Breaking: US and Britain pledge to use force within two weeks in Syria.

[dr.hee]

I admit when I'm wrong. You are failing to understand my point again.

I AM NOT COMPARING OBAMA TO HITLER.

Just the method hitler used to achieve his concentration camp plan.

First make them sew gold stars-harmless, no one raised a fuss.

Then start making laws discriminating against them.

Then Kristallnacht.

Then seize their property and assets.

Then murder them.


SIMILAR TO HOW I SEE THIS DRONE THING PANNING OUT-

first a few unconstitutional air strikes targeting american citizens.
Everyone seems to be ok with this so far.

So who knows how far someone else will take it.

It is a dangerous precedent to set.

Before you know it we can have US presidents sending robot assassin drones to kill American citizens on US soil without trial due to them being a "threat to national security" in the eyes of the president.

We really aren't so far away from that.

[niko]

Do you not have reading comprehension? Im not saying the US is like Nazi Germany. I'm saying that it used similar tactics when it comes to getting the public to buy in to horrible atrocities. Start small and keep it quiet.


It is so easy to make it national news. TALK ABOUT IT MORE. The major stories on the news are not necessarily the biggest stories going on at the time-just what's the most marketable. THE NEWS DECIDE WHAT THEY TALK ABOUT and force feed coverage down people's throats! They should do the same with the drones. It's a big f*cking deal that Obama is murdering American citizens without trial.

You keep using Hitler to describe what Obama is doing. You can't use him, then say "i'm not really comparing it". Then don't use Hitler in the analogy.

It's really nothing at all the same. Just becaus something is subversive and starting small doesn't equate to Hitler and Nazi's. That's a huge freaking stretch, and frankly makes you sound silly, even the more silly that you keep arguing you are not doing it, and in the sentences you say this, you mention Hitler.

News talks about what sells ad dollars. Not what's important. Welcome to the world.

[OJ SIMPSON 2.0]

When did Syria say they wanted to hurt us?

Syria hatea everything the US standa for(Freedom). They're jealous of us and before they get a nuclear weapon and try to hurt us it's best that we stop them. I'm sory but you're an idiot. I watch Fox news daily so I know what is going on.

[gigantes]

nick young... god damn.

i don't want to insult a young bro... i don't want to watch my head burst. jesus christ, dude.

[RidonKs]

it was four people, correct? i presume it was for terrorist activity, correct? did the govt ever issue a statement on this?

the gov acknowledged those four deaths about two months ago i think. only one case was for terrorist activity -- that was anwar al-awlaki, who you've presumably heard about. he's been labeled a senior operational leader for al-quaeda in yemen. the evidence reads a little differently, but he was a zealous preacher for violent retaliation against american imperialism, there's no doubt about that. he was also in email contact with the fort hood shooter and the underwear bomber.

was he actually operational, or more like a spokesman/rhetorician? again, evidence points to the latter... or more accurately, it's severely lacking for the former. so does violent rhetoric against your own country count as treason? particularly if it inspires real action? i say no but plenty of americans believe it shouldn't be tolerated. if assassination strikes are the best way to prevent further terrorism, so be it. i'm quite skeptical towards that personally lol



the other three were all collateral damage according to the government. one of them was a magazine editor killed in the same strike that got al-awlaki... a magazine openly distributed on behalf of al-quaeda it should be noted.

another was al-awlaki's son, abdulrahman, who went to yemen looking for his dad. he was in a cafe with his cousin when a drone strike was ordered... no info yet released on who the actual target of that strike was.

the last was... i dunno. some terrorist? he was involved with something a few years ago which i guess legitimized his death, though supposedly he wasn't the official target.

[gigantes]

thanks, ridonks.

[KevinNYC]

so does violent rhetoric against your own country count as treason? particularly if it inspires real action?

Um, yes it does. Ever hear of Tokyo Rose? You don't have to commit violent acts to be guilty of treason.

Simply providing "Aid and Comfort to the Enemy" is enough to be guilty of treason.

al-Awlaki went much further that than that. He became a member of Al Qaeda. That is he joined a group that had declared war on the United States. I don't agree with you that he wasn't operational. I think he was part of evolving strategy of Al Qaeda's; after realizing that attacks like 9/11 are going to be harder and harder to plan, they shifted to the idea of inspiring local individuals/cells to take matters into their own hands. Individuals who never would have to set foot in a training camp in Yemen or Afghanistan.

However, even if we accept your reasoning that he was a spokesman for Al Qaeda, that still would be treasonous.

the other three were all collateral damage according to the government. one of them was a magazine editor killed in the same strike that got al-awlaki... a magazine openly distributed on behalf of al-quaeda it should be noted.

Collateral Damage implies accidental. The editor, Samir Khan doesn't qualify. He was also a member of Al Qaeda and also a traitor to America. In fact he wrote an article called, I Am Proud to Be a Traitor to America. Another article he wrote was about making pressure cooker bombs and this was read by the Boston Marathon Bombers. Khan and al-Awlaki were Al Qaeda's most important recruiters in Western countries because they both of them grew up in the US.

The fourth guy was terrorist from North Carolina who joined a local jihadi group and then fled to Waziristan and became a recruiter for the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Only al-Awlaki's son was not a hard core terrorist.

[zoom17]

We should thank Assad for killing so many al-qadea caveman these past two years instead we are helping the more backward side in this conflict. Bush=Obama noble peace prize my ass.

