06 May 2010

the adventures of genghis yoo

[click image]

.
Yes, I'm afraid I may have settled on a new name for him.
US to expand Pakistan drone strikes
THURSDAY, MAY 06, 2010
16:07 MECCA TIME, 13:07 GMT

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been granted approval by the US government to expand drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions in a move to step up military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, officials have said.

Federal lawyers backed the measures on grounds of self-defence to counter threats the fighters pose to US troops in neighbouring Afghanistan and the United States as a whole, according to authorities.

The US announced on Wednesday that targets will now include low-level combatants, even if their identities are not known.

Barack Obama, the US president, had previously said drone strikes were necessary to "take out high-level terrorist targets".


CONFLICTING FIGURES

"Targets are chosen with extreme care, factoring in concepts like necessity, proportionality, and an absolute obligation to minimise loss of innocent life and property damage," a US counterterrorism official said. [Total bullshit]

But the numbers show that more than 90 per cent of the 500 people killed by drones since mid-2008 are lower-level fighters, raising questions about how much the CIA knows about the targets, experts said.

Only 14 of those killed are considered by experts to have been high ranking members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban or other groups.

"Just because they are not big names it does not mean they do not kill. They do," the counterterrorism official said.

The US tally of combatant and non-combatant casualties is sharply lower than some Pakistani press accounts, which have estimated civilian deaths alone at more than 600.

Analysts have said that accurately estimating the number of civilian deaths was difficult, if not impossible.
[Because, let's face it, if you won't count to begin with, estimates really are difficult, if not impossible.]

"It is unclear how you define who is a militant and who is a militant leader," Daniel Byman, a counterterrorism expert at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said. [And would because he is employed for the sole purpose of maximizing Muslim deaths and Middle East / Central Asian chaos.]

Jonathan Manes, a legal fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "It is impossible to assess the accuracy of government figures, unattributed to a named official, without information about what kind of information they are based on, how the government defines 'militants' and how it distinguishes them from civilians."

US MESSAGE

Former intelligence officials acknowledged that in many, if not most cases, the CIA had little information about those killed in the strikes.

Jeffrey Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St Mary's University, said the CIA's goal in targeting was to "demoralise the rank and file".
[Not to say demoralize everyone on earth.]

"The message is: 'If you go to these camps, you're going to be killed,'" he added.

Critics say the expanded US strikes raise legal as well as security concerns amid signs that Faisal Shahzad, the suspect behind the attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square on Saturday, had ties to the Pakistani Taliban movement, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
[They're using purported dud car bombs in New York to up drone strikes in Pakistan?]

CIA-operated drones have frequently targeted the group over the past year in Pakistan, and its members have vowed to avenge strikes that have killed several of their leaders and commanders.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's foreign minister, told CBS television channel that the US should not be surprised if anti-government fighters try to carry out more attacks.
[Brace yourself.]

"They're not going to just sit and welcome you to eliminate them. They're going to fight back," Qureshi said.
Yes, yes, I really think I have.
.

Except, both the New America Foundation and li'l ol' Wikipedia do not seem to have bought-in to this impossible-to-count business....

And, well, nobody could have imagined terrorists would fly planes into buildings either.

The great thing about pumping people with outrageous whoppers is that it completely snows dopes and people who aren't paying much attention; it flabbergasts those who are listening so flabbergastingly that they can do naught but be flabbergasted all over themselves and the rest of us, causing us to tune out and them to detonate; and, finally, it gives all those beleaguered journalists something to parrot where there'd be an embarrassment of facts to insert. This last leads to informed sorts writing interminable essays on the wrongness of the media types, and man's inhumanity to man, and paralyzing everyone with the enormity of it all.

Truth is: Even ONE slaughter by drone attack is unacceptable.
.

So it's Genghis Yoo, baby, not only from now on, but also retroactively. Having not only continued Dubya's policy of turning rural innocents into jam, but increased the frequency and ordered a shitload more, conquering hordes more, drones to get 'er done, and having not only continued John Yoo's policy of torturing the Constitution to an unrecognizable pulp, but actually raised this activity to high art, our president shall hereinafter be referred to as "Genghis Yoo".

At the rate he's going, we may have to give him a middle name like maybe "Madoff" or possibly just plain "Ponzi" or something....

Any suggestions?
.

5 comments:

  1. Look at yer email... or in my update. I found the foundation. It was a typo in the article. I'm sure of it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're on it!

    THANKS!

    XOXOXOX

    ReplyDelete
  3. I got sidetracked at Youtube - been all over the universe from deep space to Saturn's moons, to 2012 theories and then letting idiots know that what they are claiming to be UFOs are in fact lenticular clouds!

    I mean, if you are going to proclaim space lizards you better get it right!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, good! I never have the energy to tune up the seriously whacked out ones. I'm too busy trying to wrest some sense from it.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.