td11 wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:I'm tired of arguing with a brick wall. Someone tell me about today's unemployment numbers beyond the raw 7.7% number. What about the other measurements? Are they as promising?

246K jobs added (yay), 100k dropped out of workforce (wah), and last month revised down to 117k. LT unemployed went from 37% of the unemployed to 40%. the 246k number is better than expected

So a mixed bag then. Dang. Based on my Twitter feed, I was hoping that the numbers were happy across the board. And that's without sequester job loss numbers slamming the economy at some point. We're going to get crushed here in Virginia, but we're far from the only state.

allentown wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

allentown wrote:I think it is directly on point as to why your example was a bad example. You confuse the rules of criminal prosecution/justice with the rules of warfare. The guy in Yemen was clearly an enemy combatant according to the law of war.

You haven't convinced me that it's me who is confused

Well then, why are you comparing the targetting of terrorists to the case of a domestic criminal? What point are you trying ot make with that comparison? How does the legal model possibly apply to a terrorist operating in a portion of Yemen outside the control of the government of Yemen?

atown, it's you who is concerned about 'true' combatants. I'm more interested in the stateside use of sanctioned murder powers, where matters are relatively more ambiguous.

On the matter of comparisons, I feel like you're inverting the critical concerns. It's not use in war that is of moment; it's use of drones - and more generally, the "state-sanctioned murder" power - on US citizens, in the US.

Some here are content to assume some sort of post-event audit is satisfactory; "hey, relax, no official's gonna go all "full Cheney off his heart meds" on suspicious US citizens", "only real enemies contemplating or doing real deeds would be targeted, we can confirm that later", etc.

My interest is that the act itself seems constitutionally problematic - that there's not a 'natural' operational solution to the larger question. My feeling is a superior operational response might take shape from a careful unpacking of the constitutional issues. RPF has done us all a service by sharing some traces of theory and practice that would probably be part of any such examination of constitutional issues.

The bigger issue remains of course that a nation-state waging war on a concept rather than another nation-state is a matter rife with constitutional ambiguities. The legitimacy of a powerful institution, and especially its executive agents, busying itself/themselves with exterminating ruffians of indeterminate affiliation, in contrast to its mounting of armies against the forces of other nation-states, quickly gets dicey, legally - constitutionally - and extra-legally. Another level of dicey is reached when they've got some citizenship tie to the exterminating entity. It's naive to imagine whatever accommodations have been reached to date resolves all ambiguity about these things.

Well said, smooth.

drsmooth wrote:

allentown wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

allentown wrote:I think it is directly on point as to why your example was a bad example. You confuse the rules of criminal prosecution/justice with the rules of warfare. The guy in Yemen was clearly an enemy combatant according to the law of war.

You haven't convinced me that it's me who is confused

Well then, why are you comparing the targetting of terrorists to the case of a domestic criminal? What point are you trying ot make with that comparison? How does the legal model possibly apply to a terrorist operating in a portion of Yemen outside the control of the government of Yemen?

atown, it's you who is concerned about 'true' combatants. I'm more interested in the stateside use of sanctioned murder powers, where matters are relatively more ambiguous.

On the matter of comparisons, I feel like you're inverting the critical concerns. It's not use in war that is of moment; it's use of drones - and more generally, the "state-sanctioned murder" power - on US citizens, in the US.

Some here are content to assume some sort of post-event audit is satisfactory; "hey, relax, no official's gonna go all "full Cheney off his heart meds" on suspicious US citizens", "only real enemies contemplating or doing real deeds would be targeted, we can confirm that later", etc.

My interest is that the act itself seems constitutionally problematic - that there's not a 'natural' operational solution to the larger question. My feeling is a superior operational response might take shape from a careful unpacking of the constitutional issues. RPF has done us all a service by sharing some traces of theory and practice that would probably be part of any such examination of constitutional issues.

The bigger issue remains of course that a nation-state waging war on a concept rather than another nation-state is a matter rife with constitutional ambiguities. The legitimacy of a powerful institution, and especially its executive agents, busying itself/themselves with exterminating ruffians of indeterminate affiliation, in contrast to its mounting of armies against the forces of other nation-states, quickly gets dicey, legally - constitutionally - and extra-legally. Another level of dicey is reache when they've got some citizenship tie to the exterminating entity. It's naive to imagine whatever accommodations have been reached to date resolves all ambiguity about these things.

