US drone strikes will give the term “blowback” new meaning
The example of U.S. Power
An interesting article appeared in the MumbaiMirror on Saturday July 8/12. My impression is that the MubaiMirror is a low quality newspaper. But like the Toronto Star, it does reflect popular sentiment.
Title:
“A day after Hillary’s apology, US drones strike Pak again”
Excerpts include:
Drone strikes are highly unpopular in Pakistan, where they are seen as an infringement of the country’s sovereignty and counter-productive in the fight against extremists …
and
Strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, on Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan have increased substantially under the US president Barack Obama’s regime. There were 52 drone strikes carried out carried out under the Bush administration, the NATO forces during Obama’s tenure have already carried out close to 300 drone attacks.
A search of “US drones” on the MumbaiMirror site generates the following:
This is a big issue in the countries affected by this. All Obama is doing is building more anger, resentment and ultimately hatred of the United States.
My prediction:
It is going to give the word “blowback” new meaning.
But of course, on the home front, the “Homelanders” are busy NOT thinking about what is going on in the rest of the world (actually not thinking at all about anything). And they wonder, “Why is America not popular?”
Once upon a time, didn’t our friend Barack Obama receive the Nobel Peace Prize? What were they thinking? This is hilarious. Get this:
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”
Oslo, October 9, 2009
The use of drones is surely not:
founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
I once heard President Clinton comment that:
People are more impressed by the power of our example rather than the example of our power…”
Too bad Obama and the current group of Democrats can’t understand that.
The power of U.S. example
But, on a friendlier note: As you might know when Romney was running Bain Capital (you know the company that Obama believes was conceived to harm the Homelanders), Bain invested in Dominos Pizza. Dominos Pizza seems to have a big presence in India. People eat Dominos Pizza. Presumably people in India buy franchises.
Conclusion:
Obama sends drones to kill people in South Asia, illuminating the example of U.S. power.
Romney creates companies to feed people in South Asia, illuminating the power of U.S. example.
If either one should receive the Nobel Peace Prize, who would be the better candidate?
The following article makes a similar point about Romney and Obama: Romney shuts down his company sends his employees to New York to find a partner’s missing 14 year old girl. Barack Obama’s alleged (see pic below) Kenyan brother and grandmother continue to live squalor in Kenya.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/obama_and_romney_character_shows.html
I agree with the power of example. This may have been the problem in the first place (lack of good example).
Regarding drones, I think the question is more about the war against terrorists, and what the response to 9/11 should have been.
Terrorists come and blow up a symbol of America and kill 5000 people in hours. How do you react? Bomb a country, occupy it with tons ot troups on the ground, or use data from intelligence and use drones to do ‘surgical’ strikes?
Out of those 3, the last one seems the most appropriate against cowards who hide against theirs. The question is more about was retaliation needed, and how you do it against people who don’t represent a country. Like the war on drugs, I don’t think we can win a war against terrorists, except by showing good example and improve the image of America.
@Christophe
The way you respond (IMHO) is that you don’t “react”, but rather you “respond”. What does it mean to “respond”?
As I think you are saying: The so called “war on terror” is not a war against any specific individuals. Anyone who you kill will just be automatically replaced by another. This war is about winning the war of public opinion. The more you behave in a way that generates hatred of the U.S. the more you lose the war.
How does one win the war of public opinion? The U.S. needs to do is to behave in a way that reinforces the perception that the U.S. is a country that is premised on: freedom, democracy and justice. The more people perceive the U.S. to hold these values dear, the more difficult it will be for those who hate the U.S. to convince others that their cause is just.
Some thoughts on each of these things:
1. Freedom: On 911 Osama Bin Laden destroyed freedom in America. The U.S. government enacted the Patriot Act and destroyed the very freedoms that the U.S. was premised on. Get rid of the Patriot Act.
2. Democracy: Two points about democracy American style:
First, The two main political parties have a stranglehold on U.S. politics. The parties are nothing but private clubs that run the county. Nobody else can participate. Ask Ralph Nader what it is like to run as an Independent. The bureaucracy is so extreme that he should have been awarded the presidency just for getting on the ballot in most every state.
Although democracy is NOT supposed to be a spectator sport, in the U.S. it is (unless your are a Republican or Democrat), NOTHING BUT a spectator sport. By the way George Washington hated political parties.
Second, democracy has turned into a mechanism where people use the political process to get somebody else to pay their bills. This is what Obama Class warfare is about. Obama says: Vote for me and I will get somebody else to pay for you.
Justice: The U.S. has turned into a very unjust society. Think of our own situation – “The FBAR Fundraiser” – as one of many examples.
