Barack Obama: Drone Warrior

By Charles Krauthammer
Published: May 31

A very strange story, that 6,000-word front-page New York Times piece on how, every Tuesday, Barack Obama shuffles “baseball cards” with the pictures and bios of suspected terrorists from around the world and chooses who shall die by drone strike. He even reserves for himself the decision of whether to proceed when the probability of killing family members or bystanders is significant.

The article could have been titled “Barack Obama: Drone Warrior.” Great detail on how Obama personally runs the assassination campaign. On-the-record quotes from the highest officials. This was no leak. This was a White House press release.

Why? To portray Obama as tough guy. And why now? Because in crisis after recent crisis, Obama has looked particularly weak: standing helplessly by as thousands are massacred in Syria; being played by Iran in nuclear negotiations, now reeling with the collapse of the latest round in Baghdad; being treated with contempt by Vladimir Putin, who blocks any action on Syria or Iran and adds personal insult by standing up Obama at the latter’s G-8 and NATO summits.

The Obama camp thought that any political problem with foreign policy would be cured by the Osama bin Laden operation. But the administration’s attempt to politically exploit the raid’s one-year anniversary backfired, earning ridicule and condemnation for its crude appropriation of the heroic acts of others.

A campaign ad had Bill Clinton praising Obama for the courage of ordering the raid because, had it failed and Americans been killed, “the downside would have been horrible for him. “ Outraged vets released a response ad, pointing out that it would have been considerably more horrible for the dead SEALs.

That ad also highlighted the many self-references Obama made in announcing the bin Laden raid: “I can report . . . I directed . . . I met repeatedly . . . I determined . . . at my direction . . . I, as commander in chief,” etc. ad nauseam. (Eisenhower’s announcement of the D-Day invasion made not a single mention of his role, whereas the alternate statement he’d prepared had the landing been repulsed was entirely about it being his failure.)

Obama only compounded the self-aggrandizement problem when he spoke a week later about the military “fighting on my behalf.”

The Osama-slayer card having been vastly overplayed, what to do? A new card: Obama, drone warrior, steely and solitary, delivering death with cool dispatch to the rest of the al-Qaeda depth chart.

So the peacemaker, Nobel laureate, nuclear disarmer, apologizer to the world for America having lost its moral way when it harshly interrogated the very people Obama now kills, has become — just in time for the 2012 campaign — Zeus the Avenger, smiting by lightning strike.

A rather strange ethics. You go around the world preening about how America has turned a new moral page by electing a president profoundly offended by George W. Bush’s belligerence and prisoner maltreatment, and now you’re ostentatiously telling the world that you personally play judge, jury and executioner to unseen combatants of your choosing and whatever innocents happen to be in their company.

This is not to argue against drone attacks. In principle, they are fully justified. No quarter need be given to terrorists who wear civilian clothes, hide among civilians and target civilians indiscriminately. But it is to question the moral amnesia of those whose delicate sensibilities were offended by the Bush methods that kept America safe for a decade — and who now embrace Obama’s campaign of assassination by remote control.

Moreover, there is an acute military problem. Dead terrorists can’t talk.

Drone attacks are cheap — which is good. But the path of least resistance has a cost. It yields no intelligence about terror networks or terror plans.

One capture could potentially make us safer than 10 killings. But because of the moral incoherence of Obama’s war on terror, there are practically no captures anymore. What would be the point? There’s nowhere for the CIA to interrogate. And what would they learn even if they did, Obama having decreed a new regime of kid-gloves, name-rank-and-serial-number interrogation?

This administration came out opposing military tribunals, wanting to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York, reading the Christmas Day bomber his Miranda rights and trying mightily (and unsuccessfully, there being — surprise! — no plausible alternative) to close Guantanamo. Yet alongside this exquisite delicacy about the rights of terrorists is the campaign to kill them in their beds.

You festoon your prisoners with rights — but you take no prisoners. The morality is perverse. Which is why the results are so mixed. We do kill terror operatives, an important part of the war on terror, but we gratuitously forfeit potentially life-saving intelligence.

But that will cost us later. For now, we are to bask in the moral seriousness and cool purpose of our drone warrior president.

