According to the new book "Double Down," in which journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann chronicle the 2012 presidential election, President Barack Obama told his aides that he's "really good at killing people" while discussing drone strikes.
The reported claim by the commander-in-chief is as indisputable as it is grim.
Obama oversaw the 2009 surge in Afghanistan, 145 Predator drone strikes in NATO's 2011 Libya operations, the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and drone strikes that killed the Pakistani Taliban leader and a senior member of the Somali-based militant group al-Shabab this week.
His administration also expanded the drone war: There have been 326 drone strikes in Pakistan, 93 in Yemen, and several in Somalia - killing upwards of 4,000 people overall - under Obama, compared to a total of 52 strikes under George Bush.
Under Obama U.S. drone operators began practicing "signature strikes," a tactic in which targets are chosen based on patterns of suspicious behavior and the identities of those to be killed aren't necessarily known. (The administration counts all "military-age males" in a strike zone as combatants.)
Furthermore, the disturbing trend of the "double tap" - bombing the same place in quick succession and often hitting first responders - has become common practice under Obama's eye.
Obama has also embraced the expansion of capture/kill missions by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) after it developed into the primary counterterrorism tool of the Bush administration.
One JSOC operator told investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of "Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield," that global operations under Obama became "harder, faster, quicker - with the full support of the White House."
Scahill, who also made a "Dirty Wars" documentary, told NBC News that Obama will "go down in history as the president who legitimized and systematized a process by which the United States asserts the right to conduct assassination operations around the world."
Needless to say, a lot of innocent people have been killed along with combatants.
So although President Obama has proven to be "really good at killing people," the demonstration has not necessarily been noble.
According to the Daily Mail,
President Barack Obama bragged to his aides that he's 'really good at killing people,' according to explosive claims in a new book about the 2012 presidential campaign.
The revelation comes at a time when Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, has faced increasing criticism for his use of drones to target insurgents and terrorist suspects, particularly in Pakistan and Yemen.
The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that Obama has authorized 326 drone strikes. Since 2004, CIA unmanned aerial vehicles have killed 2,500 to 3,600 people - including up to 950 civilians.
According to Town Hall and Washington Post,
Remember when a Swedish reporter asked the president in September to describe the “dilemma to being a Nobel Peace Prize winner and getting ready to attack Syria”? If the following is true, it doesn’t really seem like there’s much of a moral dilemma he’s struggling with at all. Via the Washington Times:
There story is consistent with other sources,
President Obama was overheard bragging to administration aides about his ability to kill people with drones, a new book about the 2012 campaign season that’s due for release on Tuesday claimed.
The president’s specific words: I’m “really good at killing people,” authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann write in “Double Down: Game Change 2012,” The Daily Mail reported. They get their claim from a Washington Post report that buries the statement as a brief anecdote in an article, in which the president is described as speaking to aides about the drone program and then making the claim.
Sources;
https://amp.businessinsider.com/obama-said-hes-really-good-at-killing-people-2013-11