1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

U.S. drone attack kills American-born Muslim cleric in Yemen

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Hokie_pokie, Sep 30, 2011.

  1. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Every President attempts to gather as much authority as it can. It's up to its co-equal branches of government to fight this.

    Under President Bush, Democrats in the House and Senate did fight it, even if they sometimes failed. A certain Senator from Illinois was very vocal in his criticism.

    That's what makes it so hypocritical.

    We have had this debate. The Democrat party was one side of it previously, and now they're on the other. And, the "most open administration in history" is not willing to share its thinking with the American public:

    And, they won't tell us who wrote the memo.

    It's not?

    Who among the "left" is not in -- or at the very least is politically supportive of -- the Democrat party?

    I'm guessing you don't need to book a very large room for your meetings.

    And, while the Post article quotes officials from the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, there's also a question of the degree to which they disagree with this President policies.

    It's about how strident they are. How vocal. How personal.

    And, is the media willing to amplify their objections, or do they get one mention, in one article, in the closing paragraphs?

    Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, were vilified. Called murders. People have called for their criminal prosecution.

    I'll wait for the "left" to make those arguments about President Obama and whoever wrote his memo.
     
  2. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Sorry. You're arguing the worst kind of small-minded political bullshit.

    This is the world you asked for.

    This is the world you got.
     
  3. Point of Order

    Point of Order Active Member

    So here's my question -- from a journalism standpoint -- for some of the less politically minded and more neutral than myself:

    Is the story of the year re the fight against terrorism that we killed bin Laden and/or this guy, or is that just a part of a bigger story that can be told about the administration? I'm thinking of the bin Laden, this guy, all the al Qaeda #2s that we've killed in Pakistan, busting these homegrown terrorist attempts (model plane guy), seemingly handling 9/11 anniversary threats with competent vigilence, etc.

    Can all of this be spun into a larger narrative of war on terror competency, or do you see some of the recent victories we've had as more of a one-off? Has there been a change in the Obama administration in either strategy or pure competency helps explain this? Is it easier for a Democrat to kill the shit out of terrorist fuckers without taking political fire?
     
  4. Point of Order

    Point of Order Active Member

    You're starting from a false premise. If your premise were true we'd be governed by some offspring of George Washington today. Refine your premise if you want to have any credibility on your argument. Many presidents have passed on opportunities to seize power for the executive.
     
  5. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    It's tough to kill OSB when you've spent your executive life holding hands and kissing up (literally) to the Saudi royal family.
     
  6. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member

    Damn straight . . . it's the Cheney types who pass their final days stroking themselves at the very thought of the POTUS
    becoming a banana-republic head of state . . . not everybody.
     
  7. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I'm not upset this is where we are.

    Though I think we should have captured bin Laden if we could have (and it appears we could have, and i think the only reason we didn't was because holding, interrogating, and trying him would have been too complicated for Obama to deal with), I'm all for killing these guys.

    And, if we can do it from the skies, instead of with boots on the ground, all the better.

    The fact that we can do it at any time, and at any place, is huge psychologically.

    We're finally fighting them on their psychological terms. We will kill them. We'll find and kill them anywhere -- no longer how long it takes.

    There are no safe havens, not in Pakistan, not in Yemen.

    That's critical, crucial, and will help us win this war.
     
  8. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    The other funny thing about this is that I haven't heard anyone make the argument that for every terrorist we kill, we create 10 more.

    I heard that a lot in the past. haven't heard it at all lately.

    We were told that we can't kill them all. That even trying will further inflame them and lead to more hatred and terrorism.

    We were told that we needed to understand them and their grievances with us.

    We were even told to talk/negotiate with them.

    Now? Silence.
     
  9. Point of Order

    Point of Order Active Member

    Oh YF where to even start with you? That's not what we argued re Iraq and Afghanistan.

    You're characterization of our argument is like saying Texas and Texas A&M are basically the same school. Similar? Maybe. But defined by their differences? For sure.
     
  10. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    There was so much of this in the past:

    I haven't heard anything like this, anywhere, for years now.
     
  11. Point of Order

    Point of Order Active Member

    When you fuck it up miserably and leave a huge footprint by occupying a country, yes, you risk creating more terrorists than you kill. That's a markedly different argument for how you characterize it. Obama admin seems to be killing them with scalpel like precision where Bush was not-killing them with blunt force. Let me try an analogy:

    The terrorists are ants crawling around cracks in sidewalks. Bush tried to kill the ants by swinging a sledge hammer into the sidelwalk -- and at the wrong place in the sidewalk at that. Obama, on the other hand, has been killing those fuckers with a targeted spray of poison.

    It's not a perfect analogy, but it's the best I got.
     
  12. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    An analogy using a car might work better for me.

    Car analogies always work.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page