The Intercept is serious about protecting sources. Use our @SecureDrop if you have info the public needs to know https://t.co/TZaEKQfbxK — Micah Lee (@micahflee) February 10, 2014 Glenn will return to America, despite the risk: Greenwald believes he and his reporting partner Laura Poitras face unique threats for four reasons. 1) Greenwald and Poitras went to … Continue reading Will The Government Go After Greenwald?
Here are many of the Dish posts that look at the morality of drone warfare. Thu Oct 22, 2009 – 8:32pm: The Case Against Drones Andrew Exum calls Jane Mayer’s article “perhaps the very best piece on the use of unmanned drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Exum, a long time critic of the drone program: … Continue reading The Morality Of Drone Warfare
Here are many of the Dish posts that look at the morality of drone warfare. Thu Oct 22, 2009 – 8:32pm: The Case Against Drones Andrew Exum calls Jane Mayer’s article “perhaps the very best piece on the use of unmanned drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Exum, a long time critic of the drone program: My worries have always … Continue reading The Morality Of Drone Warfare
The relatives of Americans killed in drone strikes are suing the government. Given my support of drone war due process, Greenwald thinks I should cheer the lawsuit: [F]or the moment, let’s put aside the question of whether Obama’s drone assassinations are justified. Shouldn’t we all be able to agree that the power to order people executed (including U.S. … Continue reading The Drone War On Trial
Greenwald goes another round:
The constant assumption in American political discourse is that there are so very many people in the world eager to attack the U.S. — The Terrorists — but the question of why this is so is simply never asked (actually, I ask that question often, but aside from patent propagandistic pap (they hate us for our Freedom) it’s rarely answered).
In response to my argument over the last two days that ongoing U.S. aggression is making a Terrorist attack more rather than less likely, Sullivan rhetorically asked: “is he not living on the same planet I am?” Actually, I’m not: I’m living on the same planet as most of the people on Earth, who share these views and reject Sullivan’s; I’m living on the same planet as Ibrahim Mothana, who sees these truths in his daily life; I’m living on the same planet as the mountain of empirical evidence that explains why there are so many people eager to bring violence to the U.S. (as opposed to, say, Peru, or South Africa, or Finland, or Brazil, or Japan, or Portugal, or China).
Glenn makes some serious points about blowback from civilian deaths, especially when our own government keeps changing its statements on them. I acknowledged that in my original post in this conversation. It's particularly worrying in Yemen, where our drone attacks seem to be radicalizing the populace, as well as taking out Jihadist terrorists. Don Rumsfeld's infamous remark that he worried we were creating more Jihadists than we were killing is completely salient here. But here's a sentence I would love to see Glenn write:
I do not envy President Obama having to figure out how to respond.
There is no acknowledgment in Glenn's posts of any balancing of interests here, or of any terror threat that cannot be blamed on the American victims.
A reader writes:
Instead of dealing with and forthrightly acknowledging your belief that America should have the special right to extinguish civilian lives wherever and whenever it wants, you fall back on claims like "the notion that the fundamental reason the US is now targeted simply because we defended ourselves from a brutal attack…seems far too simplistic to me." AQAP had nothing to do with 9/11 and as we know from recent reporting, much of the al Qaeda that instigated 9/11 has been dismantled. Can you (or anybody) plausibly claim that jihadis currently living in Yemen or Pakistan have "brutally attacked us?"
Another is on the same page:
The Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Terrorists is very specific. It targets only nations, organizations, or persons [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons. This, in my inexpert reading, means only al-Qaeda and the Taliban. So yes, let's assume drone strikes against those organizations are lawful. But the question becomes, are there any natural limits on such strikes?
Below are our posts covering and responding to the terrorist attack on a British soldier in Woolwich, England. To skip the latest two posts in this thread, published on Tuesday May 28th, click here. May 22, 2013 @ 3:57pm It was in broad daylight – by two men who attacked a British soldier near his … Continue reading An Islamist Beheading In Britain
Greenwald refuses to label the beheading in London “terrorism,” calling it just another attempt to stir paranoia against Muslims: [T]he term at this point seems to have no function other than propagandistically and legally legitimizing the violence of western states against Muslims while delegitimizing any and all violence done in return to those states … I … Continue reading An Islamist Beheading In Britain, Ctd
Below are the many posts across which Andrew examines the motives of the Boston Marathon bombers, including debate with other bloggers as well as readers. Apr 22, 2013 @ 11:30am There are many nuances to the story of Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev – and there is no doubt that, like all human beings their acts … Continue reading Yes, Of Course It Was Jihad
The Obama stare twitter.com/michaelhayes/s… — Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) October 23, 2012 No event in the history of Boca Raton has started later than this debate. — Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) October 23, 2012 All I ask is that the #debate not become an argument about whether Obama should have a bust of Churchill in his office. … Continue reading The Foreign Policy Debate: Tweet Reax