So, to get back to me point the U.S. must respond with heightened doses of: freedom, democracy and justice. Nothing else has a chance.
The war on drugs is one of the most misguided of wars, because it sees the enemy as being external when it is internal. America’s drug problem is not a problem of supply but one of demand. In any free market there is no supply of a good unless there is demand for that good. As an example, American horse ranchers could breed an increasing supply of horses but it won’t result in people changing their mode of transportation from the car to the horse.
America must ask itself this question, “why do so many of our people seem to want and demand addictive mood altering substances, both legal and illegal”? One of the ironies of America’s widely held myths and a source of its distrust of illegal immigrants from Mexico is that these illegal immigrants are a source of crime when in fact they are not. The last thing that an illegal immigrant wants to do is to get him/herself on the radar of the local police. Whether Americans want to admit it or not the truth of the matter is that illegal immigrants are a net economic benefit to the American economy and the U.S. Treaury.
The same thing cannot be said of the effects of the insatiable American appetite for illegal drugs and their consequences for the nation of Mexico. South of the border what Mexico has seen is increasingly more murders and the growth of a parallel national criminal power that in places is a serious rival to Mexico’s legitimate government. And these costs in terms of lives lost, policing and military expenditures has been incurred by a country that can least afford it.
America operates its foreign policy on the mistaken assumption that American geo-political/military dominance and the goal of world stability are one in the same thing. The truth is that they aren’t. It will only be when America is able to realize this truth that it will finally be able to hear what the other people of the world have to say.
I guess the [Pakistanis] are upset about this: Pakistan: US drones kill 24 a day after resumption of Nato supplies:
[Editor’s note: Please read the rest of the article at source.]
But as taxpayers, one should be happy that they are using drones instead of flying in F-18’s off of aircraft carriers in the persian gulf and $20K per hour:
*@ConfederateH
Dude, are you really incapable of thinking before you speak or write? In our country, the “P” word is just about on par with the “N” word for its racist insult value.
Either grow up or quit trying to deliberately tarnish the level of discourse here, if that is your intention. We’ve all hurled a few insults around here (including me), but racism has no place here or anywhere else. It makes you look very, very small. I’m getting sick and tired of it.
[Please note the editor has removed the “P” epithet in order to avoid unnecessary offense]
@Deckard:
[P] is on a par with the “N” word? Give me a friggin break! From now on no “S” word! Don’t anybody ever say “Swissie” because that would mean that you are a racist who hates chocolate and financial privacy.
What country are you from? I honestly had no idea the [P word] was some kind of insult, so I better add this to my GPS.
BTW: can you prove that you aren’t a racist?
@confederateH- The “P” word is indeed a racist slur here in Canada and I would suspect that the same is true also in the States or any English speaking nation.
I would no more use that word than I would use any of the racial slurs that minorities use to refer to people who are of a Caucasian background.
It would behoove all of us to keep our discourse at a level that is respectful of others political views and ethnic origins, rather than to use potentially inflammatory language that would only serve to distract us from our true problem and thereby weaken our message.
@Deckard1138 & ConfederateH
”In our country the “P” word is just about on a par with the “N”word’ – Deckard is absolutely correct. Forty years ago, my oldest son (then 16 years old) stopped the car he was driving and asked one of his friends in the car to get out. He refused to drive him any further. Reason: – the friend had yelled that word out the window of the car as they passed a bus stop where a man and a woman, most likely from that country, were standing. Later we received a phone call from the mother of this young man. We informed her that we were proud of our son behaving in this manner.
What on earth is wrong with you, Confederate? How were you brought up? And yes, ask me to prove that I am not a rascist. One of my daughter-in-laws is half black, one of my daughter-in-laws is half first nations. Therefore, I have grandchildren who are first nations, grandchildren who are black and others who are 100% white – I love them all equally.
*ConfederateH
Please do everyone a favor and refrain from making any more comments on this website. You have offended mulitple people with your rasist comments and attacks. Find another website that welcomes your comments. I dont know the point of sticking around when you know you havent been welcome since they day you decided to comment here.
@ConfederateH;
I concur with the others (Deckard, tiger, recalcitrant, annoyed, etc.), who’ve objected to your use of unacceptable slurs like using “P”, and object to the way you seem to be preoccupied with running down various ethnic and racial groups in this and other posts. Make your point without alienating and denigrating others and degrading the conversation.
@badger, @Deckard, @tiger, @recalcitrant, @annoyed, and @ConfederateH,
A weekend comment that I made offline to a fellow commenter (with lots of good input) turned off of the Isaac Brock site lately: I said that I don’t like the tone of it, especially that it turns away some people who can use it to learn so much. I also, though, don’t want it under censorship as the Expat Forum was. That was awful.
