Drone got brought up last night in the debate, and Romney gave Obama's policy a giant thumbs-up.
'Well, I believe that we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world. And it’s widely reported that drones are being used in drone strikes, and I support that entirely and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology and believe that we should continue to use it to continue to go after the people who represent a threat to this nation and to our friends.-
And then there was Obama supporter Joe Klein this morning on Joe Scarborough's "Morning Joe" show, vigorously defending drones, even if innocent children are killed (emphasis mine):.
SCARBOROUGH: "This is offensive to me, though. Because you do it with a joystick in California – and it seems so antiseptic – it seems so clean – and yet you have 4-year-old girls being blown to bits because we have a policy that now says: "you know what? Instead of trying to go in and take the risk and get the terrorists out of hiding in a Karachi suburb, we're just going to blow up everyone around them. This is what bothers me. . . . We don't detain people any more: we kill them, and we kill everyone around them. . . . I hate to sound like a Code Pink guy here. I'm telling you this quote 'collateral damage' – it seems so clean with a joystick from California – this is going to cause the US problems in the future."
KLEIN: "If it is misused, and there is a really major possibility of abuse if you have the wrong people running the government. But: the bottom line in the end is – whose 4-year-old get killed? What we're doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror."
Yup. Killing their 4-year-olds is okay as long as it hypothetically "limits the possibility" of our 4-year-olds being killed.
Too bad, so sad, can't make a safer omelette without breaking a few skulls eggs.
Glenn Greenwald reviews how many terrorists have used precisely that justification for their own campaigns of violence against the US, then concludes (emphasis mine):
'One of the primary reasons war – especially protracted war – is so destructive is not merely that it kills the populations at whom it is aimed, but it also radically degrades the character of the citizenry that wages it. That's what enables one of America's most celebrated pundits to go on the most mainstream of TV programs and coldly justify the killing of 4-year-olds, without so much as batting an eyelash or even paying lip service to the heinous tragedy of that, and have it be barely noticed. Joe Klein is the face not only of the Obama legacy, but also mainstream US political culture.'
It won't change my vote (since clearly Mitt is at least as enthusiastic over drone usage), but it's damning nonetheless.
Embedded Link
Joe Klein's sociopathic defense of drone killings of children
GLenn Greenwald: Reflecting the Obama legacy and US culture, the Time columnist says: "the bottom line is: 'whose 4-year-olds get killed?'"
Google+: View post on Google+
Joek Line has always been a horrible person, and one of many Chicken Hawks that just love to kill kids in other countries.
Scarborough is pretty staunchly right wing. What did he mean by making this kind of argument, I wonder? Was he trying to make points against the Obama administration by painting them as evil?
Or was he suggesting the better move would be to send troops in there and let the killing be face to face?
This whole drone thing is the biggest reason I have considered making a “protest vote” for Green since getting my ballot in the mail last week. But we live in Colorado, one of the “battleground” states. Uggh.
Hard to say, @Derrick. He certainly presents face-to-face conflict as an alternative. Hard to say, just in this snippet, what he’s actually arguing for, vs. against.
I don’t have much patience for Scarborough. He’s one of the more reasonable right wing talking heads, I guess. But I tried to watch his video podcast for a few days and just got tired of it.
Dang it, why did my comments on the blog not come over here?
And why am I having such a hard time grasping this concept?
Dang it, why did my comments on the blog not come over here?
And why am I having such a hard time grasping this concept?
Sorry — stuff comes from here (G+) to there (the blog), not vice-versa. 🙂
I was curious why you were commenting on the blog, not in G+.
Sorry — stuff comes from here (G+) to there (the blog), not vice-versa. 🙂
I was curious why you were commenting on the blog, not in G+.
Someday I will figure it out. . .
Someday I will figure it out. . .
Ugh. As if he needed a reason for me to like him less.
Ugh. As if he needed a reason for me to like him less.