Our leaders are bloodthirsty idiots.

Gee, if we don't keep sending bombs by drone, there will be fewer jihadis.

If there are fewer jihadis, how are we going to justify the ongoing war against terror?

If we can't justify the ongoing war, We can't justify the bloated arms spending.

If we can't justify the bloated arms spending, profits of the greedy and ruthless ruling oligarchy and the war profiteers will fall.

Horror of horrors.

OBAMA IS AN ABOMINATION TO OUR NATION! And it looks to me like he and many other elements in our government, are making nascent another terrorist attack on American soil, like what Bush said: " BRING IT ON ". And this time it may not be a false flag like 911. American foreign policy is like a combination of Dracula and Frankenstein; it dies without the blood of innocent men,women, and children and is a horrible monster that is completely out of control and almost impossible to kill!

I certainly feel much, much safer now that I know the police had the ability to "survey [Faisal Shahzad's] emails over the past ten years", and discover the Pakistani suspected of trying to set off a bomb in Times Square was "obsessed with US attacks on Muslims."

I have complete confidence that reconstructing this decade of email messaging was all done in a meticulously legal manner. The technological ability of US law enforcement to accomplish this electronic data retrieval probably had nothing whatsoever to do with NSA's wholesale warrantless storage of domestic US digital communications at direction of the Bush/Cheney White House starting back in 2001. I'll bet his laptop was seized incident to arrest, a FISA or Title III warrant was secured, and it was all right there on Shahzad's hard drive.

Regardless, Americans should all sleep better at night now knowing that there's a corroborative evidentiary trail decisively proving the jihadis don't hate us for our freedoms, they hate us for our attacks.

Bill from Saginaw

I could say what is there in this that our Congress and President do not understand in this, but that would be an idiotic statement, wouldn't it?

Now, as for my fellow citizens not understanding this, buying into the propaganda, or being so blinded by prejudice that they cannot put themselves in the place of these Afghan and Pakistani families ...

It should be obvious to a child that this Gobal War of Terror creates a self-reinforcing cylce of violence. Johann Hari exposes manifest madness and states truth so self-evident that it must, in due time, come to an end. It will. But before then, only the extent of suffering and death, and America's survival, are in question. This was precisely the delusional paranoia, manifest insanity and criminal profiteering that I voted to end---crimes for which Barack Obama himself is now directly responsible and without excuse.

Why does the war on terror sound so much like the war on drugs?

Hari uses terms like "jihadis" and "jihadism." Just WTF do those terms mean? Does Hari himself know--and is he willing to defend his use of such terminology?

And just WTF is a "targeted killing?" Does good journalism not demand that he use a single, more appropriate word instead, such as assisination or murder?

I just don't understand it, Obama was a community organizer and he won the Nobel Peace prize. That means we should trust him, right? I mean he looks so noble, and cute. Its the other administration's fault he needs to carry out this senseless killing. Anybody who doesn't support Obama's drone attacks must be a Tea Party member.

There is NO EXCUSE for the way in which that deranged madman Shazzad Faisal endangered the lives of innocent bystanders in Times Square with his bombs, even if they were crudely constructed.

Shame on Hari for trying to whitewash the moral depravity of someone who tried something so savage. Drone attacks in Pakistan kill innocents while aiming for terrorist - bombs in Times Square intentionally target innocents with NO military targets amongst them whatsoever.

Just think how much war political capital the US can make on another terrorist attack on itself. The MICC would secretly love it and revel in it, driving patriotic jingoism to new heights of absurdity. No muslim taxi driver would be safe in the US. It might even be enough hate fodder to launch nuclear weapons against Iran and China. It does seem that the US is intent on formenting hatred, both within itself and against itself.

The more the US uses drones to murder people in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia , the easier it will be to sell citizens of the United States of America on the NEXT 9/11 and the need to further erode Civil liberties and increase the funding of the war machine.

As far as Obama and the Fascists are concerned..

There IS No downside. Even a Nuclear bomb going off in New York City serves their cause.

Has anyone actually read an article by Hari showing compassion or remorse for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who died during, after and as a result of the US invasion of Iraq he enthusiastically supported ?

Talk of crass hypocricy........

The USA's ruling political class, or at least part of it, knows well that the United States is destroying itself. And they know that this inkling is beginning to spread, if only a little, in the general population itself. The overpowering stink of corruption and failure is everywhere. What we need now is another "terrorist attack" in which Obama wraps himself in the flag and waves the bloody shirt. The tactic is tried and true. Works almost every time.

Fighting Terrorism with Terrorism just exponentially increases Terrorism. So the goal of such a tactic must be an increase in Terrorism. Such a goal is most certainly insane.

So there must be some other ulterior or concealed motive for such insanity. Morality aside, this sort of non productive activity can only arise from GREED. In other words there must be money to be made and/or power to broker through the excercise of a tactic that makes no sense otherwise.

The inescapable conclusion therefore, is that the people involved in such a nefarious scheme are evil. If an evil world is your cup of tea then sit back and enjoy. Otherwise get off your duff and do something about it..

