Difference is, is Trump has said we need to kill terrorist's families in the past during his campaign. It's still nonsense but he has said it.
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Deadly SEAL Raid In Yemen Signals Shift In Anti-Terror Strategy Under Trump
- Thread starter LordOfChaos
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dr3upmushroom
Banned
This is one aspect that I will always critique any president, regardless of party... This covert ops bullshit seems to almost always be in the interest of war.
"Oh, one of our drones just destroyed a children's hospital... Oh well".
"Oh, one of our drones just destroyed a children's hospital... Oh well".
Comic book logic is the cornerstone of american counter terrorism, you fight terrorism by killing peoples families and friends, it is more or less how a lot of the great super heroes get made, so super logical logic dictates it would work just as well in the real world.
"The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families."
-Donald Trump
Trump said he wanted their families taken out. Family got taken out. It's not some crazy conspiracy theory when someone is just thinking that Donald Trump did what he said he was going to do. I don't know that that is what happened here, and we probably won't know for a looooooong time, but it's not just made up out of whole cloth like your Vince Foster example.
jellies_two
Member
If this was obamas tick of approval the GOP would have launched senate hearings, and Fox would be Wall to Wall on it
no wonder he loved drones.
That guy had balls of steel to approve the bin laden operation if it had gone wrong they would have torn him to pieces over it like the carter hostage non-rescue.
But trump just doesn't mention it, and the world moves on?
Fuck me - they say the media has a liberal agenda?
Well in the Bible the Devil kills like 6 people, while God kills over a million
Just saying
Sunster
Member
Well technically in the Bible, whenever you sin it's the devil working within you so any murder that ever happened is because of the devil.
FlutterPuffs
Member
Clearly God wanted this operation to fail so he can teach Trump to have some humility.
cryptosporidium
Member
Gotta help the Sauds kill those damn shia houthi rebels in order to protect murica
Yemen is such a mess, Ill be surprised if the militray actually wants to get deep in
Yemen is such a mess, Ill be surprised if the militray actually wants to get deep in
I just can't fucking comprehend it. After how many decades of this shit specifically, have we not learned we are just perpetuating a cycle of violence.
Folks will obviously shit on Trump for this as they should, but Obama has surely murdered in similar ways, god knows how many drone strikes.
I just imagine, sitting around in one of these countries, a god damn death zone, people in your family getting blown to hell, someone comes along "hey join us and fight back" why fucking wouldn't you? Doesn't matter if its ISIS or whoever, you already have nothing, country gone to hell in war, your family is dead, whether its by your countrymen, ISIS, or the "good guys" in one of their raids or drone strikes.
We'll never end it this way. You can't just kill all the "bad" people until there are no more left.
Sunster
Member
If you live in a country America decides is bad then you should realize that you are inherently bad and kill yourself or become a spy for America. Otherwise you're a terrorist and an enemy and if your family gets killed it's because you used them as human shields.
TheWasTheJoke
Member
Yemen has received far less media coverage than Syria or Ukraine and I suspecting it to be for the fact that doing so would be counterproductive to US (saudi) interests.My skepticism of Chomsky's views on the media continue to whittle away.
Alucard725
Neo Member
Was the raid to assasinate her?
Ah, but there is the rub, that just marks you for death, and after all your help to America, America rewards you by not giving a shit, making you wait years to possibly move to safety to America, going through all kinds of bureaucratic bullshit and paper work, which if you some how survive during, we just may fuck you over when you are right about to get here, as we are seeing with stuff like the Muslim Ban.
The more you look at it, as horrific as it feels to not "help" we'd probably do far more good doing literally nothing.
We can't manage to not kill innocents, we can't manage to even help the fucking people who help us as a rule. What the fuck are we doing.
But was this strike immediately necessary? Within two weeks of Trump's inauguration? I don't know the facts and will comment no further beyond my opinion which is it awfully seems like he wanted an early win to brag about which turned into a shitshow.
Sunster
Member
Well you could leave your war torn country and immigrate somewhere saf--- oh, wait. you can't because you are either a terrorist or an "economic migrant". So I guess just sit in your rubble city and wait to die at the hands of the Saudis or Americans.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Honestly... I'd probably just kill myself or pick up a gun and try to Rambo it to freedom.
I just saw the latest Frontline episode about the Battle of Mosul and Hunting ISIS, and I honestly don't know how anybody there has any hope or will to live at all. I have so much respect and admiration for the people there. Literally hell on earth, and even if by a miracle you and your family make it out, you are at the mercy of a world who largely doesn't care, and constantly have to prove that you aren't a member of the terrorist group that destroyed your life and you've just fled from.
If you can make it through all of that, you deserve all the help and assistance in the world and would be an absolute boon to any country.
jellies_two
Member
And the president listens to the risks, the potential reward, considers the wider geo-politics and decides. Which is what obama did, at a guess.
this is definitely not how it went down:
trump: hey you got any missions in your "maybe" folder?
