Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Drone Papers

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 226 posts

Re: The Drone Papers

#141

Post by nitrogen »

rhino369 wrote: post #134
DominikR wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? This article by associated press indicates that they attacked the hospital on purpose. http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:5e20fcd92aee49e69... > Obama is trying to kill people to make the world better... I have no words for this. How a person can even entertain such thoughts is beyond me.

>Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? Because there is no motive. From the story you quote "It's unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital — killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff — were aware that the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity." What is more likely. The US suddenly decided to murder a bunch o…

Doctors Without Borders has said that all sides in the conflict were repeatedly told the exact location of their hospital, yet it was attacked anyway. That makes it more difficult to dismiss as a mistake, and we will have to wait for the investigation(s) to know what happened.

Re: The Drone Papers

#142

Post by anigbrowl »

meatysnapper wrote: post #70
AngrySkillzz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. No one cares until its their kid or the neighbor's kid getting shipped off to some far away warzone. While I disagree with the draft on moral terms, I think pragmatically it is the only way to properly align the incentives of the populace against wars that don't matter. Otherwise, the government can wage whatever wars they want and no one will be that bothered (as we've seen).

This cannot be stressed enough. A robotic military allows the government to wage wars with impunity because the average voter just doesn't care. If you have skin in the game, it would be different. Perhaps a remedy for this would be to force the ranking members of congress to function as consuls, and make them live in Afghanistan for the duration of the conflict?

That's true, but look how poorly we behave when we go in with troops instead, qua Iraq. The upsides (such as they are) of drone war are that it's very limited in scope and stimulates a conversation about objectives and interests, such as we are having now. As soon as you send troops in somewhere, a large swathe of the public stops even pretending to think about those issues and goes straight into 'support our troops, crush the enemy' mode, completely detached from any kind of strategic, fiscal, or ethical considerations.

Re: The Drone Papers

#143

Post by NN88 »

whatafarce wrote: post #11
grandalf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target. As an American citizen I'm so ashamed that we do this.

Shame? How about anger, or rage, or wrath? How about an inflexible demand to stop war crimes. No one wants to conduct a meaningful opposition because the American system will destroy them. We are ruled by fear.

What would you do to stop the war crimes committed by these very targets?

Re: The Drone Papers

#144

Post by smokeyj »

anigbrowl wrote: post #130
bambax wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right in that's a false equivalence; but the response of Obama about the two events that happened the same day was striking. He has no control whatsoever about crazy people who shoot other people on campuses; and yet that's what he chose to talk about. He has a lot of control about what targets US armies bomb, drones or no drones. And yet he has almost nothing to say about that. But my point is not even this.…

Obama talks about military issues all the time. He talked about them today, explaining why he's decided not to withdraw troops from Afghanistan for the time being (meaning during his tenure). To expect him to talk about the issues you care most about to the exclusion of all others is simply childish. It's the rule of law. Get rid of due process, and evil is everywhere, or nowhere at all. The US is, by law, engaged in…

> there are other actors with geopolitical interests of their own who would cheerfully move in to fill the resulting vacuum

So the argument for perpetual and unwinnable warfare is - if we don't someone else will? You think that's worth the live's of US service members and the inevitable collateral damage inflicted in war zones? I feel like I'm missing part of the picture.

Personally, a better way of combating radical islam has less to do with drones and more to do with education and opportunity.

Re: The Drone Papers

#145

Post by sangnoir »

rhino369 wrote: post #137
bambax wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right in that's a false equivalence; but the response of Obama about the two events that happened the same day was striking. He has no control whatsoever about crazy people who shoot other people on campuses; and yet that's what he chose to talk about. He has a lot of control about what targets US armies bomb, drones or no drones. And yet he has almost nothing to say about that. But my point is not even this.…

>Get rid of due process, and evil is everywhere, or nowhere at all. Ok. Bambax why don't you serve Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour a summons to the S.D of NY. I'll send your parents flowers at your funeral. Due process has no process in combat.

