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The sanctioning of ‘double-tap’ drone strikes, and, by a fairly recent interpretation of international law, enabling Saudi atrocities in Yemen.
What else does he have?
He ordered a drone strike on an American citizen, and bombed schools, weddings, and hospitals (including a doctor’s without borders hospital). He extended the patriot act and persecuted Snowden and manning for telling us that the federal government was regularly sidestepping the bill of rights.
What else do you need?
He ordered a drone strike on an American citizen
“American citizen” is not a protection against designation as an enemy combatant, unless you want to tell a bunch of Nazi volunteers in WW2 that getting shot by the 101st Airborne was actually a war crime against their precious little souls.
and bombed schools, weddings, and hospitals (including a doctor’s without borders hospital).
I suspect you’re thinking of an incident in Afghanistan wherein a US gunship hit a Doctors Without Borders hospital. While abhorrent and arguably a war crime, it was not sanctioned by Obama, and Obama, in fact, was a prominent voice in demanding an investigation of the incident.
The only wedding strike I remember was in Yemen, which was a big issue at the time, and resulted in limitations on the military’s ability to carry out drone strikes without presidential approval.
The only school strike I can find were performed under Bush, though considering that the Bush Administration did not reveal many of its strikes, there may very well be more.
Obama’s drone campaigns were performed with a callous disregard for civilian casualties compared to what they should have been performed with, and US PR worked double-time to try to paint them as civilian casualty-free (claiming something absurd like a 0.2% civilian casualty ratio). That’s not the same as saying that Obama targeted schools, weddings, and hospitals.
He extended the patriot act and persecuted Snowden and manning for telling us that the federal government was regularly sidestepping the bill of rights.
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Those aren’t war crimes. Shitty, sure, arguably against international or Federal law. But that’s not what a fucking war crime is.
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‘persecuted Snowden and manning’ how so? At best, by not pardoning them? Do you know how the executive and judiciary work in this country? I’m sorry Snowden found it more convenient to go and stick Putin’s hand up his ass instead of defending himself in court or fleeing to any fucking legitimate country. I’m more legitimately sorry that Ms. Manning ended up punished for whistleblowing, though I also realize that military prosecutors cannot reasonably say “Oh, well, we think this leak is for a good cause, so we’re not prosecuting.” A pardon by the executive would have been much better than the commutation she eventually received, and a immediate commutation preferable to the much-delayed one. You want to say that’s a terrible sin of Obama’s? I’m not in disagreement. But it’s not a fucking war crime.
If you’re ever wondering how MAGA can still defend trump after all the awful things he’s done, go back and look at the mental gymnastics you do to defend that piece of shit Obama and it’ll start making sense. Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
“You’re doing mental gymnastics by pointing out that my claims are literally untrue 😭”
Sorry you didn’t check any of your claims before making them. I understand that games of telephone with online circlejerks are much more entertaining than nasty little things like reality.
Reality: “he did that but here’s why it’s actually fine”
Reality: “he did that but here’s why it’s actually fine”
The first claim is pointless, as I noted. American citizenship is no more a guarantor against military action than any other status, nor should it be.
The next three of your claims were outright incorrect.
The next two claims I explicitly noted were of pretty horrible offenses, but not of war crimes, as was claimed.
Oh champ. I hope your team wins the Superbowl or world series or whatever you call this hell we’re living in
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I mean with Trump now, surely Obama comparatively seems great? Not a saint but isn’t it easy to see why those relatives would miss him?
Obama bombed children, that will never seem great in any way, shape, or form.
If someone worse than Trump comes along, are you happy to say “I miss Trump?”.
Have a line and hold it.
I get your point and I don’t disagree, but surely you get your relatives too?
Nope. I don’t really get that shortsighted mentality of missing the lesser evil.
Evil is evil regardless and it should never be missed just because you weren’t a victim of their evil deeds. That’s how you abandon your solidarity
What happened to the concept of better?
Nothing.
Better is contextual. The lesser is technically better, sure, but it still falls below the minimum standards.
Being stabbed is “better” than being shot but regardless of which, you’re still fucking injured.
