Killing 12,000 civilians is arguably worse than being on Epstein’s list, Barry.
It does sound about right, but do you have a source for that number?
Sounds good. This guy available?
Stop idealizing Obama. We don’t have the full list and he’s been no different in terms of foreign policy and bombing brown people.
I hate obama but there is now way that obama and trump have similar foreign policies other than funding israel
I don’t think this is idealizing him, and I certainly don’t, but compared to Trump he’s still miles ahead, when you make a “generic” assessment. And the post is still making (most likely) an accurate statement. Obama doesn’t strike me as being a womanizer or a pedophile.
We have no idea if Obama is on the list because we don’t have the list. We pretty much know that Trump is on it, and someone like Bill Clinton is also very likely on there, but Bush Jr, Obama, and Biden could all also be on that list but we just don’t know. It’s a list of very powerful people, and anybody who has held the office of the presidency is a suspect as far as I’m concerned.
Also not a felon. Or rapist. No impeachments either.
Should be a felon considering his war crimes.
It’s good that Obama isn’t on the Epstein list.
But a woman’s value isn’t based on how many people have seen her body.
For Republicans, it is.
We shouldn’t encourage them to think they’re right.
Maybe your wife’s choice of career has fuck all to do with how good of a person you are. Since she’s not property and you don’t control her, yeah?
I think it’s more about the evangelical base and their extreme cope than necessarily about Melania, though being hypocritical to attack your out group is nothing new.
Yes, for me it’s the hypocrisy of the base. Imagine if Michelle or Hillary had been listed on that website Melania was on and had their pictures circulating. Imagine if those families had decorated the White House with some gaudy shit. Like Obama said, “imagine if I had done any of that”. The commenters are missing the point.
Relax. It’s a yo mamma joke pointed at Trump and Melania.
It’s low-hanging fruit of the simple minded who can’t make a compelling argument. Don’t make excuses for misogyny just because the rhetoric is being used in your favor.
It’s just wierd that the top comment was written like Obama made this meme and shared it.
Once again I ask you not to glorify war criminals.
Eat My Ass, Obama was the best President since Jimmy Carter.
true, but that is a painfully low bar to clear.
True. And it’s fucking embarrassing.
Your ass would do way worse than either.
No rebuttal for the war criminal thing, I see.
The only credible war criminal accusation towards Obama that comes to mind is the practice of ‘double-tapping’ which, at the very least, is something that Obama deserves a trial in the Hague for, even if I wouldn’t necessarily bet on the outcome even with an impartial court.
Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.
Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.
Okay let’s see:
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Everything about the drone strikes other than double-tapping. See: all those weddings he bombed.
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Supporting Saudi Arabia’s war crime-riddled intervention in Yemen.
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Everything to do with Guantanamo bay.
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Everything to do with Israel.
Everything about the drone strikes other than double-tapping. See: all those weddings he bombed.
Acceptance of collateral damage is a well-established principle in international law. While bombing weddings has a clear argument with regards to the immorality of it, it would be difficult to argue that it’s a war crime to target enemy combatants simply because they’re in a civilian context. As the civilian casualty ratio of the drone strikes, as assessed by outside and critical sources, was around 15%-20%, which fits pre-drone strike numbers, it would be extremely difficult to make any serious argument that the drone strikes were exceptionally careless about collateral damage relative to the military gain by current standards and thus constitute a war crime.
Again, I reiterate: “Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.”
Supporting Saudi Arabia’s war crime-riddled intervention in Yemen.
Selling weapons is not a war crime.
Again, I reiterate: “Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.”
Everything to do with Guantanamo bay.
You mean… trying to close it, restoring the standards to that of an ordinary prison instead of a torture camp, and releasing the vast majority of the prisoners when Congress refused to let him close it?
Everything to do with Israel.
If you think the president, and for that matter one of the least pro-Israel presidents since I’ve been alive could have easily “just done more” to prevent Israeli war crimes, you’re out of your gourd.
Again, I reiterate: “Every other major accusation I’ve seen stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘war crime’ as ‘anything that’s bad’.”
Acceptance of collateral damage is a well-established principle in international law.
If there’s a military purpose proportional to the damage inflicted. Bombing a wedding because a few attendants are enemy combatants is not that.
it would be extremely difficult to make any serious argument that the drone strikes were exceptionally careless about collateral damage relative to the military gain by current standards and thus constitute a war crime.
That would simply mean only some were war crimes compared to a majority that were legal. Even if you’re hitting one wedding for every nine enemy training camps, that one wedding is still a war crime. Also, I’d like to point out that the CIA is literally on record claiming international law is inapplicable to their drone strikes (back when they were still done by the CIA). Those are not the words of people not committing war crimes.
The CIA’s general counsel, Stephen Preston, in a speech entitled “CIA and the Rule of Law” at Harvard Law School on 10 April 2012, claimed the agency was not bound by the laws of war
Selling weapons is not a war crime.
