Obama does control the military, fully and completely. Yes, he could order his generals to stop drone attacks. He doesn’t want to, because he supports the use of drones. UAV production and drone attacks have risen sharply since Obama took office. Brent, what basis do you have for believing that the president does not control the military. You do realize that the US is not a military dictatorship, right? 
Maybe the better you are at golf, the worse you are at facts. Obama is good at golf which might explain his obliviousness to the wretched history of lynchings, something which no black man has any business being involved in anywhere at any time for any reason. I know I’m good at facts but bad at golf so there may be a clear pattern emerging here. Anyway, it’s harvest time and I have to get back to business.
It’s not lynching, it’s war. Don’t be trite. And it’s not as if this sort of thing didn’t happen before, but the bombs were dropped from planes or fired from ships, and there were a LOT more civilian casualties. With UAVs, it’s possible to identify a target, follow him for hours, and strike when the least amount of innocents surround him (or none at all). Which would you prefer, precision strikes with minimal civilian collateral or indiscriminate slaughter?
I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. Obama is not right of center, even slightly. He is clearly and unabashedly liberal. He’s just hawkish on fighting terrorism, as he should be. But virtually all of his positions place him firmly in the liberal camp.
Wars should be fought by politicians with swords. No soldiers, just politicians with pointy bits.
Sorry, I’m just not naive enough to believe that the Queen, I mean President of the United States has any power to influence military decisions. On paper, yes he’s the Commander in Chief. In a practical sense, hell no. He simply does what he’s told as a good little figure head. The people who are really making military decisions during Obama’s term are the exact same people that were making decisions during Bush’s term. A change of President does not change foreign policy. Troops aren’t coming home in droves, bases aren’t being closed, Guantanamo wasn’t shut down, nothing really changes. Bush and Obama on a personal opinion level couldn’t be more different, yet the policy stays exactly the same.
I could certainly quote you passages from the constitution and subsequent bills that make it quite clear who controls the economy. But are any of you naive enough to believe thats actually what happens in a practical sense? Of course not. It always strikes me funny that Americans will rant and rave all day long about how the economy is being run behind the scenes by shadow criminal enterprises and rich and powerful families of years past, yet one mention of the fact that the military industrial complex actually guides decisions and Obama is just a small part of that and all of a sudden I’m trampling on the stars and stripes. 
But please, continue blaming the figurehead instead of the systemic problem. That’s what the leaders of the United States want. They want Democrats fighting Republicans, they want the Tea Party stirring shit up, they want everybody to personally blame Bernanke for economic problems. That way while everybody is looking over there and complaining, the status quo continues…
Again, for a lack of evidence, this sounds like trolling mixed with conspiracy theory. Who appoints the Secretary of Defense if not the President? Or would you argue that the defense secretary also has no control over the military?
Time to get out the tinfoil hats.
[quote=“BrentGolf”]Sorry, I’m just not naive enough to believe that the Queen, I mean President of the United States has any power to influence military decisions. On paper, yes he’s the Commander in Chief. In a practical sense, hell no. He simply does what he’s told as a good little figure head. The people who are really making military decisions during Obama’s term are the exact same people that were making decisions during Bush’s term. A change of President does not change foreign policy. Troops aren’t coming home in droves, bases aren’t being closed, Guantanamo wasn’t shut down, nothing really changes. Bush and Obama on a personal opinion level couldn’t be more different, yet the policy stays exactly the same.
I could certainly quote you passages from the constitution and subsequent bills that make it quite clear who controls the economy. But are any of you naive enough to believe thats actually what happens in a practical sense? Of course not. It always strikes me funny that Americans will rant and rave all day long about how the economy is being run behind the scenes by shadow criminal enterprises and rich and powerful families of years past, yet one mention of the fact that the military industrial complex actually guides decisions and Obama is just a small part of that and all of a sudden I’m trampling on the stars and stripes.
But please, continue blaming the figurehead instead of the systemic problem. That’s what the leaders of the United States want. They want Democrats fighting Republicans, they want the Tea Party stirring shit up, they want everybody to personally blame Bernanke for economic problems. That way while everybody is looking over there and complaining, the status quo continues…[/quote]
The worm has turned for you, my friend…
Or is this just a convenient way to ascribe the things you like to Obama while absolving him of the things you abhor?
If Obama is just a figurehead, then Obamacare was created by the shadow forces and is supported by the other figureheads (congress), so what’s with the shutdown?
