Tubularsock

Tubularsock was sitting in his top floor corner office in his underground bunker overlooking Washington, D.C. from Oakland, CA and pondering.

How is it that the United States can keep all the wars going on for years and years and just not run out of enemies. How can we be so good at this and can’t seem to fix our own streets, roads and bridges?

Is THIS what American Exceptionalism is all about? Being able to PREACH caring and peace by running undisciplined about the world kicking and screaming in reality about getting OUR own way? Disregarding ALL peoples in our way so we can get OURS even when what we want doesn’t belong to us.

So let Tubularsock define some terms to get things a bit more clear.

Now Tubularsock knows many of you know this already but as time passes we all forget some things because it just has become the way the United States does things.

The debate about how the U.S. does things is pushed aside by the continued doing of it to the point that it is soon forgotten by so many that there may be a different way to do it.

1. pre-emptive strike IS AGGRESSION. Clear and simple.
2. Un-declared war while bombing another country IS WAR.
3. Torture IS torture no matter what fancy word one comes up with to attempt to cover it up.
4. Signed treaties and agreements legally need to be followed by ALL. Not just by OTHERS.
5. The rule of law NOT of men MEANS just that, the rule of LAW not of men.
6. War criminals must be held accountable even if they are Americans.
7. Regime change by “assisted” revolt or assassination is WAR.
8. Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11
9. Afghanistan didn’t either!
10. An example of a terrorist state IS the United States.
11. And to bring this home to you personally Tubularsock will remind you what your mother told you, “Just because your good friend is a jackass doesn’t mean you have to copy him!”
12. al Qaida, ISIS, Neo-Nazis of Ukraine were all created and are supported by the U.S., Israel, and England and have and will continue to create BLOWBACK for years to come.
13. Drones create more terrorists than they destroy.

And sure the list could go on but Tubularsock figures you got his point with the first example which only goes to show you that redundancy is so redundant.

And because you “got-it” from the first example Tubularsock is going to use the last example as his template for all examples. Now how easy is that?

About a little over two weeks ago the BBC News reported that, “A US drone strike in Yemen . . . killed three suspected al ­Qaeda members suggesting that US policy in the region is continuing as normal”.

Now “. . . continuing as normal” means that the U.S. has been killing people by drones in Yemen since 2002 or for the past thirteen years. And up to this point the U.S. had a Yemenis puppet leader who went along with the U.S. killing but recently that leader was overthrown and the current Yemen government is a Shia-led rebel grouping known as the Houthis.

But the U.S. doesn’t care who is the leader of an independent country, we’ll drone them if we want because it’s “normal”! Makes Tubularsock wonder why somebody has taken all that time to draw all those border lines on all those maps if they really have no meaning. Oh, Tubularsock forgot …… the U.S. border lines are sacred, of course.

And when those supposed Arabs took out the Twin Towers the CROSSING of those U.S. border lines were duly noted, if you recall. It was even considered an attack!

But Tubularsock again is in a middle of a digression. So back to the main point.

Now “ . . . killed three suspected al­ Qaeda members . . . ” means …… well what it means in this case is not true.

You see “suspected” is a funny way to die. The drone operator doesn’t know if the occupants of the car they blew to hell really has REAL al Qaeda members inside.

So they are “suspected” which means that AFTER they are dead, well people on the ground report if they were al Qaeda or just another wedding party.

In fact, the Obama administration considers “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants,” several administration officials told the New York Times in June 2012, “unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” And if they weren’t a “combatant” they are just dead with the distinction of being counted differently. You know how important accuracy is to the United States!

Well in this case two of the PEOPLE in the car were al Qaeda but the third PERSON was a thirteen year old boy ………. So who was he?

Mohammed Saleh Duaayman was 13 years old and in the sixth grade.

(another digression: you do realize that EVEN if Mohammed had skipped death and got to the United States he still would have NOT been able to go to school with the Obama kids. They go to a private school for important people!)

According to his eldest sister, Mohammed was traveling from their home in Al-Zoor village to visit his father’s second wife at the time of the Jan. 26 drone strike.

Mohammed was traveling with two men who were members of AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), a source within the group previously told the Yemen Times. The sister said she is unaware whether the two men were AQAP members or not, but reaffirmed that her brother was innocent and was not a member of the organization.

Funny thing, Mohammed’s father and one of his brothers who was 17 at the time were blown apart by a drone back in 2011 while they were searching for a camel. It seems that his father and two of his brothers were sleeping when the drone spotted them. The drone was controlled by a CIA controller who had never been tired following a missing camel. And you know how difficult it is to ask questions about a situation from 20,000 feet so he blew them up. Hey,  you can’t be too careful driving a drone.

But the 14 year old brother hid in the rocks and was not killed but his brother and father were killed. He came home a day and a half later with the story. He had stayed in the rocks for a full day before he made his move.

Mohammed was 9 years at the time. Mohammed came from a large family. His father had four wives and 26 children—12 boys and 14 girls. And these are just a few of his brothers and sisters.

His father supported his family by buying and selling used cars and herding sheep and camels. He also received about $500 a month from the government. He had fought against the Russians in Afghanistan and on his return the Yemenis security officials provided these funds to him so he would not join the al Qaeda forces within Yemen.

After his death the Yemenis security officials stopped the government payment and the local AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) started to help out the family and has done so for the last three years.

So what does that tell us? Well 10 boys left to join the AQAP. That’s what!

So two drone strikes kills a father and two sons and sets up an additional 10 fighters for al Qaeda. That’s the math which then explains why we have a continued supply of enemies. AND THIS IS JUST ONE FAMILY!

Data collected by the human rights group Reprieve and presented last November maintains that attempts to kill 41 targeted individuals across Pakistan and Yemen in recent years resulted in the deaths of some 1,147 people, the vast majority civilians and families. At that rate the U.S. has created a fucking shit-load of enemies and Obomber still says, “It is not neat and it is not simple, but it is the best option that we have”.

IS IT, REALLY?