The "lesser evil" adds 9 more women and children to his body count

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Friday April 22, 2011 · 10:09 AM PDT

2011/04/22 · 10:09

At least 25 people have been killed in a US drone strike in the troubled Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan, officials told the BBC.
Missiles were fired on a large compound in the town of Spinwam, but five women and four children in a nearby house were also killed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...

HopeNope

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Wednesday April 13, 2011 · 7:46 AM PDT

2011/04/13 · 07:46

Sometimes I wonder if the dwindling band of Obama's remaining supporters ever find it difficult to reconcile their image of him as a brilliant, Harvard-educated professor with his dumber-than-a-box-of-Palins negotiating strategies - i.e. "You want $30 billion in cuts? Here's $40 billion."

But as Glennzilla demonstrates at length, and with merciless clarity, no reconciliation is necessary once you accept the obvious truth that the President's negotiating aims are not the same as ours.

Conventional D.C. wisdom -- that which Obama vowed to subvert but has done as much as any President to bolster -- has held for decades that Democratic Presidents succeed politically by being as "centrist" or even as conservative as possible. That attracts independents, diffuses GOP enthusiasm, casts the President as a triangulating conciliator, and generates raves from the DC press corps -- all while keeping more than enough Democrats and progressives in line through a combination of anti-GOP fear-mongering and partisan loyalty.

http://www.salon.com/...

[Emphasis added. Note how many valid criticisms of the administration will be met with nothing more substantial than "Enjoy President Trump/Palin/Bachmann!".]

HopeNope

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Thursday March 31, 2011 · 9:31 AM PDT

2011/03/31 · 09:31

A shocking piece of contempt for democracy and the constitution from the secretary of state:
The White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a classified briefing to House members Wednesday afternoon ...Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who asked Clinton about the War Powers Act during a classified briefing, said Clinton and the administration are sidestepping the measure's provisions giving Congress the ability to put a 60-day time limit on any military action.

That's a gauntlet for anyone left in the Congress not in thrall to the emperor's growing power-grab. I fear, as Yglesias notes, that the Congress doesn't even want to exercize its powers or even go on the record ... because they're a bunch of pansy-ass losers. But I hope that some of them actually care about the Constitution (hello, Tea Party!) and fight back. If the Obama administration is refusing even to abide by the War Powers Act, then the Congress really needs to vote to defund their adventurism at least or impeach them if it comes to that. Going to war outside even the War Powers Act qualifies as an impeachable offense, it seems to me.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/...
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Words missing from the "Let's have a war" speech

HopeNope

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Monday March 28, 2011 · 8:12 PM PDT

2011/03/28 · 20:12

"Civil war"
"Exit strategy"

"Cost to the taxpayers"

http://firedoglake.com/...

Poll

3 votes Show Results

With the CIA's thumbs in the Libyan freedom pie...

3 votes Vote Now!

With the CIA's thumbs in the Libyan freedom pie...

Huzzah, victory is assured!

2 votes

I don't know, Davey...

1 vote

So when does the UN sanction force against us?

HopeNope

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Friday March 18, 2011 · 4:17 PM PDT

2011/03/18 · 16:17

Several missiles fired from American drone aircraft on Thursday struck a meeting of local people in northwest Pakistan who had gathered with Taliban mediators to settle a dispute over a chromite mine. The attack, a Pakistani intelligence official said, killed 26 of 32 people present, some of them Taliban fighters, but the majority elders and local people not attached to the militants.
The civilian death toll appeared to be among the worst in the scores of strikes carried out recently in Pakistan’s tribal areas by the C.I.A., which runs the drones. Local residents and media reports said as many as 40 people had been killed in all, though the intelligence official disputed that.

The Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, issued an unusual and unusually strong condemnation of the attack. “It is highly regrettable that a jirga of peaceful citizens, including elders of the area, was carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard to human life,” the statement said.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

HopeNope

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Thursday March 17, 2011 · 7:07 PM PDT

2011/03/17 · 19:07

As the Peace Laureate prepares to undertake a 5th war, let's check in and see how the current four are going.

WAR #1: IRAQ

Stifled by tight security but met with far less bloodshed than the week before, thousands of people swarmed to protests Friday across Iraq to call for better public services and more accountable politicians.
The demonstrations went ahead despite curfews and bans on vehicle movement in major cities such as Baghdad, the capital, and Basra. But the gatherings were smaller than similar rallies the previous week, which saw more than a dozen people killed in clashes with security forces.

http://articles.latimes.com/...

HopeNope

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Friday February 11, 2011 · 6:23 PM PST

2011/02/11 · 18:23

Looking as glum as a homeowner confronted with a surprise balloon payment, Barack Obama faced the cameras. And with a shamelessness impressive even by his standards, he spoke the following words:

For an Egypt, it was the moral force of non-violence -- not terrorism, not mindless killing -- but non-violence, moral force that bent the arch of history toward justice once more.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/...

This man dares speak of "the moral force of non-violence"?

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The "lesser evil" adds 9 more women and children to his body count

Greenwald destroys the "bad negotiator" myth

Sully uses the "I" word

Words missing from the "Let's have a war" speech

So when does the UN sanction force against us?

How are Obama's current wars going?

Obama dares speak of "the moral force of non-violence"?