Barack Obama's Statement on Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Barack Obama's Statement on Ukraine

barackobama.medium.com

A bit of hypocrisy from a man who bombed Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Did I leave any out?

He managed to make the use of drones to kill people be accepted by the general American public. It's now standard practice to take out targets with drones.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/01/12/reflecting-...

I am so sorry to see you downvoted. But that is the exact sentiment as well. The number of people killed by drones in just the last decade has not even been counted because the official government policy to mark all 18+ males as targets.

"Obama embraced the US drone programme, overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama’s two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush. Between 384 and 807 civilians were killed in those countries, according to reports logged by the Bureau."

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/oba...

You forgot one thing... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Nobel_Peace_Prize

The Art of Eloquent Hypocrisy by Barack Obama

The U.S. didn't bomb indiscriminately, or to expand borders, or use false pretenses to try to justify it, or in contravention to international law. Putin has done all of those things. And not just right now but in 2014 when Obama was president. I think history will take a dim view of Obama's, and the world's, decision to just let Crimea go as if sometimes a war of aggression to expand borders is not a crime at all, let alone "the supreme international crime".

The difference is that not all bombings are the same. There's good bombings and bad bombings.

>There may be some economic consequences to such sanctions, given Russia’s significant role in world energy markets. But that’s a price we should be willing to pay to take a stand on the side of freedom.

What if I'm not though. Seems hard to justify taking on personal sacrifice for a bunch of people half a world away who I'll never know in a manner whose benefits are at best dubious.

Then tough. You live in a society. Your individual wants don’t always take top priority.

Do we really though? Does an international society really exist? Personally, I don't feel much of an obligation to people a hundred miles away, much less people on the other side of the Earth, in a whole different country

I didn’t say international society. I meant the one you live in. Which is presumably the US.

Then we should put sanctions up for a referendum before they're enacted.

Delegating this decision making to elected leaders is the entire premise of democracy.

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