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A huge piece in the today’s Times examined our most powerful and least proud alumnus’ deliberative process when ordering drone strikes, in which he weighs the benefit of killing a suspected terrorist against the risk of killing innocents.
The piece included an oblique shout-out to CC. Obama, who in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech mused on just war, has apparently “reserved to himself the final moral calculation” when chancing collateral damage.
Obama applies “the ‘just war’ theories of Christian philosophers to a brutal modern conflict.” Without “a ‘near certainty’ that a strike would result in zero civilian deaths, Mr. Obama want[s] to decide personally whether to go ahead.” The coolest part:
A student of writings on war by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, [Obama] believes that he should take moral responsibility for such actions.
“He realizes this isn’t science, this is judgments made off of, most of the time, human intelligence,” said Mr. Daley, the former chief of staff.
Hard choices…you should think about them critically!
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14 Comments
@Ron Paul 2012 Can we all just vote RON PAUL please and put an END TO THE WARS?!!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gph8g5NYWgc
@Anonymous No one ever said Obama didn’t like Columbia. He was a transfer student for only two years and did not live near campus. He was not involved in campus activities. He basically just studied all the time in his apartment and most of his friends were non Columbia students in Brooklyn.
@wait so why think the former law professor’s interest in/knowledge of writings on war comes from cc?
@Anonymous it probably doesn’t. this bwog post is just another CC’s student desperate effort to grasp at the straws of obama’s fleeting connection to CC
@lol True fact: Obama was in Pakistan working for the CIA and he needed a cover-up story. :P
@um “fleeting connection”? you know he graduated from Columbia College, right?
@Anonymous 2 years in which he basically studied in his room, lived off campus, did not get any financial aid and was not involved in student life in any manner counts as ‘fleeting’. his snub to columbia this may is all the evidence we need of that.
@Anonymous because, you know, the most impotant thing in that article is the shout-out to Core material. f’ing hell. shoulda protested the shit out of his presence on campus.
@Anonymous Protesting a graduation ceremony? seriously? there are certain days and occasions you just leave alone out of respect for those participating.
@Anonymous What a baller. Fuck those terrorists up.
@Anonymous The term the Obama administration uses is “militants.” And Obama changed the U.S. definition of militant to include “all military-age males in a strike zone.” Just war my ass.
@feminist why only males? women should be able to die for their countries.
@or..you know ..Congress determines those things..
But why hold Congress responsible? Obama is much easier to blame
@Anonymous Wrong, the whole conceit of the Times article is that it was Obush…I mean, Obama’s decision. This isn’t an NYU blog, you know. I can source my comments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/drone-attacks-innocent-civilians_n_1554380.html