Have We Sold Our Souls By Turning a Blind Eye to Obama’s Drones?

Davey-D-purple-frameThere’s a lot of talk about President Obama and his use of drones as well as him having a kill list which has asserts that he can kill American citizens that he deems to be working against America and somehow down with al-Qaeda.. This is indeed very scary and something all of us should seriously reflect on, because whatever steps Obama takes will not be limited to him.. Whoever sits in the Oval office will be able to pick up where Obama leaves off..

Seems like quite a few are giving the President a pass on his policies.. Would we be comfortable with those policies if we had President Romney as opposed to Obama? What if it was former President George Bush saying he has a kill list and has a right to use it on American citizens? Many of us took to the streets and raised a ruckus for far less.

Yesterday in Washington, there were confirmation hearings for John Brennan who is said to be the brains behind Obama’s insidious drone policy…Brennan is shooting to be director of the CIA.. Are people really comfortable with his policies? Are we comfortable with the US setting up drone bases in Niger, knowing that during the Bush administration Bush had Colin Powell lie before the United Nations about the African country providing uranium for terrorists? His testimony was briefly interrupted by folks upset with the drone policies he later defended..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEycDKgUwbw

Barack Obama rightAre we comfortable with Obama having a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia and mainstream news outlets like the Washington Post agreeing not to report this to the American people?

I want people to be aware of a tactic that is being used in support of White House policies around the discussion on drones.. There is a set of talking points and particular phrasing being used by stealth surrogates and ‘supporters’ of the President designed to frame the conversation in way that moves one away from talk about diplomacy and de-escalation and into the arena of ‘All  We must fight terrorism at e

Inevitably someone will make try to put the onus on you for objecting..Pay close attention when someone responds or inserts themselves in a conversation and ask questions or makes statements along these lines:

1-If we don’t use drones what better ideas do you have to eliminate top terror operatives? Instead of complaining about the President fighting the war on terror, perhaps you should help him..This is difficult work..

2-Troops on the ground are not as effective..Drones are the only way to fight back… Do you have another way for us to take out top terrorist without troops?

3-There are Bigger threats that you can’t see. Bush started something that Obama unfortunately must finish to protect us all.. It took us over a decade to find Bin Laden

4-Those so-called innocents who have been killed by drones hide or aid terrorists..The terrorists use kids to fight us and then claim innocence. We haven’t killed that many innocent people.. They killed innocent people during 9-11…Our drones are doing the job of fighting terror more effectively

5-The terrorist plan there and then come here or against our interests around the world. They started it-remember 9-11. Its better for us to fight them over there then at home..

6-We must use drones because we have no other options Our allies like Pakistan hid Osama for years and lied to us.

7-Diplomacy doesn’t work..They want to kill us. They have an advantage on their land..they know it better than anyone. I don’t condone killing innocent people but so we must use drones to level the playing field.. They must be stopped!

Drone ProtestsBasically the tactic used is to situate the discussion as if we have no other choice but to fight the war on terror. Its designed to make you forget that the War on terror was a manufactured war with the goal of keeping it open-ended, and perpetual.. so we could expand it as necessary.

Obama is depicted as a reluctant participant who would rather have peace, but is ‘forced to clean up the mess’ that George Bush has started..

We are also reminded that its better for us to fight the war on terror overseas then have it here at home..Innocent people being killed is justified as being a part of war which is ‘ugly’. We are also reminded that terrorists use kids to fight us and hence we shouldn’t be ‘fooled’ or overly sympathetic..

There are Black and Brown faces increasingly being used to push these arguments.. Some are literally paid pundits and operatives. Others in a misguided sense of Black pride and unity have sold their souls and turned a blind eye to actions and policies that they know are dead wrong.. Others who once upon a time have been excluded, have been made to feel ‘special’ because they were put on some sort of White House mailing list,  got a phone call from someone important asking for their help or been invited to informal White House briefings.. The end result is a misguided sense of loyalty at all costs.. As fellow journalist JR Valrey of the Block Report once famously noted, many are not interested in justice or preserving life, they just want their turn to hold and crack the whip..

Obama's drones are terrorismBottom line be wary of the attempts to get folks to buy into a concept that we once railed against called ‘preemptive strikes‘..When Bush kicked this off we hit the streets by the thousands.. Obama doesn’t use the that term, instead he invokes the image of us being in a life and death struggle against ‘evil terrorists‘. As a result many have checked their conscience at the door to pick up a sword to join in sable rattling while simultaneously bemoaning the fact that youth in our community have turned to violence as a solution to problems vs de-escalation and diplomacy..

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Comments

  1. Reblogged this on Piazza della Carina.

  2. I personally couldn’t agree more with the words of Davey D… For the record & on the record – I see a great deal of Latino so called “leaders…” Leaders in entertainment, the arts, music, film and business, blatantly turning a blind eye simply because they’ve ended up on the White House Christmas card list… Of course you did, you’ve proven to be a wrangler of your people, herding them like sheep into the stockades of false security under a corrupt and murderous government. You should all be ashamed of yourselves and you know who you are…

    If you stand in front of Obama and you DON’T question him on the illegal murders (drone strikes) of women and children in many countries, you don’t question him on the Unconstitutional and illegal indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial, don’t question him on failing to speak out against inner-city violence, the failed war on drugs, the failure to prosecute big banks for robbing retirement funds, the growth of the privatized prison industrial complex, you don’t question him on his kill list… You my friends are equally as guilty in the continued decline of this countries morality… – Ivan Sanchez

  3. Who’s the “we” turning a blind eye? Not you or any of us visiting this page. The vast majority of American are just fundamentally disengaged. What’s it got to do with them?