At least Illy has the courtesy to post Krauthammer's name on the top of the copy/paste so I don't have to bother reading any of it...you should take a cue from Illy on that one, Hank.

Fish on...

Todd

no achievements?

osama bin laden - dead
us auto industry - alive
27 months of job growth
repeal of don't ask, don't tell
gaddafi - dead
fair pay act
affordable health care act
troops leaving iraq
record corporate profits
donald trump - made irrelevant
not appointing corporate activist judges to supreme court

making republican lunatics crazy for 3+ years...... priceless

and then we have the republican nominee - who has experience in.....

eight years of campaigning

For a dude who actually reads and agrees with something...anything...that Charles Krauthammer has to say should not go around talking about anyone else having their head up anyone's arse...

Fish on...

Todd

"Thinking conservative"...?

Are you kidding?

Why think? You can just watch Fox, and read Krauthammer.

Fish on...

Todd

Kinda funny. Odds so envious of Krauthammer that he cannot even
stand to read his byline. He says.
Krauthammer is worth the read if nothing else than he creates so
much rectal trauma in the liberal's thought processes. I know, I was being polite.

Hank is a thinking conservative.

The only problem is that he does his thinking with an old, misfiring brain.



Yeah, everyone envies Krauthammer.

Are you stoned, or just stupid?

Your mind is like a steel trap that somebody left out in the back yard for 10 seasons. It's all rusted shut, and not good for anything except a trip to the dump.

Yeah..........Alzheimer's, dementia, strokes..........all diseases of the young. I bet you're glad you're old and crusty rather than being in your 40's again.

Truth hurts, huh?



Don't blame me for pointing out the obvious.

As usual, the right wing fruitcakes are projecting their own rectal malfunctions upon someone else...I don't envy an angry old man like Krauthammer any more than I envy an angry old man like Illy...I do, however, find amusement that a man can be so wrong about so much and still have so many followers.

Aunty, Romney's "fix" for the economy is more of the same...supply side economics that has never worked, and that is mainly the system we have been working under since 1981. It's not going to start working all of a sudden if Romney does it, even if they come up with a catchy new term like "job creators" to define it.

Fish on...

Todd

uh.....things got better with O?

I mean, reality must exist in some tiny bit of gray matter......open the door and look. O can't lead......can't lead......can't lead.....hello?

1. There is no such thing as a "free market"...it's a myth.

2. I never mentioned Obama, or Ed Schultz, or anyone other than Krauthammer, and a bit about Romney being more of the same failure as he and supply side economics have always been.

3. I never mentioned Pelosi.

4. I never mentioned government jobs.

That's just more projection from you fools.

Fish on...

Todd

Yeah, saving the auto industry sure was a stupid move, not to mention killing that nice man, Osama bin Laden...which, incidentally, are two things that Romney said he would not have done.

What he would have done is continued the same economic policies that siphon off the nation's money to a very select few, the same policies that have been utter failures for the past 30 years.

You guys would have voted for Santorum, or God forbid even Gingrich, had he got the nomination...at least admit that your selection has nothing to do with policies or logic, but are entrenched in that "R" after Romney's name...he's got nothing to offer but utter failure.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. Since you tools on the right accept Krauthammer, Limbaugh, Hannity, and those other windbags as bastions of truth and the 'Merican way, you assume that we on the left accept their left wing analogs in the same way...which, obviously, we don't.

You guys are the masters of projection. You act like total asswipes, and assume that everyone else does, too.

How often do you see us copying and pasting up Ed Schultz, or Rachel Maddow, here?

How often do you wingnuts post up Krauthammer, Ollie, and the like?

Owned.

Todd's got the cons by the short and curlies today.

I'll most likely vote for Obama. Not because he is saving the nation; he isn't. However, he is saving the nation from more Reaganomics and Bushco policies. So despite Obama's shortcomings, which are numerous, having him in the Whitehouse prevents additional destructive Republican policies, as Todd noted above.

When the Republican platform works for the national interest instead of the <1%er's interests, that's when I switch. Meanwhile Illy and Hank and anyone else who imbibes the swill of Krauthammer, Ollie, etc., are the ones suffering from extreme cerebral rectal inversion.

