More Awesome Obama . . .

If I was trying to pull something over the readers, then I would NOT have voluntarily included this in my post:

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Granted, this isn't a powerful country who held this trial, and the conviction won't do much, and it's mostly symbolic... but it will send a clear message to the United States that it is not above international law.

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To paraphrase, you believe murdering one child CAN BE JUSTIFIED, IF, hundreds can be saved (when the results are certain).Yeah, I get it, we already went over this "Jack-Bauer-school-of-thought". Now back to the real life . . .Albright was "certain of the results" when she believed 500,000 children could be murdered to save millions.Hitler was "certain of the results" that murdering millions could be justified in saving tens of millions of Germans.REPEATED atom-bomb use was "certain of the results" that it would SAVE lives.And lastly, drone-missile use is "certain of the results" that it would also somehow SAVE lives.However, since certainty can NEVER be ascertained, then taking innocent lives can NEVER be justified.Yet, americans still believe that the use of drone missile attacks is justifiable. After ten years of war debacle in Afghanistan, what exactly has been certain? What has been justified? Is the "war on terror" or what-ever ridiculous term created by war criminal Bush Jr., and continued with Obama, being won?Please answer, if drone use in Afghanistan is so successful, why did Obama recently sign on to another ten years of occupation?Of all the quotes and links I ever posted, I think none are as powerful as the following: When considering taking lives, no result or trust should ever be so certain.Edited by dronester, : added Britney quote.

So, your example of a war tribunal which the US is above will send a clear message that the US is not above international law.
You are trying to make another funny, yes? Ah yes.
I had forgotten how you aren't able to actually form a cogent argument.Anyway - congratulations on failing to make a point.

"it's MOSTLY symbolic"Well, not ENTIRELY above international law. But, because of international law and the threat of being arrested for war crimes, Bush Jr. had to cancel a visit to Europe last year. Now it seems Bush Jr. won't be allowed to step foot in Malaysia (a major disappointment to a world explorer and humanitarian like Bush Jr., I'm sure).Yes, yes, I grant you, if the Hague had convicted Bush Jr. and Blair of war crimes, my evidence would be much stronger. As it is, my evidence is only slightly stronger (for now). If that is your point, then I concede.Regarding the "liberal" BBC: Sorry, off-topic.Edited by dronester, : clarity

Let's look at your claim: Which is then watered down by:

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Granted, this isn't a powerful country who held this trial, and the conviction won't do much, and it's mostly symbolic... but it will send a clear message to the United States that it is not above international law.

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And then finally:

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Well, not ENTIRELY above international law. But, because of international law and the threat of being arrested for war crimes, Bush Jr. had to cancel a visit to Europe last year. Now it seems Bush Jr. won't be allowed to step foot in Malaysia (a major disappointment to a world explorer and humanitarian like Bush Jr., I'm sure).

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So...a gesture made by 5 judges in a small country regarding the behaviour of Bush and Blair - which will have little to no effect on Bush or Blair - will inevitably lead to Obama's conviction as a war criminal?
No.Your logic is bizarre.
Your claim is nonsense. Good. We will leave them as being liberal then.