[KevinNYC]

Apparently, there is intercepted signals intelligence that points to the Syrian government delivering the chemical weapons. Also supposedly, the Syrian government are the only folks in the battle who use rockets.

[MadeFromDust]

Obamanation the hyppocrite war monger.

All ewe Bush railers that support this either apologize or fall on a sword please.

[MadeFromDust]

Hmmmm when have we heard this before? "They used chemical weapons against their own people", "They have WMDs", "We must punish the evil dhuers"

Fukkn liberal hypocrite azzholes

Another war. Gee, thanks OBOMBA

[Nick Young]

Waziristan and became a recruiter for the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Only al-Awlaki's son was not a hard core terrorist.

Wow, first time I ever heard that name, never even knew a place called Waziristan existed

[Nick Young]

Hmmmm when have we heard this before? "They used chemical weapons against their own people", "They have WMDs", "We must punish the evil dhuers"

Fukkn liberal hypocrite azzholes

Another war. Gee, thanks OBOMBA

iknowrite

[gigantes]

Obamanation the hyppocrite war monger.

All ewe Bush railers that support this either apologize or fall on a sword please.

Hmmmm when have we heard this before? "They used chemical weapons against their own people", "They have WMDs", "We must punish the evil dhuers"

Fukkn liberal hypocrite azzholes

Another war. Gee, thanks OBOMBA

aren't you the same guy who asked people here about accepting your decision to declaw (i.e. chop the first digits off) your new cat, then ran away when everyone told you how cruel that would be to the animal?

or is that a different madefromdust...?

[RidonKs]

Collateral Damage implies accidental

not exactly. it implies incidental. but the actual phrase, by the justice department's own words, is "not specifically targeted". whatever the hell that means.

that document is actually pretty enlightening. it was the first admission the obama admin made to targeting its own citizens overseas. here's a choice quote: "it is an unfortunate but undeniable fact" that a "small number" of U.S. citizens "have decided to commit violent attacks against their own country from abroad." that's Holder quoting himself from a previous speech. note "have decided to commit violent attacks"... this in a document devoted to justifying the assassination of four Americans, for three of whom there is no evidence whatsoever that they were involved in real acts of terror. it also outlines criteria for assassination; a) suspect poses an imminent threat to the united states, b) capture is unfeasible, c) operation conducted according to appropriate principles

i mean, this isn't an obvious checklist to me. i've heard interviews with yemeni journalists and tribal leaders who spoke of suspects who have been targeted and killed, not american citizens but yemeni citizens -- presumably the same criteria holds. i don't see why it shouldn't. regardless, they testify that these targets wouldn't have been difficult to capture at all, like they're well known figures in their respective villages.

the bottom line is that none of these strikes have been justified. hell in his book Jeremy Scahill claims that a grand jury was convened against Kahn and it failed to return an indictment against him. and as for the younger al-awlaki, the fact that the Obama Administration hasn't even managed to scrape together an official statement, let alone an apology, with regard to this tragedy is ludicrous and indefensible.

al-Awlaki went much further that than that. He became a member of Al Qaeda. That is he joined a group that had declared war on the United States. I don't agree with you that he wasn't operational.

there's no EVIDENCE that he was operational. at least none thus far revealed by Holder as a posthumous justification. they just keep calling him a senior operational leader or director of external operations. nothing whatsoever actually grounding those claims, because according to holder and the others, such evidence would threaten national security. just like any sensitive information the public needs to understand an issue -- it'll harm national defense.

and al-awlaki is intensely interesting because of his story. this is a guy who was radicalized by American foreign policy. you can't read or hear his story without coming to that conclusion, it's completely uncontroversial. he was a muslim moderate in the aftermath of 9/11. this guy didn't come out of the afghan Mujahideen, he was raised in the west and by all accounts, loved it here.



as for treason, you're absolutely right of course. providing aid and comfort. but to which enemy? only organizations that have openly called for war against the united states... or conceivably anybody on the terrorist list?

have you heard of the Humanitarian Law Project case? that case was tried on the hypothetical scenario of providing advice to the PKK (a kurdish political outfit widely classified as terrorist by the west)... the specific advice was for the PKK to pursue non-violent courses of action. it was claimed that this was a clear case of providing material support for the enemy.

now admittedly these are different because the "aid and comfort" clause is in the constitution, whereas the "material support" clause is part of the patriot act. but if material support can be defined as even the most peaceful advice one could conceivably provide, it'd be hard to argue that it doesn't totally overlap and even eclipse any definition of aid and comfort.



your argument that al-queda has shifted from a real network of cells and training grounds to... what? "terrorism inspiration"? i mean, that's what it becomes from the view of the united states? the war was declared against terror, but according to the actual legal basis -- authorized use of force act -- it's against al-quaeda and its affiliates. now that was already on pretty f*cking shifty ground in my opinion, since only in rhetoric ("on drugs", "on poverty") has a war ever been declared that wasn't against an actual state actor.

but now the definition has changed to a boundary-less war on actions, words, thoughts, each more poorly defined than the last. and it's on the assertion that al-qaeda itself has changed. now "its affiliates" is anybody anywhere who happens to like or admire or commend or agree with al-qaeda, who has similar goals or was inspired or think similarly on some things but not necessarily everything. i mean you see where that kind of definition of your "war" leads? it leads to endless global conflict. it leads to Senator Graham leading high military officers into answers like these that proclaim executive rights to pursue endless wars on terror anywhere around the globe. just forget the legality for a second... we know how well teams of lawyers for any particular justice department can work around legal disputes. how do you feel about it? how does it not strike you as insane?