I also have concerns about stateside murder powers, but the bulk of my discussion was aimed at Pacino and his stance about drone strikes against enemy combatants in war zones. My comments on murder powers inside the US is that we have that today with police and FBI snipers and police shooting guys at a distance many times because they think they have something in their hand. I'm not sure why the concern arises with our national security officials, but not with the police/FBI. A lot of these shootings in these siege-type situations occur under circumstances when judicial review is at least as feasible as in the case of an imminent terrorist attack -- Waco, for example.

To your latter comment, nation states need a way of dealing with these out-of-uniform fighters. They very frequently are simply another means of combat waged as proxies for nation states. If we use judicial process to make ourselves incapable of defending against such out-of-uniform attack, then use of such proxies will become an increasingly used weapon of choice by opposing nation states. When the nations we are squared up against include Iran and North Korea, this is a very real possibility.

When will I be able to use a drone to go deer hunting or to defend my house from the commies that are massing over the horizon?

Hugo Chavez joins Lenin, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Ho Chi Minh, Fernando Marcos and Mao as world leaders to be embalmed and placed on permanent display

Feel like there's a clever caption waiting to be written about this. but I don't know what it is so I'll just say "boobs". Also, why is that guy wearing a jetpack?

jerseyhoya wrote:Hugo Chavez joins Lenin, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Ho Chi Minh, Fernando Marcos and Mao as world leaders to be embalmed and placed on permanent display

I have this weird feeling it won't be permanent-permanent, if you get my meaning.

Possibly of interest to Paul and anybody else who enjoyed the underground-ish music of the '80s: I tried to get into an argument with Billy Bragg on Twitter about Chavez. In response to a tweet that Chavez was an anti-Semite, he wrote something like "He was critical of Israel's government. That doesn't make him an anti-Semite."
My response: "You're correct. That he persecuted Venezuelan Jews is what makes him an anti-Semite."

edit: I actually owe thanks to Wizlah for this--if he didn't re-tweet Billy Bragg opining about Chavez, I wouldn't have seen any of his attempts to defend that goon.

Here's hoping you'll help him make a great leap forward.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Hugo Chavez joins Lenin, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Ho Chi Minh, Fernando Marcos and Mao as world leaders to be embalmed and placed on permanent display

I have this weird feeling it won't be permanent-permanent, if you get my meaning.

Possibly of interest to Paul and anybody else who enjoyed the underground-ish music of the '80s: I tried to get into an argument with Billy Bragg on Twitter about Chavez. In response to a tweet that Chavez was an anti-Semite, he wrote something like "He was critical of Israel's government. That doesn't make him an anti-Semite."
My response: "You're correct. That he persecuted Venezuelan Jews is what makes him an anti-Semite."

edit: I actually owe thanks to Wizlah for this--if he didn't re-tweet Billy Bragg opining about Chavez, I wouldn't have seen any of his attempts to defend that goon.

The admiration of Chavez among many on the left bugs me.

allentown wrote:To your latter comment, nation states need a way of dealing with these out-of-uniform fighters. They very frequently are simply another means of combat waged as proxies for nation states. If we use judicial process to make ourselves incapable of defending against such out-of-uniform attack, then use of such proxies will become an increasingly used weapon of choice by opposing nation states. When the nations we are squared up against include Iran and North Korea, this is a very real possibility.

you've captured one scenario. Now consider the problems posed by your (our) insistence that we abide by a particular kind of social contract, that doesn't allow us or whomever we appoint to simply go off and kill people willy-nilly. Defining just how much willy, and how far to nilly - and maybe more important, the process by which we decide how much & how far - is important stuff when it comes to granting authority to murder people.

swishnicholson wrote:Feel like there's a clever caption waiting to be written about this. but I don't know what it is so I'll just say "boobs". Also, why is that guy wearing a jetpack?

Looks like he forgot to leave the flotation cushion on the airplane.

swishnicholson wrote:Also, why is that guy wearing a jetpack?

