predator drone joke: funny or not?

joke was about Malia being a fan of the Jonas Brothers and the president being a protective dad. President says, I have two words for you, Jonas Brothers: predator drones.

A decent response from the audience. It's funny because as president he actually does have that power, and it's funny to think of him using it against the Jonas Brothers. But wait a minute. The guy telling the joke not only has the power, he actually uses it, and uses it kind of a lot. Hundreds of civilians have died from Predator attacks he has ordered. They probably don't get C-span in Pakistan, but they do have the Internet, I wonder if this could offend some folks.

As I had said in another thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8255949&mesg_id=8256033

no one seems offended. I'm not offended.

You say there's 300 million people in the U.S. That's true, and billions more in the world. And hundreds of Pakistanis whose "pet issue" is that their family members were killed by a Predator drone.

I wasn't amused either, but not offended.

Though we did condemn Bush for his WMD search under the desk. Still, Bush and his gang were truly evil so maybe that's it.

THIS IS A NON-ISSUE.

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please
all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the
people all of the time”.

:eyes:

they should have tossed that one out.

Secret Service.

fair enough. :shrug:

Moderately funny.

but clearly the intent was not to make light of any civilan deaths

:shrug:

Of course, I don't have a problem with predator drones.

Not offensive...and not at all like Chimpy's shenanigans.

I could be completely wrong about this, but I remember a Rachel Maddow report on the fighting in Pakistan, she showed a clip of Hillary Clinton denying to comment on the drone attacks, saying "we don't talk about that". Because the war in Pakistan is officially secret, even though everyone knows about it, especially in Pakistan.

I never really understood that. What would change if Hillary had commented on the attacks? It probably has to do with some complex legal matters with international law or something.

But anyway, it's possible that for the same reason, Obama has never mentioned the drone attacks either.

Wouldn't that be weird, if this joke was the only thing Obama says during his presidency about this type of attack?

nt

Published on Sunday, April 5, 2009 by The Sunday Times (UK)

Thousands Flee Bomb Attacks by US Drones

by Daud Khattakin and Christina Lamb

AMERICAN drone attacks on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are causing a massive humanitarian emergency, Pakistani officials claimed after a new attack yesterday killed 13 people.

The dead and injured included foreign militants, but women and children were also killed when two missiles hit a house in the village of Data Khel, near the Afghan border, according to local officials.

As many as 1m people have fled their homes in the Tribal Areas to escape attacks by the unmanned spy planes as well as bombings by the Pakistani army. In Bajaur agency entire villages have been flattened by Pakistani troops under growing American pressure to act against Al-Qaeda militants, who have made the area their base.

Kacha Garhi is one of 11 tented camps across Pakistan's frontier province once used by Afghan refugees and now inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis made homeless in their own land.

So far 546,000 have registered as internally displaced people (IDPs) according to figures provided by Rabia Ali, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Maqbool Shah Roghani, administrator for IDPs at the Commission for Afghan Refugees.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/04/05-0

How many of you would be laughing at a joke about crashing passenger planes into tall buildings?

Obama's joke. The predator drones are not used to kill innocent people. :eyes:

:hi:

Brookings Report on Drones Confirms High Civilian Death Rate and Misses the Point

Americans should be terrified and horrified that CIA operators use a weapons system whose ability to avoid killing innocent men, women and children depends on “superb intelligence” when such intel does not exist. Essentially, what the CIA is doing is analagous to a police sniper aiming into a bank crowded with hostages with a sniper rifle whose barrel lacks rifling, pointing at a suspected robber and pulling the trigger. When the bullet goes astray due to the lack of a key feature that makes the sniper rifle accurate–the rifling– and kills a hostage, the police officer shrugs. “The robber used human shields.” If the public found out that our hypothetical police sniper knew in advance that he had, oh, say, a 90-percent chance of killing a hostage rather than a robber and he pulled the trigger anyway, they’d be howling for his head on a platter. But this kind of vile nonsense is exactly what the administration asks the American people to accept through further escalations of the CIA’s undeclared war on the Pakistanis unlucky enough to be living near our national enemies.

http://returngood.com/2009/07/21/brookings-report-confirms-high-civilian-death-rate-and-misses-the-point/

and very disappointing. The slaughtering of innocent people is never very good comedy.

But the poutrage about it is even funnier. :rofl:

n/t

Now I understand that they feed on it.

:shrug:

It is not at all like Bush's joke which tried to joke about a war started on a lie.

that came from a father with tweens. Ya know, I really don't think he meant it.

It was written for him and rehearsed.

n/t

however, it did not offend my sensibilities enough
to still be talking about it.

As you say, innocent people have been killed by those things in real life under this administration.

I would have cut it out.

Every person hear has heard a racist joke in their life time likely from another family member....does this mean they or YOU are racist...NO! So stop with this fake outrage people...it's silly. The president cant be a robot 24/7...it's a joke! I didn't find it funny at all simply because it just wasnt funny but to say he cant say it is just silly.

I am more upset that Obama is not doing the will of the people and giving in to the republicans all the time than some joke he said at a dinner. Let's focus our priority on more important issues people....actions speak louder than words and to me Obama should be held to the flames when it comes to his flip-flop actions or lack thereof .

I didn't find the joke about missing WMD's funny, nor the joke about the ghost of Lincoln advising Bush to go to the theater, nor the one about praying and Obama being the favorite president. I am much more into English (like Monte Python) dry humor, not death humor.

He's pretty good at the stand-up.

If you're going to spend your life worrying about the people you might potentially offend, you'll never tell a joke your entire life.

Knock, knock jokes? What about people who are quadriplegic and CAN'T KNOCK ON DOORS!! What about them, huh? What about them? Jesus Christ, you heartless bastard!

Bastard? What about the children of single mothers? What an incredibly offensive word to use, you ignorant jerk-off!

And NOW I've just offended those afflicted with sex addiction. How thoughtless!

Thoughtless? NOW I've just insulted Sarah Palin!

etc.
etc.
etc.

I mean, golly, the notion that he is an ineligible Kenyan usurper destroyin' the Constitootion is no laughing matter...

Seriously, do you really think he could just say "kill the Jonas brothers" and his staff would say "yes sir, right away sir"? I don't.

as I said in my OP, it's funny when you think of the Jonas Brothers aspect, because as you say, it's obviously not going to happen. Fine.

But as I also said in my OP, it became less funny when I remembered the civilians that have been killed by drone attacks approved by Obama. Hundreds of them. Dead now, leaving family members that are out there now. I guess the joke depends on no one thinking of those people, and I bet a lot of the people laughing in Obama's audience didn't think of them.

Shaeds of GW looking for WMD under his desk. :(

and the real deaths of innocents that occur. I think folks might be over doing the anger but it doesn't seem very respectful of the lives sacrificed on the alter on our security because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

nt