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This documentary provides an idea of the how the Obama administration has bolstered the use of illegal military operations that are currently under-way.

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There's a lot of talk these days surrounding American airstrikes (particularly drone strikes), their legitimacy, and often the specific question of whether or not they are/should be allowed to kill an American citizen. This question has always disturbed me because of the implicit premise that killing an American citizen is somehow less acceptable than killing a foreign national. For that to be true one must grant that American lives are somehow different and that ending them is worse/less acceptable. By the transitive property, one must then grant that ending non-American lives is not as bad/more acceptable, and that's really, really fucked up.

 

I've observed a decent amount of discussion surrounding the question, and no matter the speaker's opinion, they always seem to accept that implicit premise. I'm not American, so I'm aware that I might not know everything relevant to the discussion (for instance, perhaps there's some legal detail that limits how the American military may act upon its citizens): is there something I'm missing or is everyone really taking it as writ that foreigners just don't matter as much as Americans?

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My understanding of it is that the 6th amendment of the United States Constitution states that american citizens have a right to a fair trial. Since the United States is supposed to be a constitutional republic, and the president of the United States is supposed to be limited by the rights given to U.S. citizens in the U.S. Constitution, assassinating american citizens without a trial is considered a significant breach of presidential powers.
There's also the aspect where most americans are scary nationalists who care less and less about the deaths of people as they are more and more unlike them. So pointing out that a U.S. President is assassinating people with the same legal rights as them is supposed to have a value of alarm and shock. It probably doesn't work when the american citizen is muslim though.

I agree with you though, it's disgusting that assassination of foreigners is so digestible for the vast majority of americans.

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A lot of the conversation is wrapped up in American legal issues. The administration justifies its murder by retroactively naming anyone killed by a drone strike an enemy combatant, thereby providing a legal justification for the act. This isn't something you can do with an American citizen -- they can't really be an enemy combatant, unless you jump through a lot of legal hoops that would never, ever hold up in trial, provided anyone ever stand trial, and provided the legal justification was even provided (as far as I know, the legal justification is still deeply classified). Because the conversation is wrapped up in this legal or extralegal killing thing (extralegal because, like Clyde said, Americans are supposed to get trials -- even if they're sham military military trials, they still get trials), and American law values an American life over a non-American life, the discourse takes on that weird nationalist tone that most (every?) Western nations are prone to.

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Clyde and Mangela are right to point out the legal issues, but for the most part I think the American citizen angle comes from a nationalistic attitude. In US politics you almost always hear a topic discussed regarding killing or crime and punishment, then at some point the question changes to "well what if X happened to an American citizen" as though it were an entirely different issue, or bound by a different moral code. We spied on Angela Merkel for no good reason and no one in the US seemed to give a shit because they found out that the government is also collecting metadata about their activities. Honestly I think part of it comes from WW2, where some people still think of European countries based on their roles in the war and use that to justify their opinions. For example, we call french fries freedom fries now because France vetoed our UN security council resolution to invade Iraq in 2003 despite the fact that most Americans disagree with the war, or at least acknowledge it's folly. I don't know if it's any different elsewhere, but it's probably louder here. Also I can't say for certain if most Americans believe this kind of thing, but the ones who get elected seem to, which is a whole other topic in itself.

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As everyone before me has mentioned, it's a mix of legal and nationalistic issues.

 

When there's a hostage situation or a bombing, the news is always quick to note the number of Americans involved, as if the rest of the victims don't count. "Plane crash in France, hundreds dead, including five Americans." The only (very flimsy) justification I can think of for that is letting people know the chances that someone they know is involved? But that's still like a one in a million chance.

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Wait, do you still call them Freedom Fries?! Do people actually say the words Freedom Fries?

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Even when that was a "thing", I think it was only barely a thing. No one I knew ever called them that.

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Yeah, the news does do the same here, specifying the irish numbers as if that's the true tragedy. Even in the least insidious ways, it's about how closely the victim can be identified with. I could maybe see American exceptionalism skewing it worse there, but I think it's a common mindset even if it's not pronounced.

 

...but maybe I have an overly western sort of imperialist view on this.

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Wait, do you still call them Freedom Fries?! Do people actually say the words Freedom Fries?

 

Places in the heartland adopted that silly thing a lot more than on the coasts. I believe a few places here and there stuck to it more as a patriotic thing than an anti-France thing.

