• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Why hasn't Obama's 'KIll List' been an issue in debates?

VanceMack said:
Because most republicans dont have a problem with it and most democrats only care about stuff like that when it is a republican president. As an argument, it would gain no traction...same with the expanded use of black ops prisons, reversing decisions on civilian trials of terrorists and granting them constitutional rights, expanding the patriot acts powers, etc.
Click to expand...

most democrats understand that as the leader of a country and the head of the military any person would keep lists of threats and targets for their military and foreign forces. The people who think there shouldn't be one are unrealistic pacifists who think everyone should dance around and hug people. Now it is not horrible to work on ending violence in the world, but to completely avoid strategic information like important leaders of very real enemies of your country would be downright negligent. the people who think that it is wrong are stupid people who are neither democrat or republican. They are like the dolts in PETA and are pacifist morons who are more dangerous to themselves and others than any good they do. No Obama never made any promises to those people to be a pacifist and not keep america safe from those who would attack it by laying down all weapons and opening up the US to attack to appease the pacifists. there was never a claim to do such things, though the republicans love to say there was. At best obama claimed to try and bring us out of the wars we were in, but he never claimed he would do it all all costs.

Like always republican distortion of reality is making a stupid issue. Especially when you consider the republicans should have no problem with Obama keeping america safer by focussing on primary enemies of the US. I think the only mistake obama made was the declaration that he was going to make effort to close military prisons for foreign combatants while the wars were going on. Simply they are part of the war, and they are not american citizens who have the same rights and position as american citizens. I always thought that claim was naieve and I am glad that when he got into office he made an attempt to do something about it and learned you simply cannot treat foreign war prisoners under the same laws and rules as you treat US citizens with. They do not live in this country, and our domestic laws simply do not apply to them. He seems to understand much better his position as commander in cheif of a nation at war. Since putting them back into their positions would only lead to them again organizing attacks on the US and make the war worse there is no reason to release them until their countries will do something aside from assist them in making plans to attack the US. Peaceful countries do not do or allow that. If we found US citizens buying weapons in an attempt to attack the UK or it's citizens our authorities would do something about it. Very simply the countries these people live in support and allow them to plot against the US and for that they cannot be allowed to return to those places until the fighting is over.

Yes, that last part does go against Obama's past promises, and it is one of the promises I disagreed with and am happy he did not keep. If he wants to treat them better and end the torture or enhanced interrogation techniques I am cool with that, but I have always been realistic about the war. one of my disagreements with bush was that he half assed the war when he decided to get into it and that prolonged what should have been a quick and decisive victory into the bull**** we are still in today. If we were going to do all this **** we should have done like we did with japan in ww2. We should have hit them hard and wiped out every bit of opposition or ability to make future war and then helped to rebuild them with their own resources. We could have secured the country much better than we did with bush in charge. yeah, they still would have hated us for years, but those scars would heal and we could have rebuilt them into something better rather than giving it over to greedy contractors and all this other bull**** and letting them sink down into what they were before we wasted all that money.
 
rathi said:
If Romney offered an alternative policy, it would actually be an important discussion. Despite all the manufactured outrage, Romney and Obama get on fine on plenty of issues, many of which unfortunately are terrible for the American people. All I can is condemn Obama, I can actually vote for a better solution.

The problem with the current policy is that drone strikes can be ordered in secret with no trial, due process or oversight. The President could kill a completely innocent American citizen and there would be no recourse or accountability. There absolutely needs to be a legal process with checks and balances for something as serious as ordering the death of an American citizen, its right there in the 5th amendment.
Click to expand...

hex though reason, back to thee non-partisan abyss with you foul demon~!!!
 
RenoCon said:
No one has made an issue out of this because the lame press would not want to do anything to discredit the "chosen one."
Click to expand...

