The Drone Papers • Hacker News Board

Re: The Drone Papers

#221

Post by tripzilch » Sun, Oct 18, 2015, 9:38 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #151

themgt wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Your summary is not commensurate with the story you linked. Something can be both a “terrible mistake” and also a violation of international law. At a high level, it seems unlikely that American military leaders would intend to bomb a hospital, considering the horrible human toll and subsequent political and public relations disaster. Perhaps the investigation will turn up a more complete story about why the hospital…

> it seems unlikely that American military leaders would intend to bomb a hospital

while I'm not 100% sure about that (it seems unthinkable for a human being, but people's judgement can get pretty out of whack in wrong environment), let's assume for the sake of argument that your military leaders are sane.

even then, all it requires is the bare minimum of military leader people closing their eyes for just long enough.

and if you believe they wouldn't do that intentionally, then we'll disagree about that. you don't get that position without the ability to look the other way with laser-sharp focus. it's part of the job (and it's disgusting).

but they would say "you don't know what it's like". meditate on that for a bit. this world, huh?

Re: The Drone Papers

#222

Post by tripzilch » Sun, Oct 18, 2015, 10:01 AM UTC

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…

> He (and Bush before him) assassinated people, assassinates them without trial or due process, while smiling and holding babies and making jokes at the White House correspondents dinner, and complaining about the gun culture and mass killings.

Reminds me, when I saw him interview with Jon Stewart a few weeks back, I was thinking "look at him, he's trying! such a nice man" (actually he was mainly avoiding making excuses).

Then I thought of the character of the Smiler in Transmetropolitan, and remembered.

Yesterday, part of a Nine Inch Nails lyric sprang out at me, and I had to think back of that scene:

"Don't try to tell me that some power can corrupt a person, you haven't had enough to know what it's like."

A lot of powerful people explain away the cognitive dissonance between their promises and their actions with some variation of the above, in different words. And the others, I fear, are just clever enough to not say it out loud. And what are they supposed to do? Have you ever listened to the raving rationalisations of a heroin junkie? If you think that's of a fault in their person instead of a product of their environment, then I suppose you haven't had enough to know what it's like.

We should treat addiction and abuse like the health problem it is, not a criminal problem. And we should start with the power elite.

Re: The Drone Papers

#223

Post by Satchelmouth » Sun, Oct 18, 2015, 11:06 PM UTC

kushti wrote: post #201

Satchelmouth wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a point however I just wanted to point out that RT is a very poor example to use.

Well, I guess Al-Jazeera is also a "very poor example" for you? Could you provide a good example then?

Well, I don't personally have a problem with Al-Jazeera. In the "editorial interference from the government" tables, Al-Jazeera makes an appearance but it is far, far below RT.

Re: The Drone Papers

#224

Post by e40 » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

whatafarce wrote: post #192

e40 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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. reply Let's apply your lost of words to WWII. Do you believe it was unjust or unfair to kill Germans in the service of stopping that war? Are you still at a loss for words?

You don't torture. Torture is wrong and evil. Defending it is wrong and evil. I'm at no loss for words, but you may be in need of a soul.

Nice straw man (or change of subject). No one, until now, has said anything of torture.

And your final sentence... just wow.

Re: The Drone Papers

#225

Post by xixi77 » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #73

xixi77 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define "positively evil"? If there are people whose objective is to destroy our quality of life (material or otherwise), is it immoral to make an effort to eliminate them? Now, I do have serious doubts whether the drone program actually serves that purpose, but are you suggesting that we should ignore legitimate threats to our well-being, or perhaps that there are no such threats?

I wasn't suggesting that there are people out there who actively want to destroy our quality of life. All things being equal, most foreigners couldn't care less how we make our living as long as it's not off their backs. Throughout recent history, however, that's exactly how certain US conglomerates have made much of their fortunes. There are no legitimate threats to our well being other than those created by our own…

Well, it appears we just have to disagree here. I see very immediate and legitimate threats to our (and our allies') well-being from the likes of Iran or Russia (I might agree with you on Cuba as it stands now -- but let's not forget the missile crisis, which has probably been the largest threat we've faced yet). I am all for peacefully negotiating mutually-agreeable solutions, but the key to having those negotiations in the first place is a credible threat of force, not folding at the first opportunity.

Re: The Drone Papers

#226

Post by merpnderp » Tue, Oct 20, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

ionised wrote: post #207

merpnderp wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should the US have done instead? He was planning and committing terrorist attacks and there was no way to simply arrest him. Why should the US be obligated to allow Americans to commit war crimes when they are unreachable by law enforcement?

Because if the US isn't going to follow the law why the fuck should anybody else?

What law did the US break? The guy was a member of Al Queda. Congress explicitly initiated a war against Al Queda. The guy wasn't in a place where US law enforcement could reach him. Which is kind of the definition of being at war.