Joe Klein's sociopathic defense of drone killings of children

[marmar]

Joe Klein's sociopathic defense of drone killings of children
Reflecting the Obama legacy and US culture, the Time columnist says: "the bottom line is: 'whose 4-year-olds get killed?'"

Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 October 2012


On MSNBC's Morning Joe program this morning, which focused on Monday's night presidential debate, the former right-wing Congressman and current host Joe Scarborough voiced an eloquent and impassioned critique of President Obama's ongoing killing of innocent people in the Muslim world using drones. In response, Time Magazine's Joe Klein, a stalwart Obama supporter, offered one of the most nakedly sociopathic defenses yet heard of these killings. This exchange, which begins at roughly the 7:00 minute mark on the video embedded below, is quite revealing in several respects.

Here are the relevant portions of the exchange, which was triggered when regular guest Mike Barnicle announced how amazing he found it that so little public attention and debate is paid to the fact that Obama simply kills whomever he wants "without any kind of due process":

SCARBOROUGH: "What we're doing with drones is remarkable: the fact that over the past eight years during the Bush years - when a lot of people brought up some legitimate questions about international law - my God, those lines have been completely eradicated by a drone policy that says: if you're between 17 and 30, and within a half-mile of a suspect, we can blow you up, and that's exactly what's happening . . . . They are focused on killing the bad guys, but it is indiscriminate as to other people who are around them at the same time . . . . it is something that will cause us problems in the coming years" . . . .

KLEIN: "I completely disagree with you. . . . It has been remarkably successful" --

SCARBOROUGH: "at killing people" --

KLEIN: "At decimating bad people, taking out a lot of bad people - and saving Americans lives as well, because our troops don't have to do this . . . You don't need pilots any more because you do it with a joystick in California."

SCARBOROUGH: "This is offensive to me, though. Because you do it with a joystick in California - and it seems so antiseptic - it seems so clean - and yet you have 4-year-old girls being blown to bits because we have a policy that now says: 'you know what? Instead of trying to go in and take the risk and get the terrorists out of hiding in a Karachi suburb, we're just going to blow up everyone around them.'

"This is what bothers me. . . . We don't detain people any more: we kill them, and we kill everyone around them. . . . I hate to sound like a Code Pink guy here. I'm telling you this quote 'collateral damage' - it seems so clean with a joystick from California - this is going to cause the US problems in the future."

KLEIN: "If it is misused, and there is a really major possibility of abuse if you have the wrong people running the government. But: the bottom line in the end is - whose 4-year-old get killed? What we're doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror."

There are several points worth noting about this exchange:

(1) Klein's justification - we have to kill their children in order to protect our children - is the exact mentality of every person deemed in US discourse to be a "terrorist". Almost every single person arrested and prosecuted over the last decade on terrorism charges, when asked why they were willing to kill innocent Americans including children, offered some version of Joe Klein's mindset. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe

[RC]

1. How many "Joe Klein" do we have right here on DU?

After all, it is our guy's doing it, so it must be OK, correct?

No, it ain't, no matter who's guy's are doing it. Our drones blowing up neighborhoods in foreign countries, countries not at war with us, U.S., is a war crime. We are engaged in terrorism ourselves, killing dozens of innocent people for every "terrorist" we claim is a terrorist.

The war against terror can never be won when we keep deciding who the enemy is, and blowing up everyone around them. Often destroying the neighborhoods in the process. How convenient for those profiting from the "War on Terror", that this makes more people with revenge in their hearts, that we can later go back and blow up. Because after all, they hate us now too.

Note my sig line.
</war>

[FiveGoodMen]

2. "limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror"

Killing their kids over there because they stood too close to a target IS an indiscriminate act of terror.

Yes, it fucking is!

[1springhill]

3. I deplore the use of drones.............

I also believe that if Bush was doing this it would be A OK, just like torture. They suddenly have a conscience when it's not their guy doing the killing.