Because he can

TenuredVulture wrote:

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Hugo Chavez joins Lenin, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Ho Chi Minh, Fernando Marcos and Mao as world leaders to be embalmed and placed on permanent display

I have this weird feeling it won't be permanent-permanent, if you get my meaning.

Possibly of interest to Paul and anybody else who enjoyed the underground-ish music of the '80s: I tried to get into an argument with Billy Bragg on Twitter about Chavez. In response to a tweet that Chavez was an anti-Semite, he wrote something like "He was critical of Israel's government. That doesn't make him an anti-Semite."
My response: "You're correct. That he persecuted Venezuelan Jews is what makes him an anti-Semite."

edit: I actually owe thanks to Wizlah for this--if he didn't re-tweet Billy Bragg opining about Chavez, I wouldn't have seen any of his attempts to defend that goon.

The admiration of Chavez among many on the left bugs me.

I think it was mostly a "He's standing up to BUSHITLER, HE'S ONE OF US!!" delusion. Which is epically stupid.

TenuredVulture wrote:The admiration of Chavez among many on the left bugs me.

is it really "many", or does it just feel that way because the few are so annoying?

what prominent person (and by prominent I mean anyone I might have heard of) has expressed any sustained enthusiasm for this fellow, and if they did it why am I unaware of it

Sean penn and Jesse Jackson were at the funeral if they count.

what is this i hear about brennan aiming for roughly 30,000 drones over the states within 10 years?

At least one of the many idiots from NY's congressional delegation tweeted something positive about Chavez.

the biggest thing he did for hte US was the free oil program he had for the poor during the winter. if we better funded LIHEAP, we wouldn't have created this idea that Chavez was for the little guy in the US.

of course, LIHEAP just got another cut, after receiving a huge cut the previous year, due to the sequester. but the sequester didnt affect anything or anyone, so you know.

Military targeting has judicial review from Judge Advocate General personnel. You know, trained lawyers who happen to be military officers.

The military targeteers create high-value target (HVT) lists based off intelligence. In Afghanistan, our HVT list was always run through the JAG office, with especially High Value Targets, it was sent through to the SECDEFs office for review and approval.

I can tell you from personal experience that we have cancelled air strikes and raids on suspected HVTs due to potential of innocent deaths, due to murky intelligence, and due to other factors.

It comes down to a blend of legality/morality and the commanders call to authorize the strike. In every HVT case, the specifics associated with the HVT are presented to the JAG, reviewed, and then presented to the Commander with the judicial review and the intelligence associated with why the HVT is going to be struck.

Counter-insurgency is very much like police work. John Paul Vann in Vietnam said it well, "the best weapon is a knife, then a gun." Why? Localized damage - almost to the individual level. Killing in counter-insurgency has to be localized as much as possible, especially in an honor based culture like the Pashtun...kill a man unjustly, and his entire family will come after you until you rectify the situation or you are dead.

allentown wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:Can someone please explain to allentown that the drone program is run by the #$!&@ CIA (not the military) and there is no judicial oversight whatsoever? That the primary objection most of us have is that the only oversight is from an "informed government official" making the determination whether to order the drone strike?

Because if he's missing out on those very basic concepts, I don't see how he can discuss this topic intelligently, regardless of my personal opinions regarding his stance.

There is no judicial oversight in wars. Some of the drone attacks are CIA and others are military. Most are military. Again, what is the big deal about an 'informed government official' making the decision for a drone strike. How do you think every decision in every war we've ever fought has been made? The courts don't decide when we launch a bombing mission, or an artillery barrage, or a sniper shoots an enemy combatant. These are all decisions that are made by an 'informed government official'. The basic mistake critics make is confusing war with catching criminals. That the enemy combatants don't wear uniforms doesn't give them any extra rights. That is an absurd notion -- violate the basic rules of war and you are granted super rights against attack?

In a war in which the enemy does not wear uniforms or fight in standard units, the identification of the enemy to be attacked has to depend upon gathering of intelligence and surveillance. We cannot put our soldiers in the position of sitting in fixed positions or driving along vulnerable roads simply waiting to be attacked and never going on the offensive, because the enemy is out of uniform and they must wait for a court to decide that they have correctly identified the target as an enemy. If that is the standard, then it is pointless to ever fight against an enemy that fights our of uniform. You will have fatally stacked the deck against our troops.