Is Uncle Sam a terrorist?

[Babe Ruth]

http://tinyurl.com/cnn2c34

President Obama has described the Boston bombing as terrorism, which it is, and it appears the US has been the world's most methodical terrorist for many years running, including Clinton's tactics in Serbia.

Sad read.

[Gary Meadows]

Kind of puts things in perspective doesn't it.

[wolfknight]

Why would the US set a bomb to go off in Boston to kill and mame? This is a act of terror against bystanders what would that prove?

[Gary Meadows]

Why would the US set a bomb to go off in Boston to kill and mame? This is a act of terror against bystanders what would that prove?

I think the point was the US uses similar tactics in other countries. Unless I missed the point.

[Kowalski]

http://tinyurl.com/cnn2c34

President Obama has described the Boston bombing as terrorism, which it is, and it appears the US has been the world's most methodical terrorist for many years running, including Clinton's tactics in Serbia.

Sad read.

Thanks for posting this. It is a sad read.

Every news report about the children killed and injured at the finish line in Boston, every account of the horrific loss of limbs, makes me think of a little girl named Guljumma. She was seven years old when I met her at an Afghan refugee camp one day in the summer of 2009.

At the time, I wrote: “Guljumma talked about what happened one morning last year when she was sleeping at home in southern Afghanistan's Helmand Valley. At about 5 a.m., bombs exploded. Some people in her family died. She lost an arm."

In the refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul, where several hundred families were living in squalid conditions, the U.S. government was providing no help. The last time Guljumma and her father had meaningful contact with the U.S. government was when it bombed them.

War thrives on abstractions, but Guljumma was no abstraction. She was no more or less of an abstraction than the children whose lives have been forever wrecked by the bombing at the Boston finish line.

But the same U.S. news media that are conveying the preciousness of children so terribly harmed in Boston are scarcely interested in children like Guljumma.

I thought of her again when seeing news reports and a chilling photo on April 7, soon after 11 children in eastern Afghanistan were even more unlucky than she was. Those children died from a U.S./NATO air strike. For mainline American journalists, it wasn’t much of a story; for American officials, it was no big deal.

“Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip,” Orwell observed, “but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.”

[Jackofalltrades]

As the saying goes "You reap what You sow"

[Coffey]

Why would the US set a bomb to go off in Boston to kill and mame? This is a act of terror against bystanders what would that prove?

The article is comparing what the US has done in the past to the Boston Bombing and how they act all caring etc for the people in Boston to keep the people sweet, but don't mind doing it in another country and then trying to say it's justice.

[Babe Ruth]

Why would the US set a bomb to go off in Boston to kill and mame? This is a act of terror against bystanders what would that prove?

As Jeffertonturner and others have pointed out, you seemed to have missed the point.

I am not suggesting that the federal government set the bomb at Boston. On the contrary, at this point in time it looks to me like some sort of lone wolf type did.

No, the point is that for too many years running now, the US is the world's biggest terrorist AND the world's biggest hypocrite. We have been killing and maiming innocent civilians for a long time.

[Tiggs]

If the US actually was cluster bombing civilian centres on a regular basis, you'd imagine that the author would have been able to come up with a better example than the accidental civilian bombing of Nis by Dutch F-16's.

You'll note, however, that he hasn't.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Tiggs
Because capital letters at the start of sentences are good.

[Mr.United_Nations]

Also Nato was led by Wesley Clark, Rupert Smith and Javier Solana, only one American in those 3 names.

Nato was backed by Tony Blair, Admiral James O. Ellis, Jr, John Walker Hendrix and lastly Bill Clinton.

[Mr.United_Nations]

I think Normon Solomon is getting confused with the Chinese embassy bombing which the US did hit and was approved By Clinton. So the author in the link has completely got the referral of Nis very wrong.

"n the days prior to the bombing, an attack folder labelled 'Belgrade Warehouse 1' was circulated for command approval. The folder originated within the CIA and described the target as a warehouse for a Yugoslav government agency suspected of arms proliferation activities. In this form, the strike was approved by President Clinton.

It is unclear if other NATO leaders approved the strike. A report by the French Ministry of Defense after the war stated that "part of the military operations were conducted by the United States outside the strict framework of NATO"^[5] and that a dual-track command structure existed. NATO had no authority over the B-2 stealth bombers that carried out the strike."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade

[+OverSword]

Why would the US set a bomb to go off in Boston to kill and mame? This is a act of terror against bystanders what would that prove?

It's annoying when people just comment without bothering to read even a bit of the story

[RazielKTB]

If the US actually was cluster bombing civilian centres on a regular basis, you'd imagine that the author would have been able to come up with a better example than the accidental civilian bombing of Nis by Dutch F-16's.

You'll note, however, that he hasn't.