  > Due process has no process in combat
The problem with that attitude is how quickly the term "enemy combatant" will be (or was) redefined to mean 'any person we don't like'

Re: The Drone Papers

#146

Post by themgt »

jsn117 wrote: post #123
cryoshon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shrug, the actual detail of the Kunduz massacre not being a drone is utterly irrelevant. The actual detail of using a drone rather than another type of airstrike is also irrelevant. The systematic and intentional killing ("collateral damage") of tons of civilians for an endless war is relevant. Look up all those times we droned weddings, killing dozens. Certain people at those weddings were targeted, not that it matt…

So comparing a terrible mistake in an active war zone to a purposeful killing of civilians is..what exactly?

The MSF hospital bombing was pretty clearly not a "terrible mistake", but was in fact "purposeful killing of civilians"

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/06/why-bombing-kunduz-hospi...

Re: The Drone Papers

#147

Post by themgt »

rhino369 wrote: post #134
DominikR wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? This article by associated press indicates that they attacked the hospital on purpose. http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:5e20fcd92aee49e69... > Obama is trying to kill people to make the world better... I have no words for this. How a person can even entertain such thoughts is beyond me.

>Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? Because there is no motive. From the story you quote "It's unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital — killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff — were aware that the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity." What is more likely. The US suddenly decided to murder a bunch o…

The motive is actually obvious. MSF treats all patients regardless of what "side" they are on in a conflict. The Afghans/US felt/believed that MSF were treating wounded Taliban and decided to destroy the hospital as an act of reprisal/total war.

Re: The Drone Papers

#148

Post by themgt »

anigbrowl wrote: post #121
DominikR wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? This article by associated press indicates that they attacked the hospital on purpose. http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:5e20fcd92aee49e69... > Obama is trying to kill people to make the world better... I have no words for this. How a person can even entertain such thoughts is beyond me.

They attacked the hospital purposely, but (it is claimed) because their Afghan allies were taking fire from there, not because it was a hospital . Now if they (or anyone) bombed a hospital in order to lower morale and inconvenience enemies by preventing any medical activities from taking place, that would indicate a very different purpose.

If we are to believe the US government, they should release the recorded video from the AC-130 gunship so we can all make up our own minds.

Re: The Drone Papers

#149

Post by sangnoir »

anigbrowl wrote: post #131
yuvadam wrote: post #2

There are a few interesting anecdotes about this huge story - This is the same leak that Glenn Greenwald describes to Edward Snowden in Moscow (-> -> -> -> POTUS), meaning this story has been in the making for at least 1.5 years. Second, this quality and quantity of leaks is incredible and can only be attributed to a news organization that takes security as a paramount consideration, setting up proper secure channels…

I'm inclined to at least consider the possibility that other foreign governments are helping out with making this information available because it suits their own interests. The notion that Snowden and Greenwald are plucky little protagonists doing everything on their own against the malign might of the US government is a peculiarly American narrative in that it doesn't consider the possibility that any non-Americans…

This is insane. By your logic: "I'm inclined to at least consider the possibility that the Russians are polluting American's precious bodily fluids because it suits their own interests..."

Re: The Drone Papers

#150

Post by sjs382 »

bambax wrote: post #48

This phrasing is incorrect: > [there are x persons] President Obama ha[s] authorized U.S. special operations forces to assassinate US special ops are the President's weapon. It doesn't make sense to say "yesterday I authorized my gun to kill a man"; what you want to say is "yesterday I killed a man". President Obama didn't "authorize targeted killings" or whatever you want to call those. He (and Bush before him) assa…

I have trouble with that phrasing, but I also have trouble with the phrasing that you suggest, too.

I have trouble with the word "authorize" because if he authorized the assassination, then (to me at least) that implies that the operator could choose to act or not. Was the operator able to choose? If not, then it's more than an authorization.

Maybe "ordered" is more correct, but I have my suspicions that word goes too far in the other direction.

Post reply on HN