It is my opinion (only) that we will truly lose credibility if we stoop to hate talk toward particular ethnic and racial groups. US citizenship-based taxation has nothing to do with where a person is from (other than the US) or the colour of their skin. Name calling is juvenile — let’s try to keep the discussion on a higher plane.
@calgary411
Thank you, Calgary.
Having such a culturely diverse family, I must admit that I was becoming very frustrated and offended by some of the remarks I was reading here. As you said, our concerns here should be about U.S. citizenship based taxation and the harm it is doing to so many of us and our families. It should not be about any ethnic group.
I am proud of both my family’s diversity and particularly proud that my late husband and I raised our three sons to accept all races, no matter the colour of their skin. My personal belief has always been that the world would be a much better place if we were more accepting of each other’s race and religion.
Thank you, tiger. And, well you should be very proud of your family’s diversity and how you and your late husband raised your sons! Wise words we all need to remember.
“Achievement has no color.” (Abraham Lincoln)
Hey folks: I shortened Confederate’s usage of the article from the Muslim News and removed the racial epithet from the conversation. I think that Confederate’s original comment was not intended as racial slur, but it did exceed what I consider to be fair copyright usage (over half) of the article in question. We must keep our citations outside sources to brief excerpts with a link to the original article, unless we have permission to cite an article more extensively or in full.
Also I see no purpose in using a racial epithet and I will remove them in the future, and I ask the other editors to do so also–unless it can be shown that it is necessary to use the term. In the case of Confederate’s comment, it was unnecessary, so I replaced it with the proper term for the national group in question. Later he used the term to show that he could continue to stir up the conversation. So I replaced those usages with [P], etc.
We do have hate speech laws still in Canada–so if it doesn’t serve any purpose and if people are offended, then we will use our editorial control to avoid prosecution.
Petros –
You rule with a light editorial hand, and hats off to that. I’m not checking into what you said you did, life is way too short. But here’s hoping that any alteration that you (or others) make to any text that you (or others) did not produce is clearly and consistently marked as having undergone editorial intervention. (Typo fixes not included.) The open tendencies you have shown so far lead me to believe that would be the practice, but in case not, I put this comment forward. As you develop a minimal editorial policy, it might be helpful to gather those elements in one easily reviewable spot. As to the issue at hand, a listing of terms that have arisen and are unlikely to be found acceptable might be appropriate? In other words, don’t hunt for problems, but record the ones that emerge, if only at the level of specifying an appropriate term and leaving the offensive possibilities unstated. Example: persons from Pakistan are referred to as Pakistani. We are a diverse bunch, as you seem to recognize, with greatly varied backgrounds and understandings.
On the topic of fair dealing, which you also touch on, see this recent news:
Federal Court ruling clarifies legal risk around sharing information online
@recalcitrantexpat
“The “P” word is indeed a racist slur here in Canada and I would suspect
that the same is true also in the States or any English speaking nation.”
Well I have lived in Switzerland and Germany for 25 years and I never heard about the “P” word, I guess this little PC memo hasn’t made it global yet. And IMO this entire business with forbidden words is completely asinine. It has gotten so bad only people of color can use the “N” word and now routinely flaunt it in the media. It really illustrates how ridiculous this entire issue of racism has become and how it is now merely a tool to be used for suppression of free speech and in order to get people of color elected because they are “innoculated” against charges of racism and can use this as an issue to stifle other peoples winning arguments with impunity. Just look at fast and furious and obamacare, both issues where any dissent with Democrat ruling elite opinion will instantly get you branded as racist.
It is precisely the same PC ruling elite who brand dissent as racist who are setting up FBAR and FATCA and as I have stated in a previous post, if you don’t like all this social spending in the welfare state then YOU are racist, just as much as me.
@Tiger:
“What on earth is wrong with you, Confederate? How were you brought up?
And yes, ask me to prove that I am not a rascist. One of my
daughter-in-laws is half black, one of my daughter-in-laws is half first
nations. Therefore, I have grandchildren who are first nations,
grandchildren who are black and others who are 100% white – I love them
all equally.”
And you think the fact that your children are “of color” proves that you aren’t racist? How were you brought up, weren’t you even taught a modicum of logic??? And where were you brought up, in an totally PC world where the media constantly blames racism only on white people like Canada and the CBC? Did it ever occur to you that your “half first nation” daughter-in-laws ancestor’s might have been extreme racists, to the point of scalping and murdering visitors from far away lands from different races?