Which is not the only thing America was doing under Obama.
This support involves aerial refueling, which allows coalition aircraft to spend more time over Yemen, and allowing some coalition members to home base aircraft instead of transferring them to Saudi Arabia
In October 2016, Reuters obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act showing officials had warned that the United States could be implicated in war crimes for its support of Saudi Arabia’s intervention.
According to a March 2016 Human Rights Watch assessment, the U.S. involvement in certain military actions, including as target selection and aerial refueling during Saudi air raids “may make US forces jointly responsible for laws-of-war violations by coalition forces”.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Saudi_Arabian–led_operations_in_Yemen
Sounds real war crime-y to me.
You mean… trying to close it, restoring the standards to that of an ordinary prison instead of a torture camp, and releasing the vast majority of the prisoners when Congress refused to let him close it?
Obama did a lot to improve the conditions at Guantanamo bay, but still:
The report stated the United States violated international law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that the Bush Administration could not try such prisoners as enemy combatants in a military tribunal and could not deny them access to the evidence used against them.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#International_law
This is one thing Obama didn’t change to my knowledge. See also:
In March 2009, the administration announced that it would no longer refer to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants, but it also asserted that the president had the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Barack_Obama#Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
This one is on the light end to be fair, but still a war crime.
If you think the president, and for that matter one of the least pro-Israel presidents since I’ve been alive could have easily “just done more” to prevent Israeli war crimes, you’re out of your gourd.
I mean, Reagan did it, literally with a phone call. US presidents can “just do more” to prevent Israeli war crimes that they fund, arm and protect. Also least pro-Israel in what way? The only instance of him going against Israel that I know of is JCPOA, which does nothing to absolve him of Israel’s war crimes in Palestine.
If there’s a military purpose proportional to the damage inflicted. Bombing a wedding because a few attendants are enemy combatants is not that.
Killing enemy combatants isn’t a military purpose?
When drone strikes of weddings are discussed, individuals are targeted while the wedding is ongoing, the wedding itself isn’t being fucking carpet bombed.
That would simply mean only some were war crimes compared to a majority that were legal. Even if you’re hitting one wedding for every nine enemy training camps, that one wedding is still a war crime.
Again, the wedding is only a war crime if the creation of civilian damage is excessive in comparison to the intended military damage inflicted. Considering that the civilian casualty ratio of drone strikes was not significantly different from prior non-drone military action, it would be a very fucking tough sell.
Also, I’d like to point out that the CIA is literally on record claiming international law is inapplicable to their drone strikes (back when they were still done by the CIA). Those are not the words of people not committing war crimes.
The CIA is absolutely committing war crimes - that’s not the same as saying Obama is a war criminal. The CIA, in fact, has repeatedly and blatantly violated direct orders from the executive, to the point there was a whole hearing over it during the Obama administration.
Sounds real war crime-y to me.
I would have objected, but I read the cited source in the wiki article
For instance, one of the emails made a specific reference to a 2013 ruling from the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor that significantly widened the international legal definition of aiding and abetting such crimes.
The ruling found that “practical assistance, encouragement or moral support” is sufficient to determine liability for war crimes. Prosecutors do not have to prove a defendant participated in a specific crime, the U.N.-backed court found.
That makes the accusation of war crimes more credible over supplying the Saudis against Yemen. I concede that there is a valid argument there, though I would contend that the discussion involved is still primarily cautious and over there being an argument for liability, rather than a clear-cut case that assistance to a war-crime committing belligerent, even with exhortation to show greater restraint and precision, was absolutely without question a war crime.
… and also that that ruling is startlingly broad.
This is one thing Obama didn’t change to my knowledge.
The citation is over the Bush Administration, and explicitly says as much. The Obama administration performed an extensive review of prisoners and changes of policy, resulting in some being tried, many being released, and those retained retained under internationally agreed-upon standards for military detention under the laws of war.
This one is on the light end to be fair, but still a war crime.
The DOJ claiming the president has the power to do something he hasn’t and did not do (as Obama added no detainees to Gitmo) is a war crime?
I mean, Reagan did it, literally with a phone call.
If I hear this shit take on Lemmy one more time, I’m going to fucking explode. In other words, please attend my funeral to be held within the next week (closed casket).
US presidents can “just do more” to prevent Israeli war crimes that they fund, arm and protect.
Would you like to remind me what the powers of the US president are, again?
Also least pro-Israel in what way? The only instance of him going against Israel that I know of is JCPOA, which does nothing to absolve him of Israel’s war crimes in Palestine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–United_States_relations#Obama_administration_(2009–2017)
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He gets tons of flak for his heavy use of drone attacks - which is completely valid - but people usually ignore that:
- a) The reason we know those numbers is because Obama’s administration put strict reporting policies on drone usage in place that included strikes that weren’t even tracked under previous stats. A lot of those drone strikes were egregious, yes, but also are only public knowledge because he designed a system to be held accountable.