  4. how does one go by selling their soul ? (black)

  5. Wow this is crazy.. -teal

  6. Reblogged this on sophiawilliams89.

  7. Too many folks have the mindset that Obama can do no wrong. I voted for him, twice, but some of the policies his administration uses and condones, are evil and wrong. Those of us who think so need to speak up, as we see here. Blind allegiance is dangerous.

  8. Here is something you can say to every one of the pro drone arguments. “There is a greater chance of being hit by lightning, dying in your own bathtub, or from a bee sting than being in a terrorist attack. In fact, you are 8 times as likely to die by a police officer than a terrorist.”
    And then hand them this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×5346277

    Hint: only argue with people willing to change their minds.

    Peace, DJ Green Arrow
    Bed Stuy

  9. I do not like drone use from any president or country. And I do not believe any child should be forced to live in war zones. Invite or not, ones should speak up in integrity.

  10. YES TO YOUR TITLE. If you accept drones you are accepting being controlled. Drones is one thing, I don’t turn a blind eye too, it’s like damn ya’ll ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. cobalt.

  11. Ya OZ-Aa President of color from Austrian origin must take steps goin for new debates about ‘Syluum’ inherently too. Its warfairys on the Berliner ‘Todesstreifen’ in Berlin ’bout bow wow, new steps out of racism and age_Ism!

    Poor ‘n pride postfascist Hamburg spoken!

  12. Bin Laden didn’t take down that third building! 911 is NO EXCUSE to send us back to the 12th century, before people demanded rights of HabeasCorpus & due process!

  13. @Black Americans – Obama can hum a few bars of Al Green, his jump shot is ok, he had a single-parent upbringing, but he is not in the same social *class* as most of us. He is lobbied and works for, Wall Street and big business. The lesser-of-two is just nonsense. Black America – we have been let down by the boot-lickers for generations.

    @DaveyD – I’ve been watching and listening to your commentaries for two decades now. You’ve come a long way Brotha. I used to cringe when you would leave the benefit of the doubt for these types. But, you have matured. Its hard to look at “your own” and be critical in public. You should talk to your boy ChuckD. For some reason he seems to be highly invested in the idea that somehow, regular Black folks are “better off” with President Drone and not some white guy as POTUS. What Chuck does with this stance is give cover to the inherent, systemic, racist, nature of the American capitalist system.

  14. Amanda Matthews says

    It was the next logical step after the illegal and immoral invasion of a sovereign nation under false pretenses of the bush** administration. The people of this country and the rest of the planet Earth are not going to suffer American aggression forever.

    No matter who was the next president, this crap would have been done. In secret, Like most of what they’ve been doing for 2000. The powers that be just needed someone who could pull it off.

    What makes this most heinous is that the directive was signed by our Constitutional scholar – community activist first black president. He knows better, so why is he doing this?

    That Nobel is starting to look a little tarnished and tacky.

  15. I think the first question is valid—if, of course, you believe 911 was a “real” event. If one surmises that we are, in fact, fighting a terrorist organization with plans to attack America when given the opportunity, a response to that threat should be undertaken. If, on the other hand, 911 is fiction and there is no external threat we have an entirely different circumstance.

    What say you?

  16. Reblogged this on NAJLA ARRINGTON and commented:
    Blind Allegiance? I think so….

  17. No one answered my question…
    PLUS—this is an old story. Like, 2 or 3 years old.
    ONE MORE—Maybe we have such a low risk of dying in a terrorist attack because what POTUS is doing is keeping us safe…

    IJS

  18. Excellent argument, and great comments. Thank you. I re-read POTUS’s Nobel Peace Prize speech (2009) the other night and found these nuggets:

    “We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor – we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.”

    “More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government . . . ”

  19. I put a link to POTUS’s speech in my first post but it disappeared. The speech can be found on the Nobel website — NobelPrize.org. Cheers.

  20. Jeanne McQuillan says

    Great! Well said.

  21. I think either one of two things are in play—
    Either this a low-information crowd (like the tea partiers).
    Or, this is an echo chamber where no one really wants to discuss issues.

    Say what you will, but the question I raised (for the third time) must be addressed for any intelligent dialogue to be engaged in moving forward.

    The question is:
    “Was America attacked on September 11 a “terrorist” organization?” Yes/No.

    One more: Were US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania attacked by the same group in 1998? Yes/No

    You cannot even discuss anything else until those questions are answered. We can talk about WTC Tower Three and everything else after that. Are drones the proper response? Well, response to what is the question. A defensive/offensive tactic in play towards what ends.

    BTW: Pingbacks do not count. I read the setup in Davey D’s article. Number one does not wash. It would be like a Klan member saying you can’t discuss racism as the basis for Black people being lynched.

    Waiting…

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  1. […] There’s a lot of talk about President Obama and his use of drones as well as him having a kill list which has asserts that he can kill American citizens that he deems to be working against America and somehow … Continue reading → […]

  2. […] at mrdaveyd@aol.com. Visit his website, daveyd.com, and his blog, Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner, where this story first […]

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  4. […] today wouldn’t many more of us be in the street about these things? Black apologists, as Davey D notes [4], try to shut criticism of this president down in the misguided name of black unity, and some […]

  5. […] today wouldn’t many more of us be in the street about these things? Black apologists, as Davey D notes [4], try to shut criticism of this president down in the misguided name of black unity, and some […]

  6. […] today wouldn’t many more of us be in the street about these things? Black apologists, as Davey D notes, try to shut criticism of this president down in the misguided name of black unity, and some white […]

  7. […] into the “5%” (US citizens) and the “95%” (others). We already knew that the baseline of USG policy is that the executive branch can kill whomever it wants, wherever it wants, whenever it wants based […]