Welcome To The World Of 'Wag The Dog': The Tale Of The Digitally Rendered Drone

OS had the joy of seeing a broadcast of the wickedly funny movie 'Wag The Dog' last week. Dustin Hoffman is simply brilliant as the Hollywood producer hired to save a US President's political career (a thinly disguised reference to Bill Clinton) by staging an imaginary war, which of course was won by us, the Good Guys. 

The movie has always been a favorite, but oddly comforting in its way, because after all, it's fiction.

Right?

Fast forward about fifteen years, and we have this insightful bit from The Atlantic, recounting how the iconic image of a drone firing a missile that we see everywhere is actually a piece of fiction, rendered by a clever designer in digital domain, in complete innocence.

The article is a good read. There is no skulduggery attached, no conspiracy here, nothing of that sort.

But just like 'Wag The Dog', it is an object lesson: We so often see what we think we see. We glance, come to a conclusion about what we have viewed, and move on along to the next item of business in our day.  We are all pressed for time, and can end up making momentous decisions in just moments, based upon what may or may not be accurate information.

In a world saturated with images and sounds, with little bits of news and info here and there, it is very easy to get 'snookered'. There are people (not the graphic designer Mr. Hahn) with malice in their hearts who know this fact, and make use of it. The deceptively edited audio of recording of the 911 call of George Zimmerman that figures so heavily in the Travon Martin tragedy is one small example.

A warning is wrapped in every Object Lesson: Be aware, be prudent, this could very easily happen to you. Why is this person or organization attempting to push or pull you in one direction or another?

Is what you are looking at/hearing/being told, actually true?

Apparently, Even The YewNorkTimez Has Had Its Fill Of Himself

For those of us, like OS, old enough to remember the dark days of the Nixon years, one of the darkest was the day it was disclosed that Mr. Nixon maintained an 'enemies list', a list of people who he and his felt had crossed him, made life miserable, opposed him, or even expressed opinions that contradicted his. The New York Times bellowed its disapproval, its righteous indignation, that such a thing could possibly exist, etc. etc. WorldWithoutEndAmen.

Amongst certain of the literati, it even became a badge of honor to have been named on the Nixon Enemies List, sort of like getting your Leftist props, don't-cha-know. OS remembers Gore Vidal getting a lot of mileage on the literary circuit thereby.

And, the Times, hypocritical and corrupt as it was and is, was correct to raise unshirted perdition on the matter, because it cut at the heart of civilized life, and was a portent of a totalitarian state.


Now, we have Barack Hussein Obama, WinnerOfTheNobelPeacePrize, President of the United States, in the White House, calling in drone strikes on his own personal list of terrorists.

It has been clear for years that the Obama administration believes the shadow war on terrorism gives it the power to choose targets for assassination, including Americans, without any oversight. On Tuesday, The New York Times revealed who was actually making the final decision on the biggest killings and drone strikes: President Obama himself. And that is very troubling. 

Well, yes, it is troubling, gentlemen. You're just now catching on?

It is too easy to say that this is a natural power of a commander in chief. The United States cannot be in a perpetual war on terror that allows lethal force against anyone, anywhere, for any perceived threat. That power is too great, and too easily abused, as those who lived through the George W. Bush administration will remember. 

Mr. Obama, who campaigned against some of those abuses in 2008, should remember. But the Times article, written by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, depicts him as personally choosing every target, approving every major drone strike in Yemen and Somalia and the riskiest ones in Pakistan, assisted only by his own aides and a group of national security operatives. Mr. Obama relies primarily on his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan.

To his credit, Mr. Obama believes he should take moral responsibility for these decisions, and he has read the just-war theories of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. 

 Damn. That last bit of information should make us all feel better, right? This is what Lyndon Johnson was doing in the Oval Office during the Vietnam war, personally calling in and choosing airstrike targets--this little bridge here, that village there. This one lives, this one dies, this pilot gets to get shot down, this one goes home--all on the whim of Lyndon's mercurical moods.

Of course, right around the corner from this sort of thing (just down that slippery slope over yonder) lie the Salvadoran death squads, the Disappeared of Argentina, the Chinese and Vietnamese 're-education' camps. 

We are closer to that corner and slope than ever.

OS is happy discover that the editors of the YewNorkTimez have finally located their bollocks, if ever so tentatively. What he truly awaits is the editorial that indicates they have located their consciences as well, the one that states:

It is incumbent upon the editorial staff of a large urban paper, when lending its support to a Presidential candidate and regime, to actually investigate what manner of man they intend to endorse. In the case of Barack Obama, we failed in our duty, so carried away were we with his charisma, his skin color, and our unshakeable faith in the politics of The Left. This man is unfit for office, and whatever ideological reservations we may have concerning Mr. Romney, we have had enough experience with him over the years to know that he is a sober adult possessed of a conscience. The same cannot be said of the current occupant of the Oval Office, and we urge his removal via the electoral process this November.

OS will not be holding his breath waiting for such an editorial.

A Good Beginning To The Week: Al-Qaeda #3 Meets His 72 Virgins (or not...)

In any case, he's not amongst us to kill any more innocent people.

The Pakis will whine. When they demonstrate the will to dispatch these monsters themselves, then the US, UK and the rest of the willing West can pack up and go home.

Until then...a big H/T to the military the Democrats hate, the quiet men and women who keep those fools and the rest of us safer in a dangerous world.