And why would you vote Democrat of they’re in on the plot and willing to maintain the military industrial ruling class in exchange for some power?
How do you know Bush and Obama have different personal thoughts on things if they’re both just diversions from the truth, wouldn’t it make more sense that they both cultivate images cleverly designed to draw voters into a frenzied paranoia of each other?
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The government shutdown was a collaborative act of all Congressmen so they could buy stocks as the market dipped, knowing full well it would soar when they “finally came to a deal.”
Nah, I’m just messing with you.
Winston, your solicitude for a pack of medieval savages is truly touching.
[quote]I thanked President Obama for the United States’ work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees. I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people.[/quote]-- Malala Yousafzai, an advocate for girls’ education and the target of a Taliban assassination attempt who was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize
Your callous disregard for anyone who gets in the way of Pox Americana is as cold blooded as any Taliban hitman.
Yeah, go ahead. Just blame America first and add some moral equivalence to the mix. The Taliban (and the Palestinians for that matter) conscript their own civilian populations by placing military targets in their midst.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]Again, for a lack of evidence, this sounds like trolling mixed with conspiracy theory. Who appoints the Secretary of Defense if not the President? Or would you argue that the defense secretary also has no control over the military?
Time to get out the tinfoil hats.[/quote]
Sorry Brent, but I agree with Hokwongwei here. The president is not merely the commander-in-chief on paper. He is completely in control of the military. Of course he doesn’t manage most of the day-to-day decisions, but that’s besides the point (at least your original point). I have no idea what you’re basing your belief on, but you’ve provided no evidence to support it. Consider the case of General Stanley McChrystal. He’s pictured here receiving the Defense Distinguished Service Medal from then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
General McChrystal was the top US commander in Afghanistan when he was interviewed by the Rolling Stone. He openly mocked Vice President Biden and various members of the President Obama’s senior staff. President Obama immediately summoned him to Washington and “accepted” his resignation (i.e., fired him). As soon as Obama became president, he immediately ordered the military and the CIA to end the torture practices started under President Bush, and they did (according to many inside sources interviewed by the press). The president is firmly in control of the military, and I don’t just mean President Obama but all American presidents.
If President Obama ordered the US military to stop using UAVs, they would, immediately. I still don’t understand why you think otherwise. In any case, Obama likes using UAVs because they’re far more accurate, do not place US pilots and flight crews in danger, and result in less civilian casualties.
No, no, no. I’m sure that Brent knows all about REAL constitutional law. Not like those scumbag Americans who don’t know shit about their own Constitution. Especially scumbag American lawyers, who can’t possibly know shit about the Constitution, because after all why would they study anything about that in law school?
So why were the leftards blaming Bush for the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war? Are leftards just really really stupid?
So why were the leftards blaming Bush for the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war? Are leftards just really really stupid?[/quote]
I guess the answer is obvious, really, but what the hell.
Here’s some moral equivalence for you. If the other side was using RPGs to attack their American counterparts on American soil, targeting them in their homes and neighborhoods and other public places far from any battlefield would there be any doubt as to the ‘moral equivalence’ of their actions? Family members being wiped out along with dozens of innocent bystanders?
Then throw in those same war criminals deliberately targeting first responders to their RPG attacks on the off chance that some henchmen of their original targets were among the emergency crews. Or deliberately targeting the public funerals of their targets because more henchmen were undoubtedly in attendance. Would there be any doubt that such actions would be war crimes?
[quote]Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today.
The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’.
And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene.
The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike.[/quote]
[quote]NYU student Josh Begley is tweeting every reported U.S. drone strike since 2002, and the feed highlights a disturbing tactic employed by the U.S. that is widely considered a war crime.
Known as the “double tap,” the tactic involves bombing a target multiple times in relatively quick succession, meaning that the second strike often hits first responders.
A 2007 report by the Homeland Security Institute called double taps a “favorite tactic of Hamas” and the FBI considers it a tactic employed by terrorists.
U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Christof Heyns said that if there are “secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping [injured people] after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime.”
The U.S. refuses to discuss the merits of its overtly covert drone program, but the reports featured on @dronestream clearly document that U.S. hellfire missiles have intentionally targeted funerals and civilian rescuers.[/quote]
“War crimes”? LOL. I love conflating concepts of civil justice and warfare. Thank God there is no international constabulary to enforce such concepts…only good old Westphalian nation states…Anyway you didn’t respond to the painfully obvious fact terrorist groups use their own civilian populations as buffers
My opinion is not a conspiracy theory, it’s just my logical conclusion to the sequence of evidence I see in front of me.
