom run into a promiscious woman that lies so much.

Please don't address Gabby as such, that's not cool. At the very least, take it to the thread where it emanated from. Even then, that's a rather harsh label for someone you don't know, based on half of a sentence she wrote rather jokingly.