But that is real life, dronester. I think you're being too idealistic and ignoring some parts of reality that happen to be rather uncomfortable. In a previous post, I mentioned Joseph Kony - well-known genocidal monster, killer and rapist, who forces children to become soldiers and to commit sexual assault. I asked you what we should do in the hypothetical situation where an armed drone locates Kony and could kill him, ending his genocidal movement, but at the cost of some dozen or so children who will likely be killed along with him. This is a real world situation. This is not an idiotic plot from "24," for which you and I have equal disdain.I would take the shot. Even if it kills a dozen children, Kony will kill and abuse far more if allowed to live. I choose the path of least suffering, of least death, to the best of my ability. I would mourn the deaths of the children and even the death of Kony, because he is a person too, even though he has betrayed all notions of morality. But I would rejoice at the lives of all the children and adults who would not be killed, who would not be raped, who would not be forced to become child soldiers, because Kony would be dead.Certainly, I would prefer to bloodlessly capture Kony, disband his "army," provide humanitarian aid to his victims and rehabilitate them, and send Kony to the Hague for trial...but because that course of events is so unlikely as to be nigh impossible, I would settle for a Hellfire missile, because I would want to save as many of his victims, current and future, as is realistically possible.Would you choose differently? The quote you actually provided didn't include a statement of how many Albright thought would be saved, only that she felt the price was "worth it." You seem to have included the phrase "certain of the results" and the estimate of "millions" to be saved only as a specific reference to my words when I described a hypothetical situation. It would be best if you stuck with the facts - do you have a source that points to how many lives Albright actually believed would be saved? Because my initial guess is that Albright, along with other UN officials who signed on to the sanctions, simply counted Iraqi lives as less valuable than the lives of their own countrymen and soldiers; that to them, 500,000 Iraqi children was worth less than 1000 American Marines, and so sanctions were an easy way to "punish" Saddam Hussein without a cost that meant anything to them. That is, by the way, an attitude I find as disgusting as you do, dronester.While I am only barely aware of the sanctions that were placed on Iraq (having been a child at the time), my initial leaning is that those sanctions likely did cause significantly more harm than good - and therefore I would not support them. I don't think Hitler's rationalizations for the "Final Solution" had anything at all to do with saving the lives of non-Jewish Germans. He certainly did not regard a Jewish life to be equivalent to that of someone he actually considered a person. I don't think your words bear any resemblance to reality.But thanks to hindsight, you and I can be fairly certain of the results of a time-traveling assassination. If you had the ability to send an assassin to 1920 to kill Adolf Hitler before the Holocaust, would you? I;m not being rhetorical, I'd actually like an answer. I believe I've expressed my opinion on this matter, while you have never actually attempted to address any single point of mine with one of your own beyond a continued expression of outrage. If you'd like to actually discuss the use of nuclear weapons at the end of WWII, I'd be happy to do so, but not if you restrict yourself to sarcasm and snide remarks interspersed with contentless outrage. I've given a specific example of a hypothetical case where a drone strike could reasonably be expected to save significantly more lives than it would cost. Again, you're expressing outrage without actually addressing points. I'm entirely open to actual argument on this point, and if you believe that you have a solid reason that I should change my mind, I'd be very interested in hearing it, but I need solid reasoning and logic taking into account the moral implications of all potential actions and their consequences. Not, as you have thus far provided, solely sarcasm, snarky attitude, and outrage. Yet that's absurd, unless you really believe that it is immoral to ever go to war for any reason, for all war necessarily involves the deaths of innocents, even when the purpose of engaging in war is to prevent those same deaths. If the taking of innocent lives is never justified, then invading Germany in WWII was an immoral act, even though it ended the Nazi regime and their "Final Solution."If invading Germany in WWII was a moral act, then you already agree that there are some instances where the loss of innocent life is justified for a greater good.If you believe it was not a moral act because innocent lives can never morally be sacrificed, then you would prefer to live in a world where the Nazis won.There is a difference between "justifiable" and "justified." One conveys potential, while the other conveys actuality. I think that, as with many weapons, drone attacks can be justified when used appropriately. In an open battlefield, for instance, I don't think that the use of a drone to attack an enemy tank would be unjustified. In the case of potentially using a drone to kill Joseph Kony and stop his reign of terror, death, and rape, I think the use of a drone could be justified.Of those that have actually occurred, I am personally uncertain of whether or not many of them were actually justified, and in many cases I am fairly certain that they were not.Perhaps most troubling to me is the method by which the military identifies "militants" and "noncombatants." For example, all males of military age are counted as "militants" automatically. While I think that it may possibly be acceptable to use a drone in cases where innocent lives will be lost (if there is a reasonable degree of certainty that the price of inaction would be significantly more death), I find the inherent dishonesty in identifying someone as a "militant" and therefore not an innocent life in that calculation on the simple basis of gender and age to be reprehensibly dishonest. I think you and I both agree that the "war on terror" is just as ridiculous as the "war on drugs," and that both are examples of heavyhanded militarism causing more harm than the wrongs they are professed to right. I don't think that "winning in Afghanistan," whatever that would actually entail, is among the goals of the drone program. I don't think that question is particularly relevant to the situation, as I think the arguments for and against the use of drones would remain the same regardless of whether the US continue to occupy Afghanistan or not, regardless of whether the US "declares victory" in Afghanistan or not.

Huh?Since my claim started with a watered down assertion (which I needed to correct you twice):

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Granted, this isn't a powerful country who held this trial, and the conviction won't do much, and it's mostly symbolic.

