Back in Obama times when extrajudicial executions by drone started to be a thing
Obama gets a lot of shit for this, and plenty of it is deserved. But I think people fixate on “execution by drone” while forgetting Bush Jr and prior administrations tended to use hellfire missiles launched from manned black-hawk helicopters to the same effect.
the civilian casualties numbers were so bad that they even changed the definition of “enemy combatant” when counting casualties to be “any male of military age”.
I believe this was the standard during the original Bush Jr Iraq invasion. Also… go back to the US invasions and interventions in Nicaragua, Vietnam, Korea, and the Balkins… hell, straight back to the WWs, and you’re going to see people playing very fast and loose with the definition of “combatant”. Military officers have never been picky about collateral damage before. What’s largely changed has been the post-Vietnam media coverage, as a rebuttal to the photography and video journalism that emerged from that era.
We have to say we’re only killing “enemy combatants” now, because we want to preemptively rebut the claim that we did another Mai Ly Massacre or Hadditha.
The tools and mindset when it comes to murder abroad
And now we’re seeing the mindset come home, perhaps in a way we haven’t experienced since Blair Mountain.
However, in the pre-strike review, Obama “embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties” that effectively counted “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”
Obama knew very well what he was doing.
Both Republicans and Democrats were happy with using the very same tools in the very same way these assholes now are using them, and even the supposed greatest Democrat president of the last 3 decades, Barack Obama, very specifically relied on changing the meaning of words (just like the Fascists do) by specifically redefining the meaning of “enemy combatant” to hide in the final tally the most immoral and unethical effects of his choices.
Sociopathic sleaze has been the way of the office of POTUS and cronies for a long time and in many things such as this, it’s not different Ethics and Morals that really distinguishes Democrats from Republicans (even the current lot of Republicans), it’s that this lot are more brazen and less competent.
Both Republicans and Democrats were happy with using the very same tools in the very same way these assholes now are using them, and even the supposed greatest Democrat president of the last 3 decades, Barack Obama, very specifically relied on changing the meaning of words (just like the Fascists do) by specifically redefining the meaning of “enemy combatant” to hide in the final tally the most immoral and unethical effects of his choices.
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
― Gore Vidal
Sociopathic sleaze has been the way of the office of POTUS and cronies for a long time and in many things such as this, it’s not different Ethics and Morals that really distinguishes Democrats from Republicans
The western mass media venerates the holocaust of foreigners, particularly browner-skinned foreigners, on the grounds that they are savage and our bombs and bullets bring modernity. As Trump brings imperialism home to the industrial core, we’re going to see these same promises of modernity used to justify the demolition and decimation of the American interior.
Obama gets a lot of shit for this, and plenty of it is deserved. But I think people fixate on “execution by drone” while forgetting Bush Jr and prior administrations tended to use hellfire missiles launched from manned black-hawk helicopters to the same effect.
I believe this was the standard during the original Bush Jr Iraq invasion. Also… go back to the US invasions and interventions in Nicaragua, Vietnam, Korea, and the Balkins… hell, straight back to the WWs, and you’re going to see people playing very fast and loose with the definition of “combatant”. Military officers have never been picky about collateral damage before. What’s largely changed has been the post-Vietnam media coverage, as a rebuttal to the photography and video journalism that emerged from that era.
We have to say we’re only killing “enemy combatants” now, because we want to preemptively rebut the claim that we did another Mai Ly Massacre or Hadditha.
And now we’re seeing the mindset come home, perhaps in a way we haven’t experienced since Blair Mountain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_the_United_States_drone_strikes#Approvals_of_drone_strikes
Obama knew very well what he was doing.
Both Republicans and Democrats were happy with using the very same tools in the very same way these assholes now are using them, and even the supposed greatest Democrat president of the last 3 decades, Barack Obama, very specifically relied on changing the meaning of words (just like the Fascists do) by specifically redefining the meaning of “enemy combatant” to hide in the final tally the most immoral and unethical effects of his choices.
Sociopathic sleaze has been the way of the office of POTUS and cronies for a long time and in many things such as this, it’s not different Ethics and Morals that really distinguishes Democrats from Republicans (even the current lot of Republicans), it’s that this lot are more brazen and less competent.
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
― Gore Vidal
The western mass media venerates the holocaust of foreigners, particularly browner-skinned foreigners, on the grounds that they are savage and our bombs and bullets bring modernity. As Trump brings imperialism home to the industrial core, we’re going to see these same promises of modernity used to justify the demolition and decimation of the American interior.