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Obama controls the military
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Before he was President, during his campaigning, and many times since being elected Obama has made it quite clear his stance on wars, the troops overseas, various random bases in obscure countries we haven’t had issues with in many decades, the whole Guantanamo thing, and many other military related topics.
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Since he’s been elected, none of these things have changed.
That is an inconsistent triad. All three of those things can’t be true at the same time. ( No different than God can’t be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent at the same time, but that’s for another section of the forum 
)
So really there are only two logical conclusions:
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Obama has been lying the entire time and he really does like the wars and doesn’t want the troops coming home. He likes wasting money and military resources leaving bases open in obscure countries. He wants Guantanamo to stay open and everything to stay the same. He likes American foreign policy just the way it is.
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The original premise is wrong, and Obama doesn’t have nearly the power people think he does.
To me the second conclusion is more logical. I believe it’s the military industrial complex that’s truly making decisions behind the scenes, not Obama. The high ranking military officers, the lobby and special interest groups, the corporations, contractors, and energy companies that benefit from certain decisions, the alliances we’ve had with certain countries that go back many decades, etc… These things don’t change just because there is a new President. I’m sure Obama is in the room when things are being discussed, but I don’t think it’s logical to conclude that he’s making any decisions because if he was, things would look a lot different under Obama than they did under Bush. ( unless of course you think Obama has been lying the entire time, which you are free to believe if you want )
Now it’s true that Obama can appoint a few like minded people in his camp and he can move a few positions around to try to make a difference, but that’s not nearly enough to overcome the system of power that’s already in place. Nothing ever changes because the true people making the decisions don’t change, only the figure head and a few people around him change which just isn’t enough.
Sorry I can’t speak for the so called “leftards” but I can speak for myself. I don’t blame Bush for those wars, I blame the military industrial complex. Again, I’m sure Bush was in the room when things were being discussed, but he was probably just in a chair in the corner of the room with a big deer in the headlights look on his face. The only thing I can blame Bush for is being the figurehead that was put in front of the public to sell those wars to the people. He was given his scripts and like a good boy he did his job.
You’re misunderstanding me. I agree with you that IF the President ordered those things to be done they would be done. He is the Commander in Chief and has the constitutional right to order such things, of course they would be carried out. I’m simply questioning how much power he has to make those decisions in the first place. I am of the opinion that regardless of his personal beliefs on those issues, he is told what to do by others who have the true power and he does it.
[quote=“BrentGolf”]My opinion is not a conspiracy theory, it’s just my logical conclusion to the sequence of evidence I see in front of me.
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Obama controls the military
-
Before he was President, during his campaigning, and many times since being elected Obama has made it quite clear his stance on wars, the troops overseas, various random bases in obscure countries we haven’t had issues with in many decades, the whole Guantanamo thing, and many other military related topics.
-
Since he’s been elected, none of these things have changed.
That is an inconsistent triad. All three of those things can’t be true at the same time. ( No different than God can’t be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent at the same time, but that’s for another section of the forum )
So really there are only two logical conclusions:
-
Obama has been lying the entire time and he really does like the wars and doesn’t want the troops coming home. He likes wasting money and military resources leaving bases open in obscure countries. He wants Guantanamo to stay open and everything to stay the same. He likes American foreign policy just the way it is.
-
The original premise is wrong, and Obama doesn’t have nearly the power people think he does.
[/quote]
How about this. 3) Obama is a politician. He said what he thought would give him the best chance to be elected. Upon being elected he of course was in no way formally constrained by those promises. At this point he begins making the decisions he feels are in the best interest of the country, his re-election, and his party. Note also he is now in possession of information he did not have access to before his election. For example, Guantanamo. Can he just turn these guys loose? What will be the consequences at this point? How can they be tried and what are the ramifications of that? Easier said than done. The wars. Can he just end them at the drop of a dime? Of course not, but he has been winding them down sensibly. Can he allow terrorists to operate unmolested when a weapon to attack them with is clearly at hand? Only at a political cost.
In general, that a politician does not live up to their promises is not something I consider surprising. It’s clear the US President has constitutional authority over the armed forces. His orders have to be followed. If he’s not making them it’s clearly his decision. What are they going to do shoot him?
It’s true that these things don’t change much, but that’s because they’re based on long-term political, economic, diplomatic and military realities. Almost any President is going to maintain certain long-term policies because changing them is not in our best interests. However the President surely has the power to do so.