@Annoyed: If Petros wants me to refrain from posting here he can tell me and I will. Otherwise I will continue posting my non-racist thoughts here and I could care less how many PC-brainwashed Canadian lefties object.
ConfederateH
Yes, please proceed without making racist comments.
In defense of the removal of the term, I will say that it is probably better to avoid unnecessarily brushing up against Canada’s hate-speech code, especially when other readers are offended and the use certain kinds of language is easily avoidable without taking away from the conversation. I do not want to face a Mark Steyn or Ezra Levant over some offhand comment using an epithet when that I can more easily remedy the situation by putting the proper term in its place. We often correct spelling errors in comments. I think Steven Mopsick would say it this way: The free use of racial epithets at Isaac Brock is not my Queenston Heights.
I saw the following in front of work: two truck drivers, student driver of ethnic color, red neck in delivery truck. Delivery truck could not get out of driveway because student driver was in the way. Truck school is across the street from work and often blocked the driveway much to our annoyance and to those delivering to the shop (they used even to use the driveway at the shop to practice backing in. Redneck delivery truck driver became angry and called student a “damn” [p]. Student got out of cab and started gesticulating. I had my phone ready to call 911 in case it came to blows. Both settled down a little and student driver finally got out of the way. In this instance and most times that I’ve seen the word here in Toronto area used, [P] is not just a shortened use of the full name but spoken disparagingly, and often not without add colorful terms such as “f-ing”. So it does qualify as a racial epithet, just as when as a child another boy called me a “J.. [short for Japanese]” and that boy [circa 1972] did indeed intend it as a racial slur as he was using it to taunt me and to make me angry.
USX: not a bad idea to mention our editorial policy somewhere. Great idea in fact. I’ve been meaning to do that since about February.
Like Confederate, I have lived abroad for more than 20 years in non English-speaking countries, am rather unfamiliar with the P* word and must confess I did not know it was derogatory. The only time I recall hearing it was from a Canadian relative who thought his attorney was too expensive. Of course, overpriced attorneys have little to do with ethnic origin! 🙂
Thanks for backing me up Innocente. In point of fact in the early 80’s I was programming on DEC PDP and Harris minicomputers and the operator was Pakistani. As I recall many referred to him using the P* word and it was no more of a racial slur than a Swiss guy calling me an “Ami”. Well the PC police have been working overtime with their never ending series of witch-hunts. They have given us the war against drugs, the war against bullying, the war against climate change, the war against “*phobia”, and of course the war against “offensive words”. Well once they are finally forced to free the innocent drug users from the prison-industrial-complex we can be sure that they will try to fill all those empty prison beds with criminal-hate-word-speekers.
@ConfederateH;
What you are hoping to gain from reading and participating at IBS? I am not asking that facetiously.
There are lots of places on the internet where I can read almost verbatim the same types of comments you’re making in this thread – no ‘insights’ or analysis to be gleaned from reading them here. But they aren’t innocuous either, so ignoring or skipping over them feels like collusion. There are lots of other sites to choose from where you would be able to either find those who would agree with you, or those who might enjoy the opportunity to spend time and energy opposing your worldview. Why here though?
@ConfederateH
‘Did it ever occur to you that your ‘half first nations’ daughter-in-law’s ancestor might have been extreme racist…..’
Yes, in fact as a family we have had that conversation. At the very least, her ancestor was more than likely xenophobic when she/he first laid eyes on the English settler. However, my hope is that most people today are aware that racism is just not acceptable.
@Tiger: You’re a class act to keep your calm in the midst of the furor.
Petros, it might help if we could get that editorial policy up soon so everyone understands it.
On the topic of the “P” word, however, I checked it out through Wiktionary. The term is considered offensive in Britain, Canada and Australia. It “acquired offensive connotations in the 1960s when used by British
tabloids to refer to subjects of former colony states in a derogatory and racist manner.”
So, on this one, I think maybe Confederate truly didn’t know how offensive the “P” word is in some places.
But, on many of Confederate’s other points, race is completely irrelevant and, I believe, has no place in our discussions here. . Obama is not using the IRS and FATCA to terrorize “US persons” abroad because he is black any more than Carl Levin, Bob Casey and Charles Schulman are doing it because they are white.
I notice some of our long-time posters have not been commenting here recently. I hope this is because they may be on vacation and not because they have become so outraged at some of the comments posted they have decided to withdraw or retreat.
@Blaze, As far as I know, the only person no longer participating here is Sally, and she did that because of me not because Confederate, though Confederate’s liking my post may have contributed to her departure. Still, she didn’t like my post on the police beating and imprisonment of Robert Leone, despite my attempts to show how it related to the decay of basic rights and freedoms in the United States.