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[SalmonGod]

Gone well if you consider reinforcing the world's perception of America as the world's bully/police a positive outcome, yes. Obama has basically spent his entire presidency trying to refute that ideal, and I expect he'll continue to until he's out of office.

I've been thinking about how to address this statement since it was made.

Came across this article on my lunch break.  Summary:  Drone pilots are quitting faster than they can be recruited and trained, because the demand for drone surveillance and killing is so high that they're working 80+ hours a week to slay and terrorize large numbers of mostly innocent civilians, which they ironically get to witness even more up close and personal than many field personnel.

Needless to say, I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment of Obama.

[nenjin]

Yeah, it occurred to me that was going to get brought up.

While I don't approve of the drone strikes, I do think there's a difference in selectively targeting people for assassination, and throwing our military weight around in a region to influence policy. Obama isn't drone striking in an attempt to change anyone's mind or police a region. He's doing it to continue to knock down extremist leadership as it arises.

The drone strikes have cost a lot of goodwill in the places they occur, especially when there are non-combatant casualties. But again, I think that is still a different beast than rolling up on a country and demanding they do what we want or we'll use military power against them.

Put another way, one is an action against non-state actors. The other is action against state actors. Both will cost us international goodwill. One will cost us much more than the other though.

And just so we're clear, I'm not saying one is morally repugnant while the other is not. They're both morally repugnant. And if the day comes that we send drones into Iran to start blowing stuff up until Iran capitulates at the negotiating table, I'll call them one in the same.

[mainiac]

The drone strikes coming are part and parcel of a huge reduction of use of conventional arms.  They dont happen in a vacuum.

[nenjin]

The drone strikes coming are part and parcel of a huge reduction of use of conventional arms.  They dont happen in a vacuum.

I didn't say they did. I still don't equate drone strikes with, for example, invading Iraq and Afghanistan. The closest I'd put it to is like, Clinton's airstrikes in the Balkans.

[mainiac]

I was more directing that at SalmonGod and his statement that Obama wasn't reducing American gung-ho military approach.

[Reelya]

Both viewpoints have merit though. While Obama has reigned in excessive adventurism, there is still the implicit assumption of American Exceptionalism (The modern usage of the word).

Both Democrat and Republican-oriented corporate media broadly accept the right of American forces to go anywhere in the world, do anything, because it's all for the greater good. It's rarely asked "do we even have the right to attack this other place", the discussion is "will attacking this other place help us? Republicans say 'attack now!', Democrats say 'attack later, bribe for now' ". Even American politicians of the major parties well known for their anti-intervention standpoints don't go so far as to say it's wrong to invade other countries ... their opposition to war is almost always couched as not being in America's long term interests, rather than being about respecting other country's sovereignty.

But woe betide any other country that thinks of doing the same, even to secure their own national borders, unless it's specifically in support of US goals. When some other country does something, that's when the USA is suddenly all concerned with other countries sovereignty, only when they can use it as a club to diplomatically beat someone else over the head.

[Darvi]

That link has a paragraph on "Americanist Heresy". Imperium when?

[nenjin]

That link has a paragraph on "Americanist Heresy". Imperium when?

When we put Abraham Lincoln on the Marble Throne.

[mainiac]

Both Democrat and Republican-oriented corporate media broadly accept the right of American forces to go anywhere in the world, do anything, because it's all for the greater good.

Maybe next time you are coming up with a rule to explain the whole world you should ask yourself if there are any examples in the world that contradict your rule instead of looking for examples that confirm it.

[SalmonGod]

Reelya hit what I was getting at.  We're still projecting force and killing people all over the place, and creating an atmosphere of terror for civilian populations where we do so.  Except now we can accomplish this without being technically at war within a specific country.  I'd have to do a bunch of digging I'm not willing to do right now to back up the statement, but I'm also pretty sure the use of contractors to circumvent military accountability that began under Bush's watch has not gone away under Obama's, either.  Of course this is easier to market as us being less war-like to anyone who isn't looking beneath the surface.  But I can't accept the idea that we're less bullying/policing... and it doesn't look to me like we're doing much better on collateral damage, either.

[nenjin]

Reelya hit what I was getting at.  We're still projecting force and killing people all over the place, and creating an atmosphere of terror for civilian populations where we do so.  Except now we can accomplish this without being technically at war within a specific country.  I'd have to do a bunch of digging I'm not willing to do right now to back up the statement, but I'm also pretty sure the use of contractors to circumvent military accountability that began under Bush's watch has not gone away under Obama's, either.  Of course this is easier to market as us being less war-like to anyone who isn't looking beneath the surface.  But I can't accept the idea that we're less bullying/policing... and it doesn't look to me like we're doing much better on collateral damage, either.

And again....while I don't necessarily disagree about force projection, I think it's a damn sight better (for those not killed by it) than landing troops, launching cruise missiles from off-shore, occupying foreign soil and the like. We also haven't tried the drone routine (to my knowledge) as the hammer of foreign policy. We haven't gone to NK/Iran/Russia and said "meet our conditions or we'll sic the predators on you."

So are we still belligerently being America and sticking our war wang in people's faces and some innocents are dying? Yes. Has it been less disruptive than previous examples of this, due to advances in technology? Yes. Does drone wang vs. real military wang mean that Obama has been reducing our military commitments and being less of an aggressor toward nation-states of the world? I believe so but I can see why you, and Pakistan and Turkey, would disagree.

[Squeegy]

American Citizen cancels Vote: Stricken by melancholy.

[RedKing]

The drone strikes coming are part and parcel of a huge reduction of use of conventional arms.  They dont happen in a vacuum.

That strikes as a bit like saying Mussolini's use of gas against the Ethiopians was a reduction in conventional arms. Because hey...less Italian boots on the ground.

Not that I'm equating drone strikes with something as indiscriminate as gas, but there are parallels. With an invading army, you can see it coming, you can flee.
When you're having a wedding, you don't expect the highlight of the evening to be a Hellfire missile launched into your tent literally out of the blue.

In that sense, drone strikes must seem even more arbitrary and terrifying. Perhaps a better analogy would be V-2s. It meant no German soldiers invading Britain, but it could hardly be called less belligerent.

Obama is LESS of a warmonger than Bush. But he's not what many of us were hoping for. But then, I don't think there's been a Democratic President who hasn't been a centrist militarist since at least Jimmy Carter, and even Carter armed the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. I've seen a line of argument that Democrats are so insecure about being seen as soft on the use of military force that they often over-correct, just as a way of saying "See? We're not wimps! I'll totally bomb that guy."

 

[Helgoland]

With an invading army, you can see it coming, you can flee.

[CITATION NEEDED]
Seriously though, drone strikes != drone strikes on weddings. At least in general.

[Frumple]

Drone strike on wedding does equal a drone strike on a civilian gathering (which would, y'know, include homes, apartment complexes, etc.), where many of those present are unaffiliated in any substantial sense to the target, though. Which is something we've shown a distinct willingness to indulge in.