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I don't see how you possibly thought it became even more watered down with subsequent posts. But, your reading comprehension was poor from the get-go. To repeat, I had to correct your misrepresentations TWICE in rapid succession. Your posts are usually better than this Panda, what's wrong? As I wrote before, Bush Jr.'s future plans to visit Europe HAVE BEEN and WILL BE effected. Hopefully with the Malaysian conviction, Bush Jr.'s future plans to Asia will also be effected. Again, I find that a pretty good start. Certainly more than "no effect".I believe with each small conviction comes the recognition that international law can work. Thus, an encouraging snowball of worldwide litigation against war criminals Bush Jr. and Blair is not only possible, but likely. It seems you find this outcome not only erroneous but also disdainful?You apparently pessimistically think the opposite: With each small conviction comes the recognition that international law can NEVER work. Thus, a growing snowball of worldwide litigation against war criminals Bush Jr. and Blair is thoroughly impossible, a fantasy.Do I have your mindset correct?Now, how about addressing:Not only didN'T president Obama assign investigators to Bush Jr.'s war crimes, President Obama ALSO went out of his way to PROTECT war criminal Bush Jr. . . .

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In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Departmentone of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaksdetails how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.

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Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe – Mother Jones Just trying to keep this thread on topic Daddi-O.

Make it two dozen and I'm with you! Hell why not three dozen? Or an entire village where we can kill peope of all ages...you know, so we can stop a "genocidal monster."You kill me, dude.What if the mission fails, and you don't kill him, but still killed a dozen kids... do you send another drone to try again and risk a dozen more kids? How many times do you try before you get it right? How many kid's lives are you willing to sacrifice until you kill the monster killing kids?- Oni

Murdering children is kinda like eating potato chips.Thanks Oni, that was one of the points I spectacularly failed to make in Message 62.(Glad to see ya around more often, but does that mean you are still working in NYC? I was just there this past weekend, I shoulda looked you up)Rahvin, will address your other points later, I've got a tight deadline today.Edited by dronester, : Rahvin . . .

Once you pop you can't stop! Duuuuddddeee, yes I'm here. Live here now and travel to Miami to see the family.Next time you're here send me a message.- Oni

How many of his victims are you willing to sacrifice, waiting for a better opportunity?That coin has two sides. Whether the drone strike is authorized or not, innocent lives are still being sacrificed. The only difference is who specifically pulls the trigger, and who allows the trigger to be pulled. If you pass up the opportunity, Kony gets more time with his army, causing yet more rape, more forced child soldiers, more killing. More death and suffering, for far more than another dozen children. Children that are sacrificed by the choice to pass up the opportunity to stop it, just as other children would be sacrificed in order to put an end to the inhumanity.There are no good choices. There are a series of bad choices, all of which involve varying degrees of death and suffering. Neither you, nor I, nor dronester thinks that killing children, even as collateral damage to kill Kony, is a good thing. Our job, as those responsible for the decision in the hypothetical scenario, is to choose the option that is least bad.In the end, I'm only concerned with how many die and how many are made to suffer. I want to choose the course of action that minimizes both. Do you think that not taking the shot in this hypothetical scenario would result in less death and suffering? Why, or why not?What would you do? As opposed to sarcasm and outrage - what actual choice would you make, given the Kony scenario? You know where he is. He's surrounded by his army, which includes children. He's continuing a campaign of rape and murder and child abuse. A drone is one option. A sniper or SEAL team could be sent, but your military advisers tell you that the chances for success are low, and that any team sent will likely be killed without completing the objective. You could do nothing, and simply let Kony do what he wants. Or you could take another option I haven't thought of. What would you do? I'd appreciate a serious response, because sarcasm, mockery, and outrage are unlikely to actually convince me of anything, and if there is a real logical and practical argument to never accept collateral damage I would very much like to hear it.

I just came across the following interesting article. All sources are given.Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch So... what Obama spending binge that people have been talking about?

Yes, the situation IS real life. Your proposed response is Hollywood. As I wrote before, a drone strike in a Hollywood script is 100% certain/accurate. In real life it is not 100% certain/accurate. I don't know why you don't understand this. Oni asks, what do you do when the missile murders a dozen children but misses the target? (Rahvin, as much as you are shaking your head about my responses, I am shaking my head about your mindset. We agree so broadly on so many issues, I remain incredulous that we are so far apart on this) No, but that wasn't my point.I tried to group war criminals justifications to show how morally bankrupt their actions were in taking lives to reach their goals. You thought a dozen childen lives were expendable, Eisenhower thought 100,000(?) children were expandable, Albright thought 500,000 children were expendable, Hitler thought millions of children were expendable. As Oni's post mocked, what criteria do you use to justify X number of children murdered and what happens when things don't work out as hoped? This is off-topic and I'm surely setting myself up to off-topic posts, but Hitler's constant quest for expansion was to safeguard the German race at the expense of non-Germans. But again, the example was to specifically show a bankrupt morality in justifying murder. Here is your answer: Because with hindsight we would be "certain of the results", of course yes. But you agree that time-traveling assassination is Hollywood fiction, right? Yes, I remain outraged that you would consider the senseless murder of innocent lives. In a long and detailed response that very well addressed MANY of your wrong points, I clearly indicated TWO MAJOR POINTS of my argument. TWICE. You've never responded to MY two major points. Even after Mod and Caffeine both intervened you still clung to your wrongheaded response. What ticks me off is when someone hypocritically claims I am doing the very thing they just done. Which leads me to . . . You have no credibility advising ME about contentless outrage after your tantrums in the "Romney the Bully" thread.Tells you what, you mind your Ps and Qs and I'll mind mine. As we both know, we are more often on the same side than opponents, this should encourage us to be civil. Review the fecal matter thrown at me on this thread, I think I am doing pretty good at holding my tongue, . . . errr, keyboard. C'mon Rahvin. Where do I begin, this is just dumb verbal acrobatics. Yes, in theory and in a Hollywood script they can be. But as you partly alluded, what is the criteria that Bush Jr. and Dick Chaney and Obama uses? And why in the world would you want someone like Bush Jr. to have such power? Rahvin, looked at the way you bumbled your responses to my questions. You have NO idea what "winning in Afghanistan," whatever that would actually entail," is. And yet you would justify the use of drones to achieve this non-expressable goal? Are you kidding me?Here are some more points you probably won't address:1. America does not provide any official information on local reports of civilian deaths or even identities. The drone user doesn't care who they murder. How does that sit with you?2. The UN questions the legality "Outside the context of armed conflict, "the use of drones for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal".3. International law experts condemn drones "Outside of war, the full body of human rights applies, including the prohibition on killing without warning." "It is a violation of fundamental human rights principles". Duh.4. How many friends or families of victims become moved to violent extremism in reaction to innocent lives lost via drone strikes? Drones have become successful recruiting device for "terrorists". How will America kill more "terrorists" than we create?5. What happens when other countries presidents decide they can also have full authorization? Luis Posada Carrilles, an American living in Miami, is a known terrorist convicted of masterminding a 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. Who would like to authorize Cuba to launch drone strikes against the USA? So what if the drone murders a few dozen American children as long as the drone kills Carrilles, right?6. From your post, . . . a criteria often used to determine drone strike risks is simply count all the all military age males in a strike zone as combatants. Wow.7. The Obama administration won't release copies of legal opinions regarding the use of drones. Again, I am floored that americans would trust and allow such secretive powers of premeditative assassination by presidents like Bush Jr. or other future retarded presidents. American silence allows these presidents to be prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. Rahvin, if you want to dismiss all of my post, I'd appreciate at least your comment on number 7 and Britney's quote. Please.

What is annualized growth of spending?These stupid charts can show anything... "Peek" for the links

If you had avoided quote-mining my response you will see that this will have little to no effect on Bush and Blair - particularly since there is no mention of Blair at all. Your beliefs about the future are illogical, unevidenced and unlikely.
You have no snowball of worldwide litigation.
It has been 9 years since the invasion and all you have is wishful thinking.So, in summary, there is no reason to expect Obama to be charged with being a war criminal.
You have found 5 judges* in Malaysia and grasped desperately at them as a sign of 'something to come'.
But even they didn't include Obama in their trial.It has been almost a decade since the invasion of Iraq and neither Bush nor Blair are convicted war criminals.
Your claim that Obama's conviction is "just a matter of time" is completely unsupported. * {abe: my mistake - they weren't all judges} Edited by Panda, : No reason given.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.