"No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders," Says Man Who Regularly Bombs Pakistan and Yemen

Speaking in Thailand Sunday, President Obama defended Israel's counter-assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip by saying, "There's no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders."

Speaking in Thailand Sunday, President Obama defended Israel's counter-assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip by saying, "There's no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." More from MSNBC:

"Let's understand what the precipitating event here that's causing the current crisis and that was an ever-escalating number of missiles that were landing not just in Israeli territory but in areas that are populated, and there's no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders," Obama said at press conference in Thailand at the start of a three-nation tour in Asia.

"So we are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself from missiles landing on people's homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians."

"Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory."

That is a very interesting thing to say at a time when the U.S. is regularly raining missiles down on Pakistan and Yemen. 

Comments

[$park?]

That is a very interesting thing to say at a time when the U.S. is regularly raining missiles down on Pakistan and Yemen.

And I'm pretty sure they don't tolerate it. So at least his point was correct.

[LTC(ret) John]

I think the Yemeni gov't is the one "suggesting" targets, right? The rest of Yemen is probably not too keen on the whole thing.

The Paks maintain a veneer of public outrage, but I think their miserable apparatchiks might be using us to settle some frontier scores too.

The whole thing sucks and is depressing.

[GILMORE]

There is truth in what you say.

re: Yemen = they more or less *asked* us to come in and help 'reduce' some specific targets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

""Yemen's leader said Saturday that he personally approves every U.S. drone strike in his country and described the remotely piloted aircraft as a technical marvel that has helped reverse al-Qaeda's gain""

The context is important = Yemen has been in a state of civil conflict for like *forever*. The new bossman may call the opposition Al Q, or AQAP now...but they're just the same people who've been fighting each other for decades. In some cases they really *are* terrorists.

re: Pakistan - basically, yes as well.

The Pakistani military tried to go into the NWFP in force a couple years back, and both a) got their ass handed to them, and b) killed like ~11,000 civilians in the process, pissing everyone off. (they prefer Artillery to 'Clear and Hold'. Pussies, basically)

As much as they bitch, the Pakistani military leadership vastly prefers the US eliminating the TeT/LeT, Mehusudis, etc via drone, leaving them free to both complain about it while also taking themselves out of the sights of these insurgents. Its a fucked up dynamic, considering at the same time the ISI *supports* many of these groups.

[gaijin]

that he personally approves every U.S. drone strike

So are there any he doesn't approve?

[GILMORE]

There have been strikes in that country since before he came into power. I'm pretty sure no one is asking for his 'permission'.

The point is the political context = he wants to take credit for the attacks to demonstrate his bad-guy-fighting bona fides, whereas the Pakistanis by contrast want to completely disown it and play 'victim'

[roman203]

To be fair most of the targets are not citizens of those countries. IJS

[GILMORE]

In Pakistan they sure as hell are.

And in Yemen, 'citizenry' is mostly to a Tribe in any case. Yemen only became a unified country in 1990. And that only lasted 4 years before they had another civil war. They're not exactly all waving the same flag.

[kinnath]

I miss Tricky Dick Nixon.

[JW]

To be fair, the Big Zero rains down missiles on them from inside their borders.

[LTC(ret) John]

O!'s speechwriters don't understand irony, do they?

[tarran]

I think they do understand Irony. It's like Bronzy and Goldy - only less valuable and shiny.

[Another David]

Sod off, Baldrick.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Best. headline. evar.

[Spoonman.]

It's different when we do it.

[kinnath]

Where is the fucking Alt-Text Riggs?

[CosmoWenman]

None needed: We're living the alt-text on this one.

[Auric Demonocles]

I will not accept any sort of meta-"we are the alt text" shit. Give us real, concrete alt-text. Always. Without question.

[kinnath]

Riggs has been trained. He knows better.

[MWG]

"There's no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders."

Chutzpah.

[Kyfho Myoba]

He said as Israel rained down missiles into Gaza from without its borders.

[tarran]

I think at this point, one could make a presentation justifying that Al Queda's murderous campaigns as being completely moral entirely by stitching together statements made by various U.S. presidents on collateral damage, national interests, sending messages to adversaries, etc.

It would be a really fun project for someone without kids and/or a vengeful ex-wife just itching to sic the govt on one.

[R C Dean]

OT:

Some animal-rightsers were filming the goings-on at a shooting club via a camera drone when somebody shot it down.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com.....51.html?dr

The article says police are investigating. Not sure what the crime would be here, if the drone was over the shooting club; it was trespassing and fair game (so to speak). At a minimum, the club should ask the cops to investigate the rightsers for trespassing.

[kinnath]

Pull!

[darius404]

Kris Keyes ? Safford, Arizona
Send more drones...we need the practice.

[Loki]

At a minimum, the club should ask the cops to investigate the rightsers for trespassing.