Hank,

I don't even know who Schultz or Rachel or Reich or Krugman are, let alone read them. Ergo, I am real. How about you; have you ever had an original thought?

Hank, there's a reason why progressives, liberals, and Democrats have a lot of similarities, and a lot of disagreements, too...as a group we tend to think for ourselves, and have lots of different opinions. We don't get our talking points from a handful of media outlets.

There's also a reason why some dipshit redneck in Kentucky talks about "job creators" in exactly the same way as some x-ray tech from San Francisco does...they get their "thoughts" from the same place.

Right wingers will always have an inherent advantage over Democrats in that trying to unify them under a common banner is like herding cats...unifying Republicans under a common banner, even if that banner works directly in contravention to 99% of their own well being, is easy...more like herding sheep.

I know it's more fun to assume that we watch two or three tv/radio personalities to get our information like right wingers do, but we don't...and it doesn't matter one whit if you like it or believe it or not...just be aware that I will continue to point out not only the hypocrisy and lunacy of the right wing information machine (of which you are a part), but I will also continue to point out the child like projection that you it and you constantly engage in to somehow raise your own level of intellectualism by saying "they're just like us"...even when we are not, not by a long, long length.

Fish on...

Todd

Of course you do. Independent thinking isn't in your repertoire. I may or may not agree with Reich or Krugman, but you'd have to tell me where to find them.

Hank,

You do make an interesting, if unintended point: "Taking from the poor and middle class so that the rich can have it all;" now why is it we can't all get behind this platform policy?

Absolutely SS and Medicare are presently flawed and leading the nation to the precipice. But neither party is willing to do anything beyond ineffectual tweaking, because sufficiently addressing any of the serious national fatal flaws, like corporate personhood even, will get the powers that be unelected at the next election. Why? Because the beneficiaries of welfare, both social and corporate, won't accept the "pain" of redress. So onward we march toward the edge, pretending that BS like gay marriage, abortion rights, and extending the Bush tax cuts are the real national interest.

Sg

Hank, your entire last post is full of that "free thinking" conservative thought that is parroted from the smallest town in rural Tennessee to Los Angeles to Fairbanks, Alaska...and let's just say that the odds of all conservatives in those places independently arriving at the same talking points is about as likely as Mitt Romney having one single conviction that hasn't changed at least twice depending on who he's talking to or what election he's currently trying to win.

Fish on...

Todd

The past "everyone gets a cut" have given the ultra-rich billions of dollars, and the rest of us a pittance.

If that money actually encouraged "investment in business", which is what they used to say to justify trickle down economics, or to get those "job creators" to create jobs, as they have re-branded the same ol'[Bleeeeep!] this time around, then I'd be willing to listen to what the Republicans have to say...unfortunately it's not that they are not talking about changes, it's even worse than that, they're talking about either continuing or going back to the already discredited bullschit that's failed before, for the past 31 years.

As with many things, the saddest part is that 99% of the right wingers who will vote for it are voting directly against their own well being.

The only non-ultra rich who benefit from those past policies, and those being proposed by the Republicans right now, are high end yacht builders and McMansion construction companies...for the other 99% of us it's just bleeding us and the country dry and putting it further and further into the pockets of the 1%.

Want to change the tax code so that it will actually provide benefits to the public and the economy?

Re-write the tax code so that it makes it economically incentivized to invest money in the business, to innovate, and to hire people, rather than as it is now, which incentivizes huge CEO pay and stockholder value.

Unfortunately you won't likely see people from either party seriously propose that, as people believe the crap about the "free market" and "job creators" too much to actually think about it.

George W. Bush proved, twice, the value in not being smarter than the electorate...don't try to explain actual economics or public policy that might help the country, you'll just be branded an "intellectual elite" by some fuckin fool on the other side, and it will get electoral traction.

Idiots like being told that they are right, and that everything is not only simple, but that it's just like they think...then those idiots will elect a pretend idiot who will milk the idiots for all their worth, along with everyone else, while telling them that it's rain that's running down their leg...

Fish on...

Todd

I hope that's a joke.

Research for a few minutes all the bills proposed in the Senate, and by House Republicans, that piled out of there right after the 2010 elections. Every Republican, as they should have, ran on economic issues...and then immediately set about sending out bill after bill on social issues.