But if you understand “better” then shouldn’t that help in understanding how people miss better times?
Sure but it also makes me understand that people lack solidarity if they miss a time when their comfort came at the expense of the oppressed simply because they weren’t the one personally being oppressed.
Just because life was more comfortable before doesn’t mean I miss it, because I have solidarity with those who were oppressed for that comfort to have been possible. I would never want those times to return just because I personally benefit from it, thus I do not miss those times.
I also do not miss those times because I understand that those times are what allowed the ones we are currently living in to manifest. The systems, institutions, and cultural norms of those times are what led to today.
I do not miss those times. I yearn for times where those things did not come at the expense of others while enabling evil to continue to consolidate power and disenfranchise my brothers and sisters of the working class.
Nope. I don’t really get that shortsighted mentality of missing the lesser evil.
“I don’t understand why someone might miss when things were less bad!”
Tracks.
Bad is bad. Just because you weren’t personally affected by the bad doesn’t make it less bad, just exposes how little solidarity with the oppressed you actually have.
Bad is bad
There’s always degrees to it. I dunno why so many online forget about this
Because there are people who don’t have a shortsighted, reactionary mentality.
The degrees of how bad is entirely contextual. And part of the context of seeing the lesser evil as “better” involves limiting the scope to a false dichotomy.
Being stabbed is better than being shot, but regardless of which option you’re still fucking being injured.
Both sides bad. Amirite?
I wish online leftists hated conservatives half as much as they hate people who are only a little left wing. Like ya, Obama sucks and bombed a school a decade and a half ago but trump bombed one two weeks ago and also wants to do a genocide right now.
Leftists literally want to kill right-wingers. They only criticise ‘centrists’.
The fact that you think you’re the bigger victim because people try to reach you with words instead of fists or bullets is your own naivety.
Leftists literally want to kill right-wingers. They only criticise ‘centrists’.
That’s curious, because overwhelmingly what is seen in these conversations are self-proclaimed leftists who neither kill nor criticize right-wingers, but find any reason to condemn anyone with any chance of making any change as some form of centrist. See: the reaction to Zohran Mamdani.
Want is not the same as doing, that takes a lot to drive people to radicalise enough to do so.
And why criticise a right winger? They won’t read it or learn from it. What a waste of effort, there’s a least some hope to convert a centrist.
And there is no chance of making any change as centrist under such a ‘democracy’, they are fleeting changes that can be revoked by the next person to get into power. Real, lasting change requires revolution not reform or voting.
Want is not the same as doing, that takes a lot to drive people to radicalise enough to do so.
Okay, so the argument is that they want to do something against right-wingers, but do nothing. But they want to do something against insufficiently left-wing centrists, and do do that.
Can you outline to me how this is any different than a given neolib saying they really want to stop conservatives, but only ever seem to actually try to nitpick and belittle progressives?
And why criticise a right winger? They won’t read it or learn from it. What a waste of effort, there’s a least some hope to convert a centrist.
Because conversations in the public sphere affect how people conceptualize and internalize ideas, apart from the direct conversants. When right-wing ideas are allowed to spread unchallenged, they become more normalized and change the political leanings of the society as a whole.
And there is no chance of making any change as centrist under such a ‘democracy’, they are fleeting changes that can be revoked by the next person to get into power. Real, lasting change requires revolution not reform or voting.
Okay, but that’s separate from the notion that reform or voting are not worthwhile. For that, you have to reject the notion that revolution is affected by conditions in society (which is absurd) and assert that harm to oppressed demographics is immaterial (which is intuitively repugnant).
Reform won’t give us socialism. But it alleviates suffering and can put us in a better position to strike for socialism.
The eight-hour day fucking sucks, but without it, we would be in WORSE organizing conditions in the modern day. Universal healthcare does not solve unequal access to healthcare systems, but few would argue that it was pointless for the UK and every other civilized country out there to pass.
In any case, the objection made here is that self-proclaimed leftists who only punch left-of-society’s-center, but never seem to find any even vaguely comparable amount of time to punch right-of-society’s-center, is legitimately not a fucking good thing.
