Happy Face

And... It is nearly certain that we will endure, sooner rather than later, another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil. The blundering of our military into the Middle East; the failed states that have risen out of the mismanagement and chaos of Iraq and Afghanistan; the millions of innocents we have driven from their homes, terrorized or slaughtered; the bankrupt puppet regimes we have equipped and trained that will not fight; the massive amounts of munitions and military hardware we have allowed to fall into the hands of jihadisthousands of them carrying Western passports; and the myopic foreign policy whose single tenet is that more industrial violence will get us out of the morass created by our industrial violence in the first place means that we, like France, are in for it. All the major candidates for president, including Bernie Sanders, along with a media that is a shameless echo chamber for the elites, embrace endless war. Lost are the art of diplomacy, the ability to read the cultural, political, linguistic and religious landscape of those we dominate by force, the effort to dissect the roots of jihadi rage and violence, and the simple understanding that Muslims do not want to be occupied any more than we would want to be occupied. Another jihadi terrorist attack in the United States will extinguish what remains of our anemic and largely dysfunctional democracy. Fear will be even more fervently stoked and manipulated by the state. The remnants of our civil liberties will be abolished. Groups that defy the corporate stateBlack Lives Matter, climate change activists and anti-capitalistswill be ruthlessly targeted for elimination as the nation is swept into the Manichean world of us-and-them, traitors versus patriots. Culture will be reduced to sentimental doggerel and patriotic kitsch. Violence will be sanctified, in Hollywood and the media, as a purifying agent. Any criticism of the crusade or those leading it will be heresy. The police and the military will be deified. Nationalism, which at its core is about self-exaltation and racism, will distort our perception of reality. We will gather like frightened children around the flag. We will sing the national anthem in unison. We will kneel before the state and the organs of internal security. We will beg our masters to save us. We will be paralyzed by the psychosis of permanent war. In wartime, public discourse emits the insane sputterings of King Lear: Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill! Demagogues bellow for more bombs and more enemy corpses. The military and the war profiteers provide them. The public cheers on the slaughter. Victory is assured. The nation rejoices when the newest face of evil is eradicated. But when one face of evilSheikh Ahmed Yassin, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or Abdelhamid Abaaoudis exterminated, another swiftly rises to take his or her place. It is an endless and futile quest. Violence generates counterviolence. The cycle does not stop until the killing stops. All that makes us humanlove, empathy, tenderness and kindnessis dismissed in wartime as useless and weak. We revel in a demented hypermasculinity. We lose the capacity to feel and understand. We pity only our own. We too celebrate our glorified martyrs. We endow our sanctified dead with the lofty virtues and goodness that define our national myth, ignoring our complicity in perpetuating the ceaseless cycle of death. Our drones and airstrikes, after all, have decapitated far more people, including children, than Islamic State. Jihadis troll websites and the dingy corridors of housing projects outside French cities and in the slums of Iraqi cities looking for young people discarded by war and neoliberalism, just as Army recruiters sniff out our own discarded and dispossessed and send them off to fight. Disenfranchised youths, offered the illusion of heroism, glory and even martyrdom, promised a chance to be armed and powerful, are seduced by these scavengers. Hundreds of millions of people across the globe have been cast aside by globalization as human refuse. They are worth nothing to the corporate state. They are denied jobs, benefits, dignity and self-worth. They are easy prey for the siren calls of those for whom war is a lucrative business. They dress in uniforms. They surrender their individuality. They experience the intoxicating drug of violence. They assume a new identitythat of warrior. By the time they see through the illusions and lies, by the time they grasp how they have been used and betrayed, they are broken, maimed or dead. No matter. There are legions behind them waiting eagerly for their chance. We have lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq as a unified nation has been splintered into antagonistic and warring enclaves. It will never be reunited. We ensured that Iraq would become a failed state the moment we invaded and disbanded its army, police force and government bureaucracy, the moment we foolishly attempted to dominate the country by forceincluding our arming and organizing of Shiite death squads that carried out a reign of terror against the Sunnis. The Iraqi insurgents, al-Qaida and, later, Islamic State, easily recruited the masses of enraged dispossessed whose families have been torn apart since the 2003 invasion, whose childhoods have been colored by extreme poverty, fear, a lack of education and basic services and horrific acts of violence, and who correctly see no future under continued U.S. occupation. Islamic State now controls an area the size of Texas, carved out of the remnants of Syria and Iraq. All our air attacks will not drive it out. The situation is no better in Afghanistan. The Taliban controls more of Afghanistan than it did when we invaded 14 years ago. The puppet regime in Kabul we arm and support is hated, brutal, corrupt, involved in drug trafficking and crippled by cowardice. It is also heavily infiltrated by the Taliban. The Kabul regime will crumble the moment we depart. Trillions and trillions of dollars, along with hundreds of thousands of lives, have been squandered for nothing, even as climate change moves closer and closer to ensuring the extinction of the human species. We waded into conflicts we did not understand. We were propelled forward by fantasy. The occupation of Iraq was supposed to have seen us greeted as liberators. We planned to implant democracy in Baghdad and have it spread across the Middle East. We were fed the absurd promise that the oil revenues would pay for reconstruction. Instead, our folly spawned political, social and economic collapse, widespread poverty, massive displacement, misery and a rage that gave birth to radical jihadism in Iraq and throughout the region. The disintegration in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan has forced us to form a de facto alliance with Iran to battle Islamic State and the Taliban. This disintegration has upended our goal of overthrowing the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad. We now function, along with the Russians, as Assads surrogate air force. And because Hezbollah fighters, whom the United States and Israel condemn as terrorists and have vowed to destroy, are integrated into Assads army, we also serve as Hezbollahs surrogate air force. The Iraqi regime is dominated by the mullahs in Iran. The objectives used to justify these conflictsincluding the promise to root out radical jihadismhave all failed. In endless war, yesterdays enemies eventually become todays allies. This is a theme George Orwell captured in his dystopian novel 1984: This will not end well. The massive violence we employ throughout the Middle East will never achieve its goals. State terror will not defeat individual acts of terror. More and more innocents will be sacrificed, here and abroad, in a furious and futile campaign. Rage and collective humiliation will mount. As we continue to fail to blunt attacks against us, we will become more aggressive and more lethal. Internal enemiesespecially Muslimswill be demonized, endure hate crimes and be hunted down. The most tepid forms of criticism and dissent will be criminalized. We are hostages, like Israel, to an accelerating death spiral. Only when we are exhausted and depleted, when the numbers of dead and maimed overwhelm us, will this lust for blood end. By then the world around us will be unrecognizable and, I fear, irredeemable. http://m.truthdig.com/report/item/states_of_terror_20151122

