Cato Institute has just released a report along with an infographic (below) which illustrates what sort of impact we can expect on Pentagon spending if the sequester takes place. John McCain, supporters of the military industrial complex, and the more hawkish elements of the GOP are doing their best to scaremonger to stop the sequestration on national defense grounds. But as you can see, this is hardly a cause for alarm in terms of the military being able to defend against any kind of threat from a nation or terror group.
President Obama is really insulting the intelligence* of the American people acting as if he had nothing to do with the sequester he signed. In the SOTU he said congress “passed” the sequester. But as anyone who is old enough to remember School House Rock: “I’m Just A Bill” can attest, a bill doesn’t become a law without the president’s signature unless there are enough votes to override the veto.
Now personally, I am in favor of the sequester. The dire consequences President Obama are completely overblown. As Brad pointed out, we are talking about maybe 2% of this year’s budget. It’s very clear to me that for the most part, we are not dealing with serious people in neither the congress nor the Whitehouse.
That being said, it seems like everything President Obama says has an expiration date on it. It’s just too bad his policies don’t.
*Then again maybe not as more than half the American people approve of the job he is doing as POTUS. I’m not one of them.
Until yesterday, if someone asked me what I thought about Dr. Ben Cason, I would have had no idea who you were talking about. After listening to his speech (below) from the National Prayer Breakfast from a few days ago with President Obama just a few feet away, I thought this speech was too good not to share.
As an atheist, there were obviously some points I disagreed with. Theological disagreement notwithstanding, overall there was a great deal of wisdom in what he had to say about history, political correctness, personal responsibility, morality, education, healthcare, the national debt, and the tax code. There was easily more intelligent ideas being spoken here than last night’s State of the Union.
If you don’t watch any other part of this speech, start watching around the 18 minute mark where Dr. Carson talks about the immorality of class warfare the progressive tax code and watch the president’s face (spoiler alert: he doesn’t seem too amused). I honestly don’t know how this guy got in the room, much less had the opportunity to speak!
Are you or someone you know a victim of what Glenn Greenwald calls “the drone mentality”?
[Emphasis original]
I was predictably deluged with responses justifying Obama’s drone attacks on the ground that they are necessary to kill The Terrorists. Reading the responses, I could clearly discern the mentality driving them: I have never heard of 99% of the people my government kills with drones, nor have I ever seen any evidence about them, but I am sure they are Terrorists.That is the drone mentality in both senses of the word; it’s that combination of pure ignorance and blind faith in government authorities that you will inevitably hear from anyone defending President Obama’s militarism.
If you are or have been a victim of this mentality don’t feel bad. I was once a victim of this mentality myself. I once believed that the government was completely incompetent domestically but somehow very efficient in its execution of the so-called war on terror.
The article continues [Emphasis original]
As it turns out, it isn’t only the President’s drone-cheering supporters who have no idea who is being killed by the program they support; neither does the CIA itself. […] Obama’s broad standards for when drone strikes are permitted, and noted that the “bulk” of the drone attacks — the bulk of them – “target groups of men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren’t always known.” As Spencer Ackerman put it: “The CIA is now killing people without knowing who they are, on suspicion of association with terrorist groups”; moreover, the administration refuses to describe what it even means by being “associated” with a Terrorist group (indeed, it steadfastly refuses to tell citizens anything about the legal principles governing its covert drone wars).
Kill ‘em all, let [insert deity here] sort ’em out…is this the policy for combating terrorism now? Is anyone else reading this disturbed by this?
[T]he internal dissent [inside the U.S. government] is grounded in the concern that these drone attacks undermine U.S. objectives by increasing anti-American sentiment in the region (there’s that primitive, inscrutable Muslim culture rearing its head again: they strangely seem to get very angry when foreign governments send sky robots over their countries and blow up their neighbors, teenagers and children)[…] Remember, though: we have to kill The Muslim Terrorists because they have no regard for human life.
Nah, that can’t be it. They hate us because of our freedom. Just ask John Bolton, Rick Santorum, and the rest of the Neocons who are chomping at the bit to start a war with Iran.
How is it that this drone mentality persists and what is the cure?
This is why it’s so imperative to do everything possible to shine a light on the victims of President Obama’s aggression in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere: ignoring the victims, rendering them invisible, is a crucial prerequisite to sustaining propaganda and maintaining support for this militarism (that’s the same reason John Brennan lied — yet again — by assuring Americans that there are no innocent victims of drone attacks). Many people want to hear nothing about these victims — like Tariq — because they don’t want to accept that the leader for whom they cheer and the drone attacks they support are regularly ending the lives of large numbers of innocent people, including children. They believe the fairy tale that the U.S. is only killing Terrorists and “militants” because they want to believe it…
For far too long, I believed this fairy tale myself. I couldn’t handle the truth but I eventually saw the error of my thinking. Government is just as blunt an instrument on foreign battlefields as it is in virtually every domestic aspect of our lives but even more destructive and deadly.
How about you, can you handle the truth?
The truth (according to sources cited in the article) that between 2,359 and 2,959 people (nearly 200 of whom were children) have been killed in 306 documented drone strikes, 85% of which were launched during the administration of the Nobel Peace Prize winner President Barack Obama?
If you are willing to confront the drone mentality head on, I would strongly encourage you to read the rest of Greenwald’s article.
