Friday, February 15, 2013

I usually don't 'do' politics [any more] but...

this article is the second in this week's mind-blowing series. While I've managed to ignite the amazement of bobby-pin wearing females with one revelation, let's unite in despair over the other embedded article within this article, which states that:

- drones are worse than measles
- 'extra-legal murder' exists as a term
- the allurism (?) of anti-American sentiment is behind anyone having a reaction to anything bad they do

The whole drone thing has gone over my head (!) because I haven't bothered informing myself about it. I probably won't read much more because it will make my head explode and today, that's not what I'm after. I'm after equilibrium and smoothness.

Hope everyone has a smooth day and even smoother weekend.

5 comments:

squib said...

I am not minimising the civilian casualties from drone strikes.

yeah, of course not

Anonymous said...

"Extra-judicial targeted killing" is the term I'm most familiar with. If I remember correctly, the administrative arm of the American government has asserted that it's now within its rights to use this option against anyone, including American citisens, anywhere in the world, whom they believe to be associated with anyone who has links to a group that may pose a threat to US national security, regardless of whether that particular individual poses a threat or not. Which I guess pretty much just means that the President and those he delegates responsibilities to can kill anyone they like with impunity, so long as the media backlash isn't too great. Or in other words, the yanks do things they'd call terrorist acts if someone they didn't like did them.

But I for one think that Mr Mick Kugelman makes a good point with his article. It's ridiculous for people to get upset over the killing of a few hundred/thousand civilians when statistics show the numbers paling into insignificance when compared to other preventable causes of death. It reminds me of those whinging Yanks who carried on like pork chops over a few thousand people being killed by a couple of planes being flown into buildings. For Christ's sake, there's more Americans get killed every year by accidental drowning and hepatitis and the numbers are positively tiny when compared to road deaths, shooting deaths, accidental poisoning, suicide and preventable lifestyle-related disease. Much ado about nothing really.

Melba said...

The final sentence of your first paragraph is spot on.

And I'm suspecting sarcasm in your second paragraph Alex. Is there?

Anonymous said...

Yes. I thought it would highlight what appears to me to be a bit of a double standard when it comes to these things.

In hindsight, probably not the most eloquent or intellectual way to make the point.

Melba said...

Nah, your second para is spot on too. And yes about the double standard.