I'm reminded of Stewart Lee's bit after 9/11 on being nostalgic for the old days of good honest British terrorism under the ira. "And let's be clear it WAS British" Anyway... https://medium.com/@MattBors/france-s-plan-to-defeat-isis-275899040b8f#.4cabgnoec

That boiler behind flashing a canny rack.

It begins... http://www.roughtrade.com/aoty15 Think Kamasi Washington was my favourite from those (that I heard) Think they've placed Kendrick Lamaar outside the top 10 to be different though. Expect it to top the vast majority of lists.

I think the cruise missile campaign that Clinton waged was probably based on far more trustworthy intelligence. I think it's that legwork which is imperative rather than the technology of the killing device. Obviously 9/11 predates drone strikes and the nutbags will be plotting against us as long as there's any western presence whatsoever, but there's an irony to calling it targeted killing when it's far less discriminate than it was in the 90s.

It's not a problem at all. You think that hitting a 16 year old lad with no connection to terrorism is either legitimate or an understandable mistake. I don't. You've shown you won't be convinced, no matter how I show people in the room justifying the target & the killing - "he should have had a more responsible dad". I'll not badger you, calling you an embarrassment or shameful for not being able to provide any justification for him being targeted or any evidence that another claimed target was supposed to be there. I'm not aware that i've misrepresented your view either. You rephrased a similar sentiment of your own, I made a distinction between the way you chose to express yourself in each instance. I've tried to move the debate on in good faith, provided other evidence to support the fact that the US doesn't even know WHO they're bombing, let alone being able to prove their links to terrorism. Drone operators have told us this. Leaked official documents have also "described SIGINT capabilities in these unconventional battlefields as “poor” and “limited.” Yet such collection, much of it provided by foreign partners, accounted for more than half the intelligence used to track potential kills in Yemen and Somalia". In 12 years, over about 400 documented drone attacks in Pakistan only 52 named targets have been killed from 3341 deaths. 1.6%. THAT is the reality. I'm not misrepresenting it and I'm not disconnected from it. It's entirely your choice how you interpret these facts. I've said there is no comparison between terrorism and state military overreach. That's just basic asymmetric warfare. It's clear that the "targeted killing" program has very few known targets though.

Random people ARE getting killed. The Alwaki were only high profile as US citizens This will help you quantify the number of named targets the US is killing compared to the volume of strikes. http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/index.html

See the 4 former bug zappers that have come out with an open letter to Obama on it http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/obama-drone-war-isis-recruitment-tool-air-force-whistleblowers

If they don't know ANYTHING about their targets, then yes, you can legitimately claim that they don't KNOW they're innocent. You see the problem with how you've rephrased your position though right? Again, watch those fat fingers of yours don't accidentally dial up anyone that's being monitored by Mi6, one visit to Nigeria and you could be toast.

I thought your position was that western aggression is morally superior in that there's always a legitimate target. I assumed you must have some intimate knowledge of the targeting process to make that claim. But if a drone program is being targeted at a sim card whose owner isn't even known let alone their actions or intentions, based solely on algorithms and metadata, then isn't that the deliberate targeting of a citizen?