But wouldn't that set a "dangerous" (in the the cops' opinion) legal precedent of equating drones flying over people's property with trespassing?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

GENERALLY speaking , one does not own the airspace over one's real property. if one did, then a plane owner couldn't fly practically anywhere, because he'd have to get permission from the thousands of property owners whose property he flew over. at very low altitudes, there are issues and also some state statutes have privacy provisions about spying from above or even outside, etc.

but in brief, it's not a given under the law that they were trespassing. state law varies, we don't know the altitude etc

[Tonio]

And to add to what Dunphy said, a toy airplane is not the same as a real FAA registered airplane.

[Tonio]

I see where you're going, Loki, and I like it, but as always agents of the state are held to a different standard than you and I.

[0x90]

Hopefully, Nintendo is adding this feature to Duck Hunt, as we speak.

[MP]

Not sure what the crime would be here

I bet they'd try Reckless Endangerment since shooting clubs are typically setup for shooting at the level and not up. Skeet, of course, being the exception.

[0x90]

Better than that, the article states it was a pigeon shoot.

[nicole just can't even!]

It was a pigeon shoot, so it really does seem to have been pretty fair game (although I'm sure someone will be on before long to say how little airspace you really "own" above your property). Of course, that leaves some question why the article reports on it as having been shot down by a rifle, although of course it's possible...more likely is that it's another case of journalists who don't know shit about guns.

[db]

Didn't this happen a few months ago, or is this a new one?

[Kyfho Myoba]

From my home town, no less! Reading, PA (pronounced "redding", not "reeding") of the Reading Railroad fame.

[kinnath]

The good news is that Israel is burning off some aging inventory that will need to be refreshed from various military contractors in the US.

Stimulus!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the broken windows, the key to economic stimulus.

I'll expect a written apology on Dr. Krugman's desk by the end of the day.

[kinnath]

Lots of broken windows are assumed.

[kinnath]

Besides, broken windows in Gaza means work for the Union of Professional Window Installers in Gaza and doesn't mean any direct economic impact on the US.

Although, it is always nice to have a new set of targets.

[Sudden]

I anxiously await Krugman telling us what an economic behemoth the Palestinian Territories have become as a result of their perpetual broken windows and whole buildings from Isreali military adventures.

[0x90]

IOW, if Hamas just drone-bombed instead of shooting rockets, there would be no problem.

[Loki]

"But it's totally different when the ascended one does it." /prog-tard

[BelowTheRim]

+1 on the Prog-Tard.

I realize I'm probably late to the game but it is still good to have an incendiary term equal and opposite of epitaphs such as tea-bagger etc...

[Spoonman.]

I liked proglodyte better.

[ant1sthenes]

Doesn't insult the morality of the mentally challenged by equating them with progressives.

[Tonio]

^This. You just can't use that suffix anymore.

I'm not comfortable with proglodyte, either since being a primitive cave dweller is morally neutral.

Progressive and proggie are damning enough on their own.

[Fluhdoten1]

proglodyte is awesome.

its got progressive, troglodyte, and acolyte.

[Tim]

Nobel Prize wining thinking there.

[Belgian]

Is this why he never does press conferences?

[Oso Politico]

The Obomba Way: Do not what I do - do as I say.

[Adam330]

When the drones shoot missiles, it's from INSIDE their borders. The Hamas missiles are from OUTSIDE Israel's borders. See, completely different.

[Shit-Eating Aardvark]

That's a good point.

[GILMORE]

Erm.

When the point of all the shooting is *precisely* who decides where the borders are?... not so much of a brilliant observation.

[GILMORE]

p.s. I assumed he was making a joke.

[hamilton]

Exactly none of my liberal FB friends note any form of contradiction here. Every single day I receive more and more evidence that I must be functionally retarded given my lack of understanding.

[Killazontherun]

There is danger in sticking with the Facebook hive. One day, it will go down, and when it does, millions of catatonic people will wonder the streets. They will not even be up to the functionality of zombies. But like the victims of Serenity, they will wonder around aimlessly until they die. Pull yourself away before it is too late.

[Mongo]

For contrast, my extremely right-wing friend thinks that only traitors would be against taking out an enemy of America, citizen or not.

[GILMORE]

Jack Bauer says, "They're right. Why, are *you* some terrorist-loving pinko? I guess we won't know for sure until I screw your thumbs to the table now will we..."

[Randian]

Israel and "Palestine" are two socialist governments fighting over land and ethnic purity. One is marginally less loathsome and has better rhetoric and optics than the other. Having a hard time caring.

[Killazontherun]

Even to tweek Tulpa?

[Randian]

OK maybe that's worthwhile.

[Fluhdoten1]

palestine is islams butt plug.

this isnt about 2 ethnic groups in a squabble.

its the flagship case of how the muslim movement will pan out.

when this issue gets dislodged from islams butt, it will be on the warpath. convert or die.

as far as manipulative religions go, islam is tops. i could see the chinese adopting it just for its ability to control the masses.

islams stance of women isnt productive, in a slave labor sort of way, but that will be changed by new prophets. women leaders = ambivalence to natural rights, concern for collective interests = statists orgasming

in the 9th circle of hell (minimum wage warehoused cubicle employees), the manager archtype is a black female.

