Okay, it seems that this obvious fact has indeed occurred to some people...
It would've been nice to publicly debate whether the strategic value of a drone base in Saudi Arabia outweighs the potential for blowback. Operating on a four-year time horizon, Obama has a potentially perverse incentive to over-weight short-term outcomes. If he's especially worried about preventing a terrorist attack on his watch, it's easy to forgive that understandable psychological bias, but it would be nice if politicians with different biases helped shape policy.When the history books are written, this drone program will probably be listed as Mr. O's biggest mistake. The drones have pissed off both the right and the left in this country, although the neocons have brayed their support...
Of course, the chance of blowback might have decreased if the drone base had been kept secret forever, but what were the odds of that? Zero.
John Bolton, former ambassador to the UN, says the drone program "appears to be consistent with the policies of the Bush administration," in which he served. Max Boot of Commentary insists Obama's drone memo is a "careful, responsible document."I don't even wanna think about what Dick Cheney or Michael Ledeen might have to say.
Why did this administration even bother to attack anti-American radicals holed up in the wilds of Yemen? The place is primitive -- an impoverished, lawless wilderness where even the Yemeni authorities fear to venture. It's a prison without guards. We have, in short and in sum, subverted our own laws in order to kill a couple of dozen guys trapped in a prison. And for what reason? Because those guys committed the crime of talk-talk-talking about how much they'd like to do harm to the United States. In the process of punishing that crime, we have stirred up a lot more anti-U.S. hatred. So in the end, what have we accomplished?
Obama must be made to understand: When the neocons give you the thumbs up, that means you're doing something wrong. So let's help our president. Fire up Google Earth and search for that drone base.
If you find a likely candidate, I'll publish the pictures!
3 comments:
Obama, even as a lame-duck, goes with the Polls.
Americans have little appetite for casualty numbers at home. Remote warfare is a windfall for warmongering politicians. Americans like drones, because we're "making the other poor sonofabitch, die for 'his' Country" (Patton).
The Public doesn't like it when Americans are killed by drones, however.
Ben
It was apparent on the day that then-Senator Obama flipped on telecom immunity that he is a neocon.
It was not immediately apparent that he was going to be a war criminal and a murderer, although some of us were suspicious enough to believe it was a real possibility.
Members of the Third Reich were war criminals only because Germany lost, and that explains why so many legislators in Washington are loath to cut defense spending.
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