Yes, i have noticed how fox news has never said a bad word about obama. They never make an issue out of things he does that their people also do. Please, don't blame the media on this idiocy, it just makes you look silly considering fox is one of the biggest news sources out there despite how crappy they are.
 
tererun said:
the deck of cards was a pictoral list of the prime targets in the war. it is the same as a kill list for the troops. if you see this guy kill him, or if you see him dead report it. it was made into a deck of cards to soften it's appearance as a list of prime targets. Please, stop playing stupid word games. We know that every president and world military leader keeps a strategic list of targets or threats. Yes bush had one, and yes every leader has one and every realistic person expects their leaders to have one. Please stop making the implication that somehow this is different for Obama than it was for bush. That is just an attempt to misrepresent reality. If you say there are reasons to dislike obama than go find them, don't make up **** because you can't find a real reason.
Click to expand...

I am not "playing stupid word games." The deck of cards were a deck of wanted posters.
 
tererun said:
If we were going to do all this **** we should have done like we did with japan in ww2. We should have hit them hard and wiped out every bit of opposition or ability to make future war and then helped to rebuild them with their own resources.
Click to expand...

We should have nuked Iraq?
 
tererun said:
most democrats understand that as the leader of a country and the head of the military any person would keep lists of threats and targets for their military and foreign forces. The people who think there shouldn't be one are unrealistic pacifists who think everyone should dance around and hug people. Now it is not horrible to work on ending violence in the world, but to completely avoid strategic information like important leaders of very real enemies of your country would be downright negligent. the people who think that it is wrong are stupid people who are neither democrat or republican. They are like the dolts in PETA and are pacifist morons who are more dangerous to themselves and others than any good they do. No Obama never made any promises to those people to be a pacifist and not keep america safe from those who would attack it by laying down all weapons and opening up the US to attack to appease the pacifists. there was never a claim to do such things, though the republicans love to say there was. At best obama claimed to try and bring us out of the wars we were in, but he never claimed he would do it all all costs.

Like always republican distortion of reality is making a stupid issue. Especially when you consider the republicans should have no problem with Obama keeping america safer by focussing on primary enemies of the US. I think the only mistake obama made was the declaration that he was going to make effort to close military prisons for foreign combatants while the wars were going on. Simply they are part of the war, and they are not american citizens who have the same rights and position as american citizens. I always thought that claim was naieve and I am glad that when he got into office he made an attempt to do something about it and learned you simply cannot treat foreign war prisoners under the same laws and rules as you treat US citizens with. They do not live in this country, and our domestic laws simply do not apply to them. He seems to understand much better his position as commander in cheif of a nation at war. Since putting them back into their positions would only lead to them again organizing attacks on the US and make the war worse there is no reason to release them until their countries will do something aside from assist them in making plans to attack the US. Peaceful countries do not do or allow that. If we found US citizens buying weapons in an attempt to attack the UK or it's citizens our authorities would do something about it. Very simply the countries these people live in support and allow them to plot against the US and for that they cannot be allowed to return to those places until the fighting is over.

Yes, that last part does go against Obama's past promises, and it is one of the promises I disagreed with and am happy he did not keep. If he wants to treat them better and end the torture or enhanced interrogation techniques I am cool with that, but I have always been realistic about the war. one of my disagreements with bush was that he half assed the war when he decided to get into it and that prolonged what should have been a quick and decisive victory into the bull**** we are still in today. If we were going to do all this **** we should have done like we did with japan in ww2. We should have hit them hard and wiped out every bit of opposition or ability to make future war and then helped to rebuild them with their own resources. We could have secured the country much better than we did with bush in charge. yeah, they still would have hated us for years, but those scars would heal and we could have rebuilt them into something better rather than giving it over to greedy contractors and all this other bull**** and letting them sink down into what they were before we wasted all that money.
Click to expand...
:lamo Yeah...no democrats soiled themselves when Bush was doing the same thing Obama is doing. And lets be fair...just as many republican hacks whine and cry when Obama does the same things Bush did. But thats kinda the point. Bush/Obama...kinda...the same.
 
ecofarm said:
We should have nuked Iraq?
Click to expand...

