Doesn’t it make you feel more secure knowing that KPD employees are actually “alert” enough to recognize someone on their own “most wanted” list when that person shows up at the cop shop? Crackerjack police work! Now that’s for sure front page news!
Doesn’t it make you feel more secure knowing that in this time of economic hardships, with social programs being cut and local governments on the ropes, the feds are gonna spend $5 billion this year alone just to make sure we can still destroy the world many times over better than anyone else?
Secretary of State Clinton: “We intend to maintain a robust nuclear deterrent. Let no one be mistaken. The United States will defend ourselves and defend our partners and allies. We intend to sustain that nuclear deterrent by modernizing the existing stockpile. In fact, we have $5 billion in this year’s budget going into that very purpose. And with this emphasis on our nuclear stockpile and the stewardship program that we are engaged in, that we’ll be, you know, stronger than anybody in the world, as we always have been, with more nuclear weapons than are needed many times over, and so we do not see this as, in any way, a diminishment of what we’re able to do.”
You go, grrrrl! Don’t let anybody say you ain’t got balls!
Doesn’t it make you feel more secure knowing that Defense Secretary Robert Gates thinks the WikiLeaks video that showed an American helicopter crew firing on unarmed journalists and civilians in Iraq will not have any “lasting consequences” for our world image?
Whew. I thought for sure it might make other people — especially those whose countries we’re occupying — hate us even more. But then, if you’ve got more nukes than anybody else, and you’re willing to use them, who’s gonna say anything?
Oh, btw, the folks at WikiLeaks say Gates was lying when he claimed the crew was being fired upon and operating in “split-second situations.”
Doesn’t it make you feel more secure knowing that the young soldiers who are put in these situations, who are trained to dehumanize and are doing what they’re trained to do, who are troubled by the things they saw and did, come back to the U.S. all messed up? According to Josh Stieber, a veteran of that company:
And unfortunately, that’s what a lot of soldiers turn to when they get back, is alcohol or possessions or just something to try and push these to the back of their mind, rather than to try to address the system that put us in this situation and encouraged us to do these things.
Doesn’t it make you feel more secure knowing that American troops are making great strides in the “war on terror” by shooting up a passenger bus in Afghanistan? But it’s OK, because NATO “deeply regrets” it and promises a speedy investigation, which likely will be just as meaningful as the one that cleared the helicopter crew. Still, it did piss some folks off:
Hundreds of demonstrators poured into the area around a station where the damaged bus was taken on the western outskirts of Kandahar. They blocked the road with burning tires for an hour and shouted “Death to America” and “Death to infidels” while also condemning the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, according to people in the area.
Despite a drop in overall civilian deaths from American and NATO forces, checkpoint and convoy shootings have not declined, worrying commanders who believe such killings turn Afghans against the occupation. More than 30 people have been killed and 80 wounded in these cases since last summer, but not one of the dead was found to have been a threat, military officials say.
Oops. Yet we need to beef up security because we just can’t understand why anyone would want to engage in terrorism against the US of A.
When you are getting shot at, can't trust anyone non-Western, drinking alcohol, taking "speed" what ever to keep you awake and alert......your buddies shot or blown to bits....etc. They feel justified killing innocent children and women. War creates more killers not peace.
ReplyDeleteDr Freddy
Secretary of State Clinton: “We intend to maintain a robust nuclear deterrent. Let no one be mistaken. The United States will defend ourselves and defend our partners and allies. We intend to sustain that nuclear deterrent by modernizing the existing stockpile. In fact, we have $5 billion in this year’s budget going into that very purpose. And with this emphasis on our nuclear stockpile and the stewardship program that we are engaged in, that we’ll be, you know, stronger than anybody in the world, as we always have been, with more nuclear weapons than are needed many times over, and so we do not see this as, in any way, a diminishment of what we’re able to do.”
ReplyDeleteOne good quote deserves another...
Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill [American-born Islamic cleric Anwar] al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield. I wrote at length about the extreme dangers and lawlessness of allowing the Executive Branch the power to murder U.S. citizens far away from a battlefield (i.e., while they're sleeping, at home, with their children, etc.) and with no due process of any kind. I won't repeat those arguments -- they're here and here -- but I do want to highlight how unbelievably Orwellian and tyrannical this is in light of these new articles today.
Just consider how the NYT reports on Obama's assassination order and how it is justified:
The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday. . . .
American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate of the terror network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad, the officials said.
It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing, officials said. A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president. . . .
"The danger Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words," said an American official, who like other current and former officials interviewed for this article spoke of the classified counterterrorism measures on the condition of anonymity. "He’s gotten involved in plots."
No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that.
Instead, in Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America's newspapers -- cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they're granted -- to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist.
Full text at http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations
So does this mean he's going to give back his Peace Prize?