Dems talk about them? A bit, yes...after all, social justice is part of what America and Americans are supposed to be about.

Republicans don't seem to mind talking about them...what they seem to mind is talking about expanding freedoms and rights, especially to undesirables like women, black people, brown people, and those who aren't heterosexuals.

You and other Republicans should demand that your part stop putting up any bills or having any discussions about abortion rights, marriage equality, or anything else other than the economy...but you know it won't happen...the 75% of the Republican electorate doesn't know or care about the economy (beyond the simplistic view that it's all Obama's fault and that Paul Ryan can save the world)...but they do care about those damn colored folks, wymyns killin' babies, and the War on Christmas.

Without bigots and fools voting for Republicans on social issues, the Republican economic "plans" would have been relegated to the dustbin decades ago, as they should have been, as they'd have never been elected in the first place.

Fish on...

Todd

You may not care...but your party does, so don't be listening to those talking heads telling you that it's Democrats who are doing it. Your party wouldn't even exist without stupid social issues getting all the rednecks and bigots to the polls to vote for them...and amongst red state voters, they are not outnumbered, not by a long length.

It's not the DNC putting Constitutional amendments to ban same sex marriage on the ballots in swing states, now is it?

The only thoughts most of them put into the economy is "Obama is a Kenyan Socialist, who hates 'Merica!"...they fuckin dwell on how gay their Democratic neighbors are, or might be, or whether or not that brown guy at Home Depot is an illegal stealing a job from a real 'Merican, or if those two dudes they saw at the restaurant want to ruin the sanctity of their good ol' heterosexshul marriage.

You're outnumbered in your own party...outnumbered by the aggressively ignorant and uneducated. Actual thought about the economy and foreign policy is way over most of their heads.

Fish on...

Todd

And...importance of the economy is, well, the most important thing.

Demand your party do something about it, and demand that what they come up with is not another iteration of failed trickle down economics.

As long as Republicans need social issues on the ballots to get enough voters to vote them in, and once in all they have to offer is the same schit that failed...hard...the last 30 years, then the Republican Party has no high road anywhere to walk.

Fish on...

Todd

+2


i personally dont like the the fact we could have a president worth 200+ million dollars... might seem irrelevant to some, but to me, its red flags...

Martha Stewart did, so why not?

Kerry as in John Kerry?

fvck him Hank... i didnt vote for him... hes a pussy that couldnt handle being in the Military, then protested what he was fighting...

i dont agree with that, regardless of what war it was...

I'd be curious to know how much public hatred towards the filthy rich has grown since that election. I'd wager a considerable amount.

PSsst. I am the RWWJ, as tagged by the name callers, that cut and
pastes Ollie and Krauthammer. No sense tarring all the thinkers with
my guilt. I can stand it, considering the source.

Odd you seem to generate enough gas in this Drone Warrior issue
to raise the Hindenberg.

" find amusement that a man can be so wrong about so much and still have so many followers."
Odd maybe you should re-evaluate your sources of amusement and
get rid of the talking mirror.

Another excellent post full of...nothing.

Congratulations, Illy.

Fish on...

Todd

Redhook,

You are an even bigger idiot that I previously thought......... Really? Are you getting this info from your fellow workers at Goodwill?

Good for Obama I like the strategy. All wars should be drone wars from now on.

The birthers are the new Swift boaters...same tools, different day.

Fish on...

Todd

A bit of nothing for a nothing head eh Odd.

Smart decent people had misgivings about Kerry and what he had to say about the people he served with(not just swift boaters). He did not just attack the war effort and the govern which I would often agree but he said terrible things about the troops he served with. While some of that might even have been true he generalized as Todd often does and lost any and all moral high ground.

Point is not all people who disagreed with Kerry were "tools" and same goes for BO. Not everyone that thinks he has screwed us is racist, birther, redneck, or even RWWJ. But certainly anyone who thinks they know what votes are in everyone elses best interest is a LWWJ. Kinda goes with the big govern.....listen to me, I know best.

I didn't say anyone who disliked Kerry or Obama was a tool...I said anyone who believed the Swift Boaters or Birthers are tools.

Fish on...

Todd