Not nuked but sent a much larger and better equipped force there to sweep the country and lock down the conquered areas. We ran the war like we ran things in vietnam. We were better prepared for the battle, but we still ****ed around and did not fully commit to conquering the country. Conquer the country, get their complete surrender, dismantle their military and install our own long term forces while we rebuild them. it is expensive, it will cost millions more than we put into it, and we would be in there for many years while their locals resented the hell out of us. We also could have used their resources to rebuild them, created a new market, and had a strategic post right in the middle east protected by our armed forces. Over the next few decades we could have created a sympathetic government and a defense force like we did with japan. That is what a real war does.

This is stupid. We spent years there, lost a number of lives, spent billions of dollars, and now are leaving it up to the forces in the area and there is just going to be the same old fighting there again until some warlord gains power and takes over the country. If all we were in there to do was to topple saddam's army we could have killed him without taking ever the country. We could have done what we did in libya and supported a revolution, helped wack his ass, and not have to worry about rebuilding the place. Instead, we toppled Saddam, pissed money away on poorly regulated contractors who didn't rebuild a damn thing, risked more soldiers lives by making them a police force with no law backing them, and we have the same **** today we had before the war. george bush Sr. had it right when he took back kuwait and stopped. Let them revolt and take back their country because they were never going to regard us as their ally if they were not a part of it. this way we are just invaders and no one likes us.

i think obama was right to regard it as an utter failure in that we would have had to step up the war much further to accomplish something, and we simply have no reason to have been there in the first place. Bill Clinton did the right thing by surgically striking arms plants in the area. if we are going to screw around with iran that is exactly how we should do it. Find the places where their technology is, bomb the hell out of the so called asperin factory or whatever they want to call it, and cripple them with sanctions while we do it. less lives lost, less money spent, and we do not have to rebuild the country with a bunch of people who resent us.
 
for some reason I would expect Tererun to have a whole new take on these positions the next time a republican is in office
 
PeteEU said:
Because... its a GOP idea.

Bush started it... and Romney would most likely have one as well if he gets elected.
Click to expand...

I hope he does.
Drones are a wonderful thing. The next best thing to being invisible.
Let the terrorists live with the knowledge they're going to die.
I like it.

What's the old saying... "Wanted Dead or Alive".
Alive is far more difficult than dead, and with "dead" we don't have to risk American lives.
That's Vunderful.
 
Last edited:
the_recruit said:
Now i'm confused. You don't have a problem with killing the people on the list? You only have a problem with accidentally killing other people who are not on the list?
Click to expand...

That's not what I said. I said I'm pleased he's dead. That's not the same thing as saying I'm okay with extra-judicial killings. I'm aware that they have always, and will always go on, I'm concerned with the scale and form of the way these are being done and the quantity of innocent people blown away as 'collateral damage' in these drone attacks. I'm also concerned that a supposedly liberal president doesn't seem to be concerned about the use of inaccurate drones for carrying out these raids.
 
VanceMack said:
Because most republicans dont have a problem with it and most democrats only care about stuff like that when it is a republican president. As an argument, it would gain no traction...same with the expanded use of black ops prisons, expanding the patriot acts powers, etc.
Click to expand...

Yes, much as it pains me to agree, I think that's true.
 
tererun said:
Obama never claimed to be a pacifist as you imply, and as the commander of an army in a war it is only right he keeps track of prime targets of the enemy even if he is planning on winding down and ending the wars. your idea that somehow he went against his claims is absulute bull and a complete fabrication. He came into the position as a president in war and handled it the way any president would, and the way any president in his position would have been expected to. Any pacifist idiot who thinks he was not going to handle US obligations set forth by the previous administration and turn this into some ill prepared country is living in the same fantasy land you seem to be.

Go get a real point.
Click to expand...

I never said nor assumed he was a pacifist. I thought that he would do what he said he would do in his election campaign. This is the president who said:

Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And during this season of fear, too many of us -- Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists, and citizens -- fell silent....

We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability. For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass.
Click to expand...
Remarks by the President On National Security, 5-21-09 | The White House

How does the extension of the extra-judicial drone attacks with their inevitable collateral damage and the failure to close Gitmo sit with these statements? And what oversight is being applied to the President's decisions. It's certainly not coming from representative such as Wasserman Schultz.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom