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Putin targets Russian citizens that are his personal enemies because they speak up, protest, or otherwise embarrass him. He does it using poison in a manner to

by erentz 8y ago

Putin targets Russian citizens that are his personal enemies because they speak up, protest, or otherwise embarrass him. He does it using poison in a manner to make sure everyone knows who did it and what the consequences are if you cross him. The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president. (Stating the obvious, but that’s not a defense of the drone program. You’ve outlined its problems. But it’s just clearly not the same thing.)

freeflight 8y ago
> The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president. How do you know that? Does the US publish its list? No, it doesn't, so you are making that statement on literally nothing but good faith. While at the same time you use bad faith to frame the Russian version as something where Putin personally orders people killed for slighting him or some other mundane reason. The reality is both are killing "enemies of the state", justified and regulated by their own, internal, rulesets and governmental institutions. They and others have been doing so openly, and covertly for decades. Heck, this kind of stuff even has been glorified as a pop-culture export from the UK as "the agent with a license to kill". In that context, there's literally no difference if it's an Obama, Trump, Putin or their UK equivalent giving the final "okay" or if the target is a US/UK/Russian national who's a terrorist/pedophile/traitor/whatever. It's about the lack of accountability, the lack of due process, the lack of recourse. All these issues exist regardless of the US, Russia or anybody else doing something like this. In that context, the US drone war is pretty much the overt manifestation of a practice that used to be kept covertly due to its inherent controversy. But in the zeals of a war on terror, where even torture became openly condonable, too many people have lost their moral compass.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  > The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president. How do you know that? Well, there's simple occam's razor - if drone strikes were doing this, we'd probably have heard about it. On the other hand we have a rising body count of journalists, artists, and ex-spies with real names and histories. No matter how you feel about drone strikes, you can't compare these things.
- tim333 8y ago
  We do have quite a lot of info on who are "US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA" and who get killed by drones. They don't overlap much. You don't get Drones trying to take out Mueller and the Taliban types who get hit are much more like military/terrorist enemies than political foes.
jononor 8y ago
Here is a US citizen and journalist that is on the kill list. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-... He has been lucky to survive so far. But he is struggling to even get a case before the courts to learn why he is on the list.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  There is no proof that he is on any kill list what so ever other than his claims of being too close to too many drone strikes which given what he does isn’t that surprising.
  - jononor 8y ago
    If he is not on a kill list, the US government should say so. If they don't want to give out person specific information, they can give a categorical statement like 'no US citizens on a kill list' or 'no US citizens in Syria'. How do you get evidence that you are on a kill list anyway? The lists are top secret, maintained by world class intelligence agencies...
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      The US has killed US citizens before e.g. Anwar al-Awlaki; if he’s on the list then it’s not because he is a journalist if he is nothing more than that then he ain’t on any list. There is no reason for the US to publicly state if he is on any kill list or not technically.

by erentz 8y ago

freeflight 8y ago

> The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president. How do you know that? Does the US publish its list? No, it doesn't, so you are making that statement on literally nothing but good faith. While at the same time you use bad faith to frame the Russian version as something where Putin personally orders people killed for slighting him or some other mundane reason. The reality is both are killing "enemies of the state", justified and regulated by their own, internal, rulesets and governmental institutions. They and others have been doing so openly, and covertly for decades. Heck, this kind of stuff even has been glorified as a pop-culture export from the UK as "the agent with a license to kill". In that context, there's literally no difference if it's an Obama, Trump, Putin or their UK equivalent giving the final "okay" or if the target is a US/UK/Russian national who's a terrorist/pedophile/traitor/whatever. It's about the lack of accountability, the lack of due process, the lack of recourse. All these issues exist regardless of the US, Russia or anybody else doing something like this. In that context, the US drone war is pretty much the overt manifestation of a practice that used to be kept covertly due to its inherent controversy. But in the zeals of a war on terror, where even torture became openly condonable, too many people have lost their moral compass.

stickfigure 8y ago
> The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president. How do you know that? Well, there's simple occam's razor - if drone strikes were doing this, we'd probably have heard about it. On the other hand we have a rising body count of journalists, artists, and ex-spies with real names and histories. No matter how you feel about drone strikes, you can't compare these things.
tim333 8y ago
We do have quite a lot of info on who are "US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA" and who get killed by drones. They don't overlap much. You don't get Drones trying to take out Mueller and the Taliban types who get hit are much more like military/terrorist enemies than political foes.

jononor 8y ago

Here is a US citizen and journalist that is on the kill list. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-... He has been lucky to survive so far. But he is struggling to even get a case before the courts to learn why he is on the list.

dogma1138 8y ago
There is no proof that he is on any kill list what so ever other than his claims of being too close to too many drone strikes which given what he does isn’t that surprising.
- jononor 8y ago
  If he is not on a kill list, the US government should say so. If they don't want to give out person specific information, they can give a categorical statement like 'no US citizens on a kill list' or 'no US citizens in Syria'. How do you get evidence that you are on a kill list anyway? The lists are top secret, maintained by world class intelligence agencies...
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    The US has killed US citizens before e.g. Anwar al-Awlaki; if he’s on the list then it’s not because he is a journalist if he is nothing more than that then he ain’t on any list. There is no reason for the US to publicly state if he is on any kill list or not technically.