Tag: The Forever War

The President of Peace Needs More Freedom to Bomb People

I’m just going to start calling Obama the President of Peace. After all, he’s the only Nobel Peace Prize winner that I know who has bombed numerous countries. Congress, which is supposed to curtail the president’s powers, has done nothing to stand in his way and everything possible to support his murderous actions. That being the case I’m certain the President of Peace will receive the new freedoms he’s asking for to bomb foreign nations:

When he approved U.S. airstrikes in late September against extremists who have captured territory across Syria and Iraq, Obama used legal grounds of congressional authorizations that President George W. Bush relied on more than a decade ago. The White House maintained then that the Bush-era congressional authorizations for the war on al-Qaida and the Iraq invasion gave Obama authority to act without new approval by Congress under the 1973 War Powers Act.

That law, passed during the Vietnam War, serves as a constitutional check on presidential power to declare war without congressional consent. It requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of military action, and limits the use of military forces to no more than 60 days unless Congress authorizes force or declares war.

Now, however, Obama said a new military authorization is one of a few areas where he will seek to work with lawmakers during the lame-duck session before a new Congress is seated in January.

You have to give the man credit, when it comes to murdering people he doesn’t pursue it half-assed. And he still seems to have a ton of people willing to either act as apologists for hist reneging on his promises to end the wars or sweep his entire war mongering under the rug so they can continue to pretend that they’re anti-war while still claiming their guy is the best guy ever.

Bombing Made Easier

Some time ago Obama declared stricter criteria for deciding who was going to get bombed and who wasn’t. This declaration was made under the auspices of reducing civilian casualties. That was then. This is now:

The White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.

A White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria’s Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.

This is why you don’t give any credence to anything politicians say. They will tell you what you want to hear and even pass regulations that make it look like they’re giving you what you want but when those regulations hinder their desires they will vanish in a puff of smoke. Keep this in mind when a politician promises you something because that promise is empty.

I wonder if Obama wears his Nobel Peace Prize when he orders bombings just for the irony.

How Six Years Changes a Political Party

I’ve been riding Republicans pretty hard on this blog. That’s not because I hold any love for the Democrats but because my RSS reader consists primarily of gun blogs and gun blogs generally report more on Republicans and therefore I’m more exposed to that parties stupidity. But it’s time for me to give the Democrats some much needed criticism.

Let’s rewind to September 12th, 2001. The dust hadn’t fully settled from the previous day’s attacks but rumors were already circulating that American was going to bomb somebody in retaliation. Eventually that somebody became the countries of Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after the wars began the anti-war left in name only (LINO) began protesting. The protests were loud and the anti-war movement was relentless. Then 2008 rolled around. George W. Bush was swapped out with Barack Obama. Obama, and many of his fellow Democrats, ran on an anti-war platform. His campaign even netted him a Nobel Peace Prize. The anti-war LINO settled down and awaited their savior’s demonstration of his love of peace. That demonstration never came. In fact Obama declared new wars. But the anti-war LINO never reappeared in force.

Now it’s 2014 and the Democrats are no longer running on an anti-war platform. Instead they are beating the war drum just as hard as the neocons:

A host of Democratic Senate hopefuls who rode anti-war sentiment into office in the past decade are running for reelection now as hawks, staking out hard-line positions on the latest upheaval in the Middle East. The candidates are quick to note the differences between then and now — a years-long military mission with boots on the ground versus the airstrikes President Barack Obama has launched in Iraq and Syria in the past month.

In six short years many politicians in the Democratic Party have gone from protesting the war to cheering it. I guess their opposition wasn’t to the fact that bombs were being dropped but only to who was dropping the bombs. At least the Republican Party is consistent. It has a gigantic hard-on for war and never lets you forget it. Democrats, on the other hand, only become erect from war when they’re running it and complain loudly about their erectile dysfunction when they’re not running it.