I haven't attributed it to you. It is the way that drone strikes are done. See my earlier post about signature strikes Vs Personality Strikes. Metadata is used to decide on targets rather than names and evidence of involvement. https://theintercept.com/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/ My point being, even if Alwaki Junior was a terrorist mastermind and entirely legitimate, there's a large proportion of strikes where they don't even know the name of the target, so how can you be sure of the validity of such a target.

I don't think it shows my bias. I think it shows how the story developed. When he was killed there was a lot of talk of it being an accident, that al-banna was the target, that the 16 year old was collateral damage, awful mistake and that. There were also evidence free articles claiming that he was a legitimate Al Qaeda target craving martyrdom. The fact you've gone with referencing both, which can't both be true, shows you have no idea of the truth, so the initial propaganda did it's job. Conflicting stories like that are a classic sign of wrong doing being suppressed. But then the story developed. The CIA said Al-Banna wasn't even on their kill list. JSOC won't say if they were involved. Either way Al-Banna wasn't even there, and he was (is 4 years) still alive. As the claims kept conflicting and being disproved they were left with little to hang their claims on and ultimately Gibbs was left to make the only defence he could, the kid should have had a more responsible father... That suggests they knew who he was and he was targeted for the actions of his father. There is still no official story. I'll bow to your opinion that this was a legitimate mistake if you like. Can you explain why you believe all drone strikes have legitimate targets when many strikes occur without even knowing the name of the target?

you've clearly not even read my post where I refer to those supposed links.

4 points worse off than from the same games last season.

Why would I quote the unnamed source speaking anonymously to defend his old boss? I place more faith in the named source admitting wrong doing with no reason to do so. Anonymous US officials also excused the action by referring to him as a “military-aged” male. Some reports intimated that he was an Al Qaeda supporter. Both wrong. But we don't need to guess as to the reasons an unknown target might end up dead. It's been outlined. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-glyn-williams/nside-the-murky-world-of-_b_3367780.html This outline pre-dates the Snowden revelations though. We now know that drone strikes are based on meta-data. Targets aren't un-named individuals that have been observed associating with other terrorists. They're numbers on a screen... http://www.infowars.com/new-whistleblower-reveals-nsa-picking-drone-targets-based-on-bad-data-death-by-unreliable-metadata/ So be careful that your fat fingers don't mis-dial a terrorist.

What are you seeing? "John Brennan, at the time President Obamas senior adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security, "suspected that the kid had been killed intentionally" Brennan alsi said the kid shouldn't have had the dad he had.

They aren't random, but they are innocent. Obama knew Al Awaki's son had done nowt. Just killed him in case.

You'd think, except for the clear documented cases where they have, then shrugged their shoulders and said tough shit.

Is that right though, given the ample examples?

It goes without saying that ISIS are not rational actors who wouldn't think twice about launching a nuke. Obama would think twice. Bush, just launched a bombing campaign to replicate the impact of a nuclear bomb but without the stigma.

What should also be remembered is that the drone program is now a direct replacement for Guantanamo. Previously the US wanted to get whatever information they could from Jihadis. This led to torture and all that and now the policy is to kill rather than capture as it's too difficult politically to capture. Much easier to kill them. Guantanamo numbers give a pretty good indication of how many of these "legitimate" targets are actually as innocent as the other citizens killed along with them. https://www.aclu.org/infographic/guantanamo-numbers 92% of those imprisoned were ultimately found not to be Al Qaeda. 662 of 779 have been released without charge, before you look at those still imprisoned without charge, cleared for release with nowhere to go. The drone operators call it bug swatting. No due process, no investigation, just kill them all, in case.

Not only have they ordered exactly that sort of slaughter, they have also changed the definition of a combatant to encompass any military aged male where their bombs land so that they can point to them as successful hits. Another specific example? They slaughterd a 16 year old American citizen with no links to terrorism (Abdulrahman al-Awlaki) - as well as anyone in his vicinty - then said he should have had a more responsible dad.

I've given many examples of the acts of western aggression in the middle east that HAVE targeted citizenry exclusively, from indiscriminate shock and awe to massacres in multiple villages. Where drone and military strikes do have a belligerent target, the impression I get fromm your argument is that there is a justification where the terrorist has none, but the Geneva convention is unequivocal in saying that it's a war crime to attack a hospital. The difference is that neither me, or Gemmill or Aimad or NJS are making any attempt whatsoever to defend anything about Paris, we've only ever discussed motives. I think we're all surprised that you would try to defend attacks on innocent citizens in the middle east with any justification.

You also have to wonder about the morality of telling your citizens: "there hasnt been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities weve been able to develop." (John O. Brennan) When the drone papers leaked by people within the CIA who don't like the program showed 90 percent of people killed in recent drone strikes in Afghanistan "were not the intended targets" of the attacks and Brennan knew it, as they all did. So, if you think either can be labelled in any way moral, or that you can quantify the morality, the best you can say is that the western attacks are 90% as immoral.

What was "shock and awe" about from it's very conception? It's authors had the stated aim "to achieve a level of national shock akin to the effect that dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese" Haditha, Nisour Square, Dasht-i-Leili, Shinwar, Panjwai ...