If you take in a account, that such news do not get in to the public so easely, only when they are so big that you have to report, I do not find it strange.

[Orcseeker]

The article is comparing what the US has done in the past to the Boston Bombing and how they act all caring etc for the people in Boston to keep the people sweet, but don't mind doing it in another country and then trying to say it's justice.

They call 9/11 a tragedy and demand sympathy from the world. No doubt it is, innocents died for the agenda of horrible people, the problem being they cause more tragedies and call them necessary means of action. Disgraceful. (I'm referring to most US politicians, the media, those higer ups that profit from all this and ignorant people as "they").

[Kowalski]

If the US actually was cluster bombing civilian centres on a regular basis, you'd imagine that the author would have been able to come up with a better example than the accidental civilian bombing of Nis by Dutch F-16's.

You'll note, however, that he hasn't.

No one's saying the government does this EVERYDAY, but it DOES happen a lot and the media puts a little article about it in the news, yet when a bomb goes off in Boston they report it everywhere, and are SOO sympathetic to the victims and the families. What about the civilians killed in Pakistan by drones? CIVILIANS. No wonder they hate us so much.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/15340/drone-strikes-in-pakistan-have-killed-thousands-of-civilians

Despite the Obama administration’s public statements that the strikes have contributed to either “no” or “single digit” civilian casualties, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, drone strikes killed between 2,562 and 3,325 people in Pakistan, including 176 children.

The civilian carnage is just one aspect the report criticizes, citing “considerable and under-accounted for harm to the daily lives of ordinary civilians.” The study, based upon nine months of intensive research including 130 interviews of victims and witnesses, suggests the “terrorizing” nature of the 24 hours a day presence of drones in northwest Pakistan.

One interviewee described the constant surveillance of the drones as “a wave of terror,” adding that “children, grown-up people, women, they are terrified. . . . They scream in terror.” Another described the drones as “like a mosquito. Even when you don’t see them, you can hear them, you know they are there.”

Fear of drone attacks have kept Pakistanis from participating in daily activities like attending school and engaging in commerce, further calling into question the long-term consequences of drone strikes on the stability of the region. Mental health professionals fear that children traumatized by their presence may grow up with long-term ramifications of psychological trauma that may place the U.S. at future national security risk. One Pakistani mental health professional shared, “The biggest concern I have as a [mental health professional] is that when the children grow up, the kinds of images they will have with them, it is going to have a lot of consequences ... People who have experienced such things, they don’t trust people; they have anger, desire for revenge ..."

If drone strikes had proven effective in protecting U.S. national security interests, perhaps the civilian toll would draw less condemnation, but the New America Foundation recently reported that the number of “high level” targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is only 2%.

http://rt.com/news/pakistan-civilian-victims-drones-695/

The absolute majority of the people killed by American UAVs in Pakistan are innocent civilians, claims Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik. If given the drone technology, Pakistan would do a better job, he argued earlier.

­Malik revealed that according to Islamabad's calculations, the number of drone attacks in recent years totaled 336, of 96 of which were launched from Afghanistan.

There are no exact statistics on the number of people killed in drone strikes in Pakistan. Estimates vary from about 2,500 to over 3,000 victims. As many as 174 of them were reportedly children.

The latest US study claimed that only 2 per cent of drone strike casualties in Pakistan are top militants.

The researchers at Stanford and New York University also claimed that the American drone strike policy in Pakistan has not helped Washington achieve its goal of curbing terrorism in the region. The civilian deaths that mark practically every drone strike on terror suspects in Pakistan’s tribal regions have achieved the opposite goal: locals hate the US because of the unceasing fear that death may come from above at any moment.

[Corp]

Does the US go out of their way to target civilians and only civilians? That's the difference between these two cases, though both are of course tragic.

[Tiggs]

No one's saying the government does this EVERYDAY but it DOES happen a lot

Then feel free to produce some actual examples of the US military using cluster bombs on civilian centers.

Please note that I'm not arguing that the US military causes civilian casualties. Just the mechanism in which they're caused - which is central to the article's comparison between the US military and the terrorist attack in Boston.

[sk8tan71]

http://tinyurl.com/cnn2c34

President Obama has described the Boston bombing as terrorism, which it is, and it appears the US has been the world's most methodical terrorist for many years running, including Clinton's tactics in Serbia.

Sad read.

It may be a sad read, but the author is an idiot. No matter how you term it, war, terrorism, fighting is vicious, brutal, and capricious. But what the author refuses to note is that once it is outside your country's borders, even if your country is involved in it, that war/terrorism/skirmish automatically becomes nebulous because there is no frame of reference for the people that are not from the other country in question. People in Boston are a lot like people in San Francisco or Dallas or Anchorage we have that commonality of being American, just like someone in London, or Brighton, or Birmingham have the commonality of being English and you can extend this out to just about every country on the planet, which is why there is a natural herd instinct that kicks immediately after actions like what happened in Boston, or the 7/7/7 bombings, or the Madrid train bombings.