Self-Proclaimed Progressives are So Anti-War They Want to Help the State Buy More Bombs

Remember the old days when George W. Bush was in office and the anti-war “left” was demonstrating against his war mongering ass? Remember how concerned they were about ending the wars during the 2008 presidential elections? What the fuck happened? After Obama assumed office and proved his war mongering credentials the anti-war “left” didn’t say a peep. In fact many of the people who were demonstrating against Bush’s wars are now supporting Obama’s wars. Salon has turned into one of the biggest war apologist rags out there. For example, it has an article discussion how the neocons have it all wrong about the war against the Islamic State (IS) and that a different approach to murdering Middle Easterners is needed. And, of course, it has an article talking about who profits from the new war. You would think the anti-war “left” would be looking for ways to starve those who profit from the war of resources. But instead of advocating tax protests against the war it annoyed electrons to complain about companies not paying taxes.

These self-proclaimed progressives are a bunch of fucking hypocrites. When the neocons are in power they’re anti-war through and through. But once thier guy is ordering the bombings they become a bunch of apologists. And then when their ideology gets caught between two of their pet issues, opposing war and demanding everybody pay taxes, they always side with whatever will benefit the state even if it means more people dying.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, the anti-war “left” and self-proclaimed progressives aren’t leftists. In the traditional left-right political paradigm the people on the left opposed the king while the people on the right supported him. Well if you’re demanding people pay taxes knowing damn well that that money will be used to fund a major surveillance apparatus, a police state, and war efforts then you’re supporting the king and can’t very well call yourself a leftist. If a future election results in a Republican president I don’t want to hear any of these hypocritical fuckwits suddenly protesting the country’s wars. They had their chance when Bush was in office and blew it when they started supporting the wars under Obama. Now we know their true faces, which are dyed in the wool supporters of the king.

I Wonder if Obama Wears is Nobel Peace Prize Whenever He Orders Bombings

If there’s one thing to say about Obama it’s that his legacy will go down in the history books. Specifically it will go down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most countries bombed by a Nobel Peace Prize recipient:

The U.S. today began bombing targets inside Syria, in concert with its lovely and inspiring group of five allied regimes: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan.

I think it’s going to be a while before another person is able to beat this world record. Speaking of Obama’s pre-presidential anti-war legacy, he has also been urging people to support war:

On the eve of Sept. 11, President Barack Obama on Wednesday made a prime-time plea for Americans to support an open-ended war on the brutal fighters of the Islamic State — an escalating Middle East campaign with ill-defined conditions for victory and a timetable that will likely take it into his successor’s term.

This is what happens when you hand a Nobel Peace Prize to somebody who didn’t actually do anything to further peace. If you remember Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for not being Bush. How ironic that Obama has turned out to be George W. Bush II.

We Really Hate Iraq

Reason has what would be comedy gold if it didn’t involve so many people dying. As we wind up for yet another war in Iraq it’s a good time to stop and reflect on our history with that little chunk of land. Let’s take a look at what our previous presidents have said about Iraq, going all the way back to the first Bush. You’ll notice a common theme:

Did last night’s primetime presidential speech announcing expanding authorization for airstrikes in Iraq and Syria feel kind of familiar? Like you’ve heard it before?

That’s probably because you have. You’ve been hearing for more than two decades, from presidents on both sides of political aisle. At this point, bombing Iraq is practically a American presidential tradition.

And, via the magic of YouTube and The Huffington Post‘s Sam Stein, you can watch every president back to the first George Bush announce a new plan to launch military strikes in Iraq.

I’m not sure what our fascination with bombing people in that very specific region is but ordering it has basically become a right of passage for presidents. If only the people living there would stop hating us for bombing them!