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As someone from Illinois, I literally never heard anyone genuinely call them Freedom Fries. I believe there are probably like 6 places that committed to it, but I have only every said "Freedom Fries" as a joke.

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Maybe I've had a unique experience with that word.  I grew up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where at first everyone called them freedom fries (even the school cafeteria) and then lived in Florida where I saw the term more often than not even until I left in March.  It may have fallen out of favor at the moment, but I still see it every now and then.  Anyway, a not insignificant number of people still haven't forgiven France for making essentially the correct decision 12 years ago.

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I can't bear the refugee "discussion" going on in my country. People love blaming the refugees for all kinds of stuff -- no one is mentioning the US, who destabilized Iraq where half of the refugees are from (and who could do that without the risk of hundreds of thousands of refugees at its borders). I've never been more pissed at the US' World Police antics.

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Even when that was a "thing", I think it was only barely a thing. No one I knew ever called them that.

 

 

As someone from Illinois, I literally never heard anyone genuinely call them Freedom Fries. I believe there are probably like 6 places that committed to it, but I have only every said "Freedom Fries" as a joke.

 

 

Places in the heartland adopted that silly thing a lot more than on the coasts. I believe a few places here and there stuck to it more as a patriotic thing than an anti-France thing.

 

 

Phew! Thanks for clearing that up! Got worried there for a moment.

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Putin gives a speech about fighting terrorism, starts air striking non ISIL targets in Syria. Appears to be killing civilians already.

 

"Syrian opposition activists said Russian warplanes had hit towns including Zafaraneh, Rastan and Talbiseh, resulting in the deaths of 36 people, a number of them children"

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34408120

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I wish I saw surprised, but this is a pretty typical Putin move. Find a situation, or create one, where some injustice exists, then play the moralist publicly while pragmatically advancing his agenda. From my understanding of the reporting on these bombings, they really have nothing to do with ISIL but are instead focused on keeping Assad's remaining territories connected.

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This article about how the TPP will make the US the "super-regulator" and it and the Pacific nation the source of future regulation is a really interesting idea. 

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Hoping that Canadian is "International" enough for y'all.

 

We're in the middle of a federal election here, and things have gotten rough. After 8 years of having our national identity slowly worn away by a man who idolizes George W Bush as our Prime Minister, there has been a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Last time around, he got himself up to a majority government, but the far-left New Democratic Party also made huge gains. Since, the man who lead them there has died of cancer, but they're still putting in a very good showing. The centrist Liberal party is also doing quite well, now being lead by Justin Trudeau, the son of much celebrated former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Harper, our current PM who has a track record of burying despicable clauses in 200+ page bills so they get passed without being fully read, being the only PM ever held in contempt of Parliament, 3 (!!) recessions, muzzling scientists who say anything bad about oil, and appointing senators who are (during the election!) currently being tried for corruption, was trailing by a fair amount in the polls. That is, until 2 weeks ago when he started talking shit about Muslims a lot. Somehow he's now competitive again after changing his campaign to mostly be talking about how women shouldn't be allowed to wear a Niqab during the citizenship process because they could be secret terrorists and starting a hotline where "real Canadians" can report "barbaric practices". What the actual fuck. I posted this to facebook tonight and will just leave it here:

 

I know that since election time came around, my facebook feed has been getting super political, so I'll try to not put so much up, but seriously. Before the French language debates and Harper's focus on the Niqab, I would have accepted people who said they had reasons to vote Conservative. I would have disagreed with them, but at least understood. After this toxic turn that his campaign has taken, I feel like it has to be said: If you can still find it in yourself to support this man, you are either a racist yourself or care little enough about justice that you're fine letting a racist run your country.

Trying to spin it as a women's rights issue doesn't help either. Whether you're telling a woman she has to wear something or telling her that she cannot wear something, it's equally messed up. The Niqab is a choice made as part of religious devotion, not a sign of oppression. Women I've known who chose to wear it, a Hijab, or other similar articles of clothing had to actually fight their families to do so because their families were afraid the neighbours would think they were being forced. It is their choice.

Nothing would make me more ashamed of my country than having an election won by racism. I woke up yesterday to hear CBC news telling me about teenagers assaulting a muslim woman in Montreal who was dressed in a Niqab. If our Prime Minister is condoning anti-muslim policies, why would we expect any better out of our youth? This is disgusting, and I need to believe that Canadians are above it.

In two weeks, please remember: A vote for Harper may as well be a hate crime.

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