[Uncle Sam]

I ain't no terrorist! Lmao... but this is a tragedy! An extremely saddening event that happen to someone intolerance and hatred towards Americans. It wasn't aim at the government, it was aimed at the citizens.

[Mr.United_Nations]

It may be a sad read, but the author is an idiot. No matter how you term it, war, terrorism, fighting is vicious, brutal, and capricious. But what the author refuses to note is that once it is outside your country's borders, even if your country is involved in it, that war/terrorism/skirmish automatically becomes nebulous because there is no frame of reference for the people that are not from the other country in question. People in Boston are a lot like people in San Francisco or Dallas or Anchorage we have that commonality of being American, just like someone in London, or Brighton, or Birmingham have the commonality of being English and you can extend this out to just about every country on the planet, which is why there is a natural herd instinct that kicks immediately after actions like what happened in Boston, or the 7/7/7 bombings, or the Madrid train bombings.

He also got the wrong story and got mixed with another

[Babe Ruth]

Does the US go out of their way to target civilians and only civilians? That's the difference between these two cases, though both are of course tragic.

Going out of their way?

It seems to me that if we had a leader who was moral and honest, we would not be doing any of this.

To look at it perversely, here we have spent huge amounts of money and men waging this War On Terror, for years now, but STILL we have a bomb go off in Boston. It seems that if the WOT were really working, we would have won by now and the world would be thanking us for having eliminated terror. In reality, the reverse is the case.

The US drones kill more innocent people including children in one week than were killed at Newtown. Can't you see that?

[Babe Ruth]

It may be a sad read, but the author is an idiot. No matter how you term it, war, terrorism, fighting is vicious, brutal, and capricious. But what the author refuses to note is that once it is outside your country's borders, even if your country is involved in it, that war/terrorism/skirmish automatically becomes nebulous because there is no frame of reference for the people that are not from the other country in question. People in Boston are a lot like people in San Francisco or Dallas or Anchorage we have that commonality of being American, just like someone in London, or Brighton, or Birmingham have the commonality of being English and you can extend this out to just about every country on the planet, which is why there is a natural herd instinct that kicks immediately after actions like what happened in Boston, or the 7/7/7 bombings, or the Madrid train bombings.

How do you know the author is an idiot?

Are you concerned at all with his point? Or do you even understand his point? Have you ever had your best friend blown to smithereens as he slept in his bed? What about friends celebrating a wedding, in which half of them are killed with no warning at all?

My bet is YOU have never seen a dismembered human body, never once. Too busy skating, is my bet.

[Yamato]

I think this bombing was clearly an act of terrorism whoever did it. The nature of this investigation "there are no suspects so our options are wide open" is troubling. It's plausible though unlikely a false flag attack could have been used to "get into all the records". Though I am not a conspiracy theorist and reject nearly all conspiracy theories. I find this possibility unlikely.

This could also be an act of domestic terrorism on tax day to make a political statement about taxes. How high are state/local taxes in Massachusetts/Boston I wonder...

[Kowalski]

Then feel free to produce some actual examples of the US military using cluster bombs on civilian centers.

Please note that I'm not arguing that the US military causes civilian casualties. Just the mechanism in which they're caused - which is central to the article's comparison between the US military and the terrorist attack in Boston.

I am NOT saying the US deliberately sends bombs or drones over civilian populations. But, the fact of the matter is, along with the terrorists that are killed, there are also women and children who are killed. But they are just deemed "collateral damage". Did you see the links I provided? Both featured photos of people holding up pictures of some of the children killed by these drone strikes. But, they're just "collateral damage" right?

http://www.policymic.com/articles/15340/drone-strikes-in-pakistan-have-killed-thousands-of-civilians

http://rt.com/news/pakistan-civilian-victims-drones-695/

This isn't right. Most of these people probably had no idea that an extremist group was even around them, I'm sure.

And everytime a drone strike kills innocent women and children along with the terrorists, it just makes MORE people angry and mad at the US. How would YOU feel if some of your family was killed by a drone strike all because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time? And people just say, "Well, that's war..." "Just collateral damage, at least we got the terrorists"

Would that not make you angry? Many in Pakistan probably just want all this to be over. I can't imagine the fear the probably have to live with. The US is CREATING more and more future terrorists by continuing these drone strikes. And then they will end up bombing a few of our people, and then we will go and bomb a few of theirs...A vicious violent cycle.

[Tiggs]

I am NOT saying the US deliberately sends bombs or drones over civilian populations.

Good, because I'm not disagreeing with anything else you've written.