If You Don’t Like it Move to Somalia

If you’re an anarchist, or even if you’re a statist libertarian, you’ve probably been at the receiving end of reductio ad somalium numerous times. According to statists Somalia is the prime example of anarchy (and they ignore the fact that Somalia today is better off than it was under its former federal government [PDF]). Of course such claims are bullshit. Somalia now has a federal government, which was merely an evolution of its United Nations backed transitional government. If there weren’t enough to prove Somalia is far from anarchy there are also United States troops in the country causing unknown amounts of havoc:

(Reuters) – U.S. military advisors have secretly operated in Somalia since around 2007 and Washington plans to deepen its security assistance to help the country fend off threats by Islamist militant group al Shabaab, U.S. officials said.

The comments are the first detailed public acknowledgement of a U.S. military presence in Somalia dating back since the U.S. administration of George W. Bush and add to other signs of a deepening U.S. commitment to Somalia’s government, which the Obama administration recognized last year.

The deployments, consisting of up to 120 troops on the ground, go beyond the Pentagon’s January announcement that it had sent a handful of advisors in October. That was seen at the time as the first assignment of U.S. troops to Somalia since 1993 when two U.S. helicopters were shot down and 18 American troops killed in the “Black Hawk Down” disaster.

Somalia isn’t an example of what happens in the absence of government. It’s an example of what happens when multiple governments intertwine themselves in a single geographic region. If anything Somalia is an example of too much government. Between the United States mucking about and the United Nations mucking about it’s easy to see why Somalia is still in a state of chaos after the collapse of its former federal government.

Mercenaries Threaten Government Official

Mercenaries are an interesting wildcard to study. They play some part in almost every major conflict yet are seldom mentioned in the history books. For example, when the United States declared an end to combat operations in Iraq it decided to leave a bunch of mercenaries behind. This receives little coverage by major media outlets who were simply declaring and end to the Iraqi conflict.

I referred to mercenaries as wildcards because their allegiances are often murky at best. Even if you’re paying them they might turn on you if one of your opponents makes a better offer. They may also turn on you simply because they feel as though you’re meddling in their affairs:

On Aug. 20, 2007, Mr. Richter was called in to the office of the embassy’s regional security officer, Bob Hanni, who said he had received a call asking him to document Mr. Richter’s “inappropriate behavior.” Mr. Richter quickly called his supervisor in Washington, who instructed him to take Mr. Thomas with him to all remaining meetings in Baghdad, his report noted.

The next day, the two men met with Daniel Carroll, Blackwater’s project manager in Iraq, to discuss the investigation, including a complaint over food quality and sanitary conditions at a cafeteria in Blackwater’s compound. Mr. Carroll barked that Mr. Richter could not tell him what to do about his cafeteria, Mr. Richter’s report said. The Blackwater official went on to threaten the agent and say he would not face any consequences, according to Mr. Richter’s later account.

Mr. Carroll said “that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” Mr. Richter wrote in a memo to senior State Department officials in Washington. He noted that Mr. Carroll had formerly served with Navy SEAL Team 6, an elite unit.

You read that correctly. A member of Blackwater Xe Academi threatened to kill a United States official. Between all of the other shenanigans members of Academi have pulled in Iraq I think it’s safe to say that it basically does whatever the hell it wants do. Considering this happened in 2007 and Academi is still there it appears as though the United States isn’t too concerned about it’s dog biting at its hand. I’m interested in seeing what kind of atrocities committed by Academi we’ll learn about in the coming years. If it felt safe enough to threaten a United States official chances are it felt safe enough to violate Iraqi citizens at will.

America’s Relationship with the Middle East Continues to Baffle Me

I know what you’re thinking after reading the title, who isn’t. But this recent situation in Iraq makes the past relationship look positively simple. Apparently the White House has decided that our puppet government in Iraq needs to get the fuck out:

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is signaling that it wants a new government in Iraq without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, convinced the Shiite leader is unable to reconcile with the nation’s Sunni minority and stabilize a volatile political landscape.

The U.S. administration is indicating it wants Iraq’s political parties to form a new government without Mr. Maliki as he tries to assemble a ruling coalition following elections this past April, U.S. officials say.

