Bush Diplomacy: Predator Planes Are Conducting Assassinations by Air

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Blowing Them Away Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
Globalization Bush-style
By Tom Engelhardt

Imagine, for a moment, that you live in a small town somewhere near the Southern California coast. You're going about your daily life, trying to scrape by in hard times, when the missile hits. It might have come from the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) -- its pilot at a base on the outskirts of Tehran -- that has had the village in its sights for the last six hours or from the Russian sub stationed just off the coast. In either case, it's devastating.

In Moscow and Tehran, officials announce that, in a joint action, they have launched the missile as part of a carefully coordinated "surgical" operation to take out a "known terrorist," a long-term danger to their national security. A Kremlin spokesman offers the following statement:

"As we have repeatedly said, we will continue to pursue terrorist activities and their operations wherever we may find them. We share common goals with respect to fighting terrorism. We will continue to seek out, identify, capture and, if necessary, kill terrorists where they plan their activities, carry out their operations or seek safe harbor."

A family in a ramshackle house just down the street from you -- he's a carpenter; she works at the local Dairy Queen -- are killed along with their pets. Their son is seriously wounded, their home blown to smithereens. Neighbors passing by as the missile hits are also wounded.

...

In fact, an almost exact replica of the above fictional incident -- at least the http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnBAN338885.html">fourth of its kind in recent months -- did indeed take place at the beginning of March in the embattled failed state of Somalia. (For that country's most recent abysmal collapse, the Bush administration, via an invasion by Ethiopian proxy forces, can take significant credit.) One or two houses in Dobley, a Somali town, were hit, possibly by two submarine-launched Tomahawk Cruise missiles in what a U.S. official termed "a deliberate strike against a suspected bed-down of known terrorists."

...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174906/philip_k_dick_meet_george_w_bush

[f the letter]

1. Wow. All hail our robot overlords n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. U.S. fires missiles at Somalia "terror target"

The strike destroyed two houses -- killing three women and three children, and wounding another 20 people -- Dhoobley's District Commissioner Ali Nur Ali Dherre told CNN. Dherre said the remains of the missiles were marked "US K."

The U.S. military official said the United States is still collecting post-strike information and is not yet able to confirm any casualties.

He described Monday's strike as "very deliberate" and said forces tried to use caution to avoid hitting civilians.

Villagers have fled in fear of another strike, Dherre said.

...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/03/03/somalia.us/

[leftchick]

3. so they hate us for our BOMBS?

and not our freedoms?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

4. Kicking