As ye sew, so shall ye reap. (Don't piss in the fan). Over the last 10 years the US has completely destabilised the middle east and created legions of new terrorists. We had the moral high ground after 911 and loads of political capital.We've historically always been piss poor at statesmanship,the Soviets have always gotten much more bang for their buck in that area, but times are more critical now and moneys tighter and we need to be much more effective and less heavy handed now. That's easy to say. Our problem now is that America is so politically divided it's hampering our ability to deal with anything at home or abroad. Sometimes I imagine our enemies listening to news accounts of our internal political struggles and rubbing their hands and grinning with glee...

Hari assumes that the reason for all this carnage in Pakistan is to prevent "terrorist" attacks in the West.

I suppose the Obama White House would not enjoy a terrorist attack at the moment (bad for the polls) but the Repugs certainly would enjoy it. Can you imagine the shivers of ecstasy at Fox News?

More importantly the Pentagon & the stockholders at Raytheon (the real rulers) would certainly cheer a juicy terrorist attack in the "homeland".

Creating jihadists is part of an investment portfolio.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

H. L. Mencken

=Ender's Game=. Orson Scott Card.

I have not seen an article by the "left"/"Dove" cheerleaders for Iraq war ( -Friedman, Hitchens,Goldberg,) on the dangerous stupidity of drone war.
Neither there is any in depth analysis of the practices, culture,rationale,and fallout of the drone atatcks in msm .Nothing compared to the attention that public was showered with on Iraq dossier/aluminium tube/hydrogen balloon neither it is comparable to the pletora of articles on non -existent Irani nukes.

AMHERST VIGIL FREE FLYER
October 17, 2010
Critical Enemy Shortage Plagues Policy Makers: A Call for Action!
(AV) Little-noticed at the time, the unilateral surrender of the former Soviet Union more than two decades ago has left U.S. policy makers in critically short supply of enemies. Since that time, America’s military industrial complex has had to make do with a rag-tag assortment of enemies that have mostly failed to inspire real fear. Attempts to create amorphous enemies that can be constituted as necessary have been largely unsatisfying. The war on drugs and the war on terror have been two such attempts.
Afghanistan had been a traditional supplier of opium to the world but the fall of the Soviet Union all but eliminated opium production in that country. Fortunately for policy makers, that unhappy situation was soon remedied by the competing ambitions of two sets of former employees, Al Qaeda and the Northern Alliance. Afghanistan has since been restored to its former position of leadership in opium production, thus insuring a steady supply of the human raw material necessary to keep America number one in incarceration of its own citizens.
The war on terror has been somewhat less successful. Al Qaeda has been all but eliminated world wide. By official estimates, only hundreds or scores of those nominally affiliated with that organization remain. It was necessary to conflate that group with what is now called ‘Taliban’, a word in use for more than 100 years that can be roughly translated as ‘redneck’.
Virtually all the terrorists identified since 9/11 have been of the artificial variety. We have worked hard to create groups that pose a threat of terrorism, but these efforts have been too often exposed when it has become known that the organizers were really agents of our government. These kinds of ‘sting’ operations have produced some convictions, but no real fear on the part of the public.
The recent attempt by the F.B.I. to create enemies of non-violent peace and social justice activists received almost no attention. The subpoenas to appear before a grand jury received by such activists recently in Minnesota and Illinois were withdrawn before the activists could refuse to appear.
Iraq was a useful enemy for a time when Americans could be convinced that it was a real enemy and not merely a U.S. puppet regime that had recently been coerced into attacking its neighbor and co-religionists in Iran.
Iran, for its part, continues to fail to cooperate with our need for an enemy. Its leaders repeatedly offer to negotiate and despite U.S., British and Israeli terrorist attacks and the best efforts to mis-translate, distort and obscure the pronouncements of its leaders, Iran refuses to attack anyone.
There have been attempts to make some of our friends into enemies. France has been actively recruited to become our enemy. Our politicians routinely denigrate its citizens, its culture and its language yet France recently assisted us in the re-colonization of Haiti.
Japan seems a good candidate to become our enemy, but when that country elected a new national leader on his promise to close our base in Okinawa, that leader resigned and the base remains.
Pakistan is now being actively courted to become our enemy. Incursions by our military, private contractors and intelligence agencies into its national territory and drone terror attacks on its citizens have thus far failed to yield any anti-American activity or statements by its government. Our best hope to create an enemy of Pakistan is that its corrupt leadership will be overthrown. Not happening so far.
As for China, who could hate someone who loans us so much money?
It may be that the only enemy we will be able to find is ourselves. Real Americans will rise to the challenge!
The Amherst Vigil for Peace and Justice in a Nuclear Free World is now in its 32ndyear. The Vigil continues to advocate for an end to the arms trade, for an end to nuclear weapons at home and abroad and for social justice around the world.
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If you listen to Zacharia's program GPS the debate among our foreign policy experts is whether or not escalation of the war is more or less likely to prevent another attack. No one argues that there is a a very likely counter effect, a blow back that will result in making terror counter attacks more likely. They are all so impressed with US military power and what it can do, how unassailable it is, how no one can stand up to us in a fire fight. This is the real core of American belief about foreign policy, Immense trust of what can be achieved with military might, skepticism of what we can do by cultural influence, education and real economic development. We live by the sword and you know what happens to those who live by the sword.

You reap as you sow...What goes around comes around and hopefully soon.