Pentagon: well we do have a house in Yemen the drone guys are pretty certain has AQ, we have a plan for a ground op if necessary, we can update in a few days. But obama thought that ..
Trump: do it! Tell me when I can sit in that room obama did, and watch those amazing video links you guys have, I love you.
(Turns to bannon - ping the photographer, this is how DC has to work)
radios shipping overview
Member
Is this the operation that killed Anwar al-Awlaki's eight-year-old daughter?
Yep, looks like it. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/31/politics/yemen-raid-daughter-al-qaeda-leader/
Yep, looks like it. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/31/politics/yemen-raid-daughter-al-qaeda-leader/
Isn't that what we've been doing though?
jellies_two
Member
Ether_Snake
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Yep, the media always treats conflicts with the same level of attention. It's like someone tells everyone "talk about this one" or not. And that is a result of where they send their reporters, so those decisions come from the top.
Yes.
We can all pretend this is a new Trump thing and that Obama was better. (I will wager history will show Obama to have handled such things better, but thats a low bar) But its really not, getting people killed and making a big mess of things is completely American, so Trump isn't doing anything new or outrageous in this respect.
4.5 million iirc
jellies_two
Member
see this is why America wins battles and loses wars.
If I was a PR guy for ISIS, Americans with guns leveling and burning homes and shooting kids in the neck so they bleed out as retribution, or even by mistake as collateral damage, is so much better than waiting for a drone strike to miss.
It's just better material. It puts an American face on the death. It is more easily sold as deliberate. it is a meaningful difference in strategy, which is exactly what trump understands too - although for different reasons.
If you don't think remote warfare has radicalized tens of thousands of young Sunnis, I don't know what to tell you.
jellies_two
Member
I didn't say that
I said for radicalization this is more powerful.
You don't think it's sort of significant that instead of turning 10s of thousands radical it might turn 100s of thousands radical? The Muslim world is a huge place and the majority, vast majority, are not radical.
And on top of this, this strategy risks soldiers lives and the drone method doesn't
So
That's a pretty huge difference too, domestically at least.
It's business as usual. A good deal of the Muslim world has already been destroyed in part by American interventionism. I'm not sure how you arrived at hundreds of thousands getting radicalised, that seems like an arbitrary number you've plucked out. There are already plentiful excuses those who wish to harm America can use. This new strategy by Trump has the same end game as the others.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
I kinda arrived at the same place as you jellies_two.
Drone attacks are too easy, there is little risk to american soldiers and the bar to call a strike is therefore by default too low. It's not a lost cause, as it just requires a POTUS who is willing to err on the side of civilian safety. Obama did not do this to the degree needed, but I also knew he did care to some extent.
Now we have the worst possible situation, an Orange Fuckwad that is willing to put US Soldiers in harms way regardless of the situation, AND with no morals in the use of drones.
Drone attacks are too easy, there is little risk to american soldiers and the bar to call a strike is therefore by default too low. It's not a lost cause, as it just requires a POTUS who is willing to err on the side of civilian safety. Obama did not do this to the degree needed, but I also knew he did care to some extent.
Now we have the worst possible situation, an Orange Fuckwad that is willing to put US Soldiers in harms way regardless of the situation, AND with no morals in the use of drones.
jellies_two
Member
I have to say a couple of you guys are being willfully blind. Yes it's messed up still, no if this is the new policy, it isn't the same. Propaganda built around policy of the enemy (us) isn't an off/on switch there is ok propaganda and holy shit propaganda and everything in between.
Is "but drones..." the new "but emails.."?
I'm not sure the army would want to sign up to go on these missions either. Do they get a choice?
Not doing them seems like a much better choice. It's not like you have to replace those murders with any other sort of murders. Just don't do it at all.
Your little quip at the end isn't welcomed. Reducing the argument to that is simply misrepresenting it. The drone program will in all likelihood continue. Sure, I'll accept that this can fan the flames, but I'm arguing that it's already a blazing fire.
The previous administration already had plentiful blood on their hands. From the 7 sovereign nations bombed to Syria and Libya, along with the denial of a transition into democracy from the latter nation. It's a bloody mess. The tactics may change but the interventionism hasn't. Maybe it will serve to work in the favour of radicalisation, but the point is that you don't need to go far to do that anyway once a family member has been killed. Whether that be from a bullet or a bomb, it doesn't matter.
jellies_two
Member
You should get used to the "little quip" because you are going to be seeing it constantly from the right and their minions where it comes to military adventures that come upon criticism.
Cool.
LordOfChaos
Member
He approves them. Obama specifically vetoed this one as being too risky.
"Obama administration had effectively exercised a pocket veto over it."
Drones distance us from the slaughter of innocents.
There should be some Americans on the ground to at least feel the sting of the killing and put themselves at risk.
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