[John]

If you honestly think Hamas is only marginally worse than Israel, you are one astoundingly ignorant person. That or maybe you think rule by Islamic fanatic isn't that bad you do realize that Hammas has made Gaza into a theocratic police state that tortures and kills its citizens on a routine basis?

[GILMORE]

"Hammas"

Makes great Hummus.

Not teasing (too much), Red Tony, but rather than play the "Better Than /= Good?"-game, how about the more central question some have raised =

"Why should it be in our interests to give a shit"?

[Randian]

And is a nation based explicitly on Old Testament socialism and religioethnic purity supposed to be different...?

[GILMORE]

Well, they are technically useful from a political point of view because in the USA teh Xtian-Conservatives have a real warm fuzzy for that 'ol time religgin.

By contrast, Arabs are just stinky brown people.

[IceTrey]

Hey, they were democratically elected so the citizens are just getting what they asked for.

[Tonio]

Well said, Randian. [makes hand-washing motions]

[Kyfho Myoba]

It's true that they are fighting over the same land. The real question is: Who has the lawful title to it?

BTW, all the Randians I know are neocons/Zionists. Is this universal?

[Kratoklastes]

I think so - Rand was a correct-line harridan (who couldn't write anything that was not cartoonish schlock - which is why she's only famous and 'original' in America) who could not slough off her Tribe roots. Check the youchoobs for evidence of her retarded Tribe-al hatred of Arabs.

After all, an Iron Age penis-mutilation racial-supremacy cult makes WAY more sense than some nonsense invented by an Arab, amirite?

[Kratoklastes]

Well, if you didn't have your head up Ayn Rand's wizened zombie-cloaca, you would grok that the US tax base is FUNDING the hardware that rains down on the people from whom the land was taken.

If 'Randians' had any sensible appreciation for the notion of property rights, they would perhaps be able to reach consistent positions on which side is in the 'right' during a military occupation.

Oddly, they have no problem whatsoever assigning moral culpability to the appropriate parties when it comes to issues like the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The Gaza Ghetto uprising? Not so much.

I guess that's what happens when some half-wit Russian self-promoting hag manages to attract sufficient retards to form a faux-intellectual 'salon' centred on her bleatings (always with the aim of creating a cult of personality to rival Maimonides).

Rand is to political and economic thought as L Ron Hubbard is to theology, only not as original.

[Syd Henderson]

It may eventually change, but Romney actually has fewer popular votes than McCain did (although a higher percentage). Lots of people stayed home. Hard to see how the Republicans have any kind of a mandate at all.

[Fluhdoten1]

neither party has a mandate. obama got less votes than he did the first time around.

the voter-leader social contract is fracturing.

what will replace it is a parent-taker social contract. takers will be the only ones inspired to vote.

[Bruce Majors for Congress (DC)]

Today Planned Parenthood issued a press release condemning the racist war on women perpetrated by libertarian elements in the anti war movement, who attempt to deny Pakistani women very late term abortions.

[?J?? de ?guila]

Hah! Is PP trying to say Obama is bombing to force Pakistan to provide free abortions?

[Nick Meron]

Important correction: You are right about Pakistan. But Yemen's current President (his own words) signs off on every US strike. The US does not even have assets on the ground to ID or select targets. Yemeni intel and Yemen's military are using US capabilities to strike targets that they either can not reach in real time, or that they lack the precision to destroy without much larger loss of life. So for Yemen, the question is, is it good policy or in either US or Yemeni interests for the US to assist Yemen with its own security challenges? But there is no issue of violating sovereignty.

Yemen lost more than 120 of its young men in a single terror attack in May. Three towns in southern Yemen were openly occupied and governed by terrorists until July. Yemen's new defense minister has survived five assassination attempts - the most recent a few minutes walk from my home. The new government is in a fight for its life. It is hard to blame them for using every tool they can get ahold of.

Pakistan is different -- the US appears to be doing lots of stuff against the wishes of either our friends or enemies there. And their security apparatus is possibly even more divided and compromised than Yemen's, just not as openly.

Keep your facts straight -- makes you more credible.

[Lyle]

Pakistan and Yemen don't know that they let the U.S. drop bombs on terrorists in their countries?

The U.S. just fires bombs randomly into Pakistan and Yemen? What?

Get your head out of you ass Mike Riggs.

[Todd Boyle]

People who see a contradiction in Obama's words and his actions ("No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders") have fallen into the common misconception the world is composed of countries in opposition.

In fact all countries are run by a ruling 1% who generally collaborate with each other more than they fight. The polarization is not nation vs. nation, it is the 1% against the global 99%.

Obama is correct, once you decode his statement. There's no elite or heads of state on Earth who would tolerate missiles raining down on their citizens from other elites or heads of state, trying to carve into their territory.