Such a new government, U.S., officials say, would include the country’s Sunni and Kurdish communities and could help to stem Sunni support for the al Qaeda offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, that has seized control of Iraqi cities over the past two weeks. That, the officials argue, would help to unify the country and reverse its slide into sectarian division.

So we start a war with Iraq for no discernible reason other than our president at the time got a chubby whenever he ordered the invasion of a country and replace Saddam’s regime with a puppet government. All is well (as far as we’re concerned) and except for sporadic fighting that never ceased we declared the whole operation a gigantic success. Then we decided that we no longer want to sink money into the country so we pull out our combat troops, replace them with mercenaries from whatever the fuck Blackwater calls itself now, and kick back in our giganting embassy.

Things seem to be going fine until out of nowhere (nowhere being Middle Eastern slang for Saudi Arabia) this group called ISIS appears and begins wrecking our puppet government’s shit. On top of being surprisingly successful, ISIS also turn out to be total twats. In fact they’re such twats that Iran offers to put aside its past difference with the United States in order to stomp ISIS down. This news is so glorious that Britain says it will reopen its embassy in Iran. But now the White House wants to get rid of our puppet government and replace it with one that ISIS will find more agreeable.

da-fuq

I generally pride myself with having some understanding of who hates who in the Middle East. But right now I have no god damn clue who anybody, including ourselves, are allied with. The entire situation is a mess, which is why it’s a bad idea to meddle in the affairs of other countries.

Dropping Bombs on Cellular Signals

There should be a new motto for the ongoing War of Terror: it gets worse. Every day new reports regarding the War of Terror manage to reveal facts that are worse than the facts revealed in previous reports. The fact we have regarding the United State’s use of drones is already pretty damning.

We know that the United States regularly practices double-tapping, the act of dropping a second bomb on a target minutes after the first, which often catches first responders in the blast. Two years ago the United States redefined the term militant to include all military-aged males inside a strike zone, which has done wonders for reducing the number of “civilian” causalities. With the term militant redefined the fact that drone bombings kill more civilians than terrorists is an irrelevant fact. Even with the term militant redefined the number of civilian causalities in the form of children is alarming. Even after all of this the United States still loosened restrictions in regards to who it can and cannot legally bomb.

As hard as it is to imagine it still gets worse. Yesterday it was revealed by Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald that the United States is now using geolocation data from cellular phones as sole criteria for determining where to drop bombs:

The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

[…]

In one tactic, the NSA “geolocates” the SIM card or handset of a suspected terrorist’s mobile phone, enabling the CIA and U.S. military to conduct night raids and drone strikes to kill or capture the individual in possession of the device.

[…]

As a result, even when the agency correctly identifies and targets a SIM card belonging to a terror suspect, the phone may actually be carried by someone else, who is then killed in a strike. According to the former drone operator, the geolocation cells at the NSA that run the tracking program – known as Geo Cell –sometimes facilitate strikes without knowing whether the individual in possession of a tracked cell phone or SIM card is in fact the intended target of the strike.

This tactic is asinine. As the article points out, the location of a cellular phone doesn’t indicate the location of its owner. Cellular phones can be loaned to friends and family members, left in taxicabs, stolen, or otherwise relocated in a manner that doesn’t indicate the location of its owner. In addition to simply removing the phone from the target’s location there is also the issue of cloning. While cellular phone companies can often identify clones cellular identify information I have my doubts that the United States government takes such precautions when using geolocation information to determine where to drop bombs.

We’ve been told that the utmost care is taken when selecting targets for drone assassination. These claims have been invalidated by information leaked from the military and intelligence agencies. Perhaps the United States once took care when targeting individuals although I have my doubts. But it’s obvious at this point that little care is being taken when determining who to bomb. If things continue in this direction it won’t be long until a random populated location generator is used to determine where to drop bombs.

This war, like all wars, has gotten out of hand. The only purpose left in waging the War of Terror is to fulfill the blood lust of psychopaths and to line the pockets of defense contractors.