- b) Trump removed those reporting policies during his first term, then proceeded to order more drone strikes than Obama. Not saying that Obama’s good because Trump is worse, but the reported numbers are back to being fucking lies and those lies make Obama look worse.
- c) Drone warfare technology started coming into its own around when Obama was elected, and he was stuck with multiple unpopular wars and an openly hostile Republican opposition who would blame any American casualties on him, so of course he used drones more than previous presidents.
In the land of the blind, the one eyed is king…
Maybe that’s true, but even so that’s no excuse to glorify him. Obama was a step towards, not away from, fascism, and a decisive one at that.
How was he a step towards fascism?
Glorifying maybe is a strong word, but assuming war crimes as a constant of American history basically, we can appreciate the good things he did, specially in the context of bush before him and trump after him. Yes, it’s praising someone for not shitting his pants, but we are at that level unfortunately.
I mean, Obama did shit his pants, hard. He did do some good things, but he failed the test given to him by history same as Biden by not ending the War on Terror after the death of Bin Laden. America was going to have to reckon with the rot at the heart of its society sooner or later, but that rot was rapidly metastatizing fast through the War on Terror, and Obama had a golden opportunity to stop that but he didn’t. Compared to this one gigantic failure, all his successes (and most of his other failures) are footnotes. I view him the same as Biden: Someone who would’ve been a good or good-ish president in saner times, but who was woefully inadequate for the hour. The consequences of his failure weren’t as immediate as Biden’s so it’s harder to notice, but Obama shitting his pants is why we’re living through Trump 2 right now.
Youre right in that war crimes are a constant in american history, but America desperately needed Obama to be the peace president he’d said he’d be.
He did do some good things, but he failed the test given to him by history same as Biden by not ending the War on Terror after the death of Bin Laden.
In what way did you want him to ‘end’ the ‘War on Terror’, itself an immensely nebulous term for a broad range of foreign policy issues regarding non-state actors?
Perhaps nonintervention against ISIS? Or giving Afghanistan over to the Taliban ten years ahead of time? What form of ‘ending’ the War on Terror are we looking at? What ‘golden opportunity’ did he have?
Obama was an insufficient solution to America’s post-Bush problems. But the urge to counter the hagiography of some liberals about Obama with a broad-spectrum condemnation of the Obama’s administration’s policies is not really a reasonable response.
Ok, so let me appreciate him for shitting his pants less than the guys before and after him. Yes, he didn’t stop it, arguably accelerated a bit, but the other guys where pedal to the metal while punching you in the face. Obamacare was bad, but it was better than injecting bleach. Droning weddings was bad, but better than ethnic cleansing. Not prosecuting Cheney was bad, but better than selling pardons for 2M a pop. You get the idea.
I bet you were a genocide Joe voter.
Go back to hexbear you fascist cuck.
Well I’m not American so voting for anyone would’ve been a pretty egregious case of election fraud, but why so?
Yes, but also humans stupid and must have good and bad, so if obama better, obama good.
I say this as someone who doesn’t have Obamna Derangement Syndrome: this post is painful boomer slop.
That’s basically everything from Occupy Democrats. They’re Facebook-tier meme cringe with a side of “how do you do, fellow kids?”
The sad thing is crap like this probably works better than actual logic.
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Unlike Dump I actually would want to see Bama’s wife naked.
Not really a strong conviction here, but she seems like she’s not all plastic yet. A mind up there, too… Always good in my list
Also, she at least looks like someone who’s actually had an orgasm in the past 40 years or so.
She a goer, then? Nudge nudge know what I mean?
You like photography, eh? Say no more!
sure but that’s not the metric by which we measure goodness, considering. As in, memery aside, he should not be speaking as if he’s not a monster as well. 😂
Obama was a great president.
Smashing the Like button on Occupy Democrats facebook posts is what boomers think meaningful political activism is
And youve done what to stop trump?
Edit: Downvote me all you want. How is it trump can mobilize a whole ass nazi movement and its too much to expect dem leadership to fucking do anything about it?
Trump was a con man and reality TV star. Obama was fucking president eight years.
Pizza bracelet
Trump would lose his fucking mind. Remember, Obama baggin’ on him is why he ran in the first place.
If you haven’t seen it, history in the making, and funny as hell to boot. Except for the consequences.
I completely believe that’s the point in time it all started to go wrong, and if Obama had simply avoided being a smug knob, we would never have had a Trump presidency.
The jokes weren’t even that good.
Get over it. Any late night show or comedian’s social media has much harsher (true) criticisms of Trump. Also, mildly poking fun was the point of the Correspondents’ Dinner, at least before Thin-Skinned Trump cancelled the tradition…
