I finished watching "13 Hours" last night, a movie about the Benghazi events. The use of drones to kill indirect threats is ubiquitous and yet when it came to saving Americans citizens, drones suddenly weren't in use? dafuq.
Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
31–40 of 124 posts
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#32Whenever I hear something about US drone Strikes I always think how long until the other side starts getting drones developed and and easy way to mass produce them and smuggle them into the US assemble them and start launching drone strikes from within the US on US persons of interest like politicians and CIA officials. Drone parts are getting cheaper and cheaper and easier to get it's only a matter a time someone st…
Well Deash and Al Queda don't seem to have much ability to get the good explosives required for that - Compare them to the PIRA and UDF during the troubles. I am surprised that they haven't tried the sort of improvised mortars the the IRA used an almost hit the Cabinet at no 10
For the improvised mortars, I think it's more of a question of strategic priorities (carpet bombing Belfast was never on the table in a way ditto for Raqqa probably is) than capabilities (although the PIRA and UDF did benefit from having a nearby staging area).
That said, it's not like they're lacking in creativity: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2169909...
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here. Clarification: I'm not a fan of CIA assasinations, far from it; but "execution without a trial" isn't logically justifiable complaint: we do it i…
enemy soldiers There is a legal obligation in the Geneva protocols 1949 to identify who you're targeting and refrain from targeting civilians. https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/9ac284404d38ed2bc125... "refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in r…
A lot of comments with similar sentiments, so I'll reply just to yours, because it's on top.
Basically, you're making my point for me: there's nothing inherently wrong with remote strikes or drones in particular. It's just a tool; and as a tool, it can be used rightly and wrongly. So, the fact that Clinton used that tool doesn't make her bad. But if you would have information about her using that tool to authorize a strike which she would've known would cause significant collateral damage, and which wouldn't save as many innocent lives as it would take — this would. But the article presents no such information, so all emptional reaction you can have to such a headline is not really justified.
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#34Whenever I hear something about US drone Strikes I always think how long until the other side starts getting drones developed and and easy way to mass produce them and smuggle them into the US assemble them and start launching drone strikes from within the US on US persons of interest like politicians and CIA officials. Drone parts are getting cheaper and cheaper and easier to get it's only a matter a time someone st…
Which of course is the only bad thing about drone strikes, right? That they could ever hit the "right guys"? Who cares that hundreds of innocent civilians are killed, if they are not american citizens? Disgusting, really. EDIT, for the downvoters you'll have to justify what in my comment you do not like. The parent is making the case that what worries him/her is that drone strikes will eventually be used to attack am…
Black and white decisions are a luxury that not all people are afforded. Yes it's terrible that innocent lives are lost but it's at least equally terrible, many would argue even more so, that innocent lives of your clan are lost. For many decisions outside the obvious, it is often the case that you're selecting from a pool of bad choices.
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here. Clarification: I'm not a fan of CIA assasinations, far from it; but "execution without a trial" isn't logically justifiable complaint: we do it i…
Any action? Lets look at some specifics and ask which ones should count as murder. A reasonable person might see a different degree of justification in each case. A person wielding a gun is running and firring their weapon towards a solider. The solider shoots back and kills them. A boat full with military weapons enters an areas which marines are defending and refuse to turn back. The marines sinks the boat. A tank…
I'm sorry — what point, exactly, are you trying to prove right now, and how do you think this point contradicts my original comment?
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#36"There's an app for that!"™
Droneder! Swipe left and you'll never hear from them again.
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#37The US had some "bad luck" with drone strikes during her tenure. There's been no evidence released to prove it (and it may well not exist), but for people still questioning why this email setup matters: Given that it's abundantly clear any state-sponsored hacker would have no difficulty hacking her server, it isn't exactly a stretch for our enemies to move the targets of drone strikes and put innocent civilians in their place to win the propaganda war. A former State Department aide attached his name to claims that her sloppy comms may have foiled multiple counterterrorism operations. [1]
That said, this isn't "just what it is that the FBI is looking to" as this article says. The FBI director originally said they expected to wrap this up by October 2015. If we were talking about a few emails sent over the holidays, this would've been wrapped up a long time ago. In a separate civil suit, the FBI filed a motion to prevent the release of documents, or even the number of documents, for which a FOIA request had been issued. [2] Even the number of documents would tip their hand? The only explanation that really makes sense there is that they're building a RICO case against the Clinton Foundation - and thus a ton more documents than would otherwise be relevant are in play. The fact that they started investigating VA governor McAuliffe's time at the Clinton Foundation shortly after receiving the backups of Clinton's server from their third-party data backup service makes this kind of obvious. Yes, the backups that Clinton's associates attempted to have destroyed even after the State Department asked them to turn over her emails. [3]
[1] http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-email-terrorism-slop...
[2] "disclosure of these records [his immunity agreement] could reasonably be expected to reveal the nature, scope, and focus of the FBI’s activities in the investigation.” http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/new-fbi-filings-reveal-pendi...
[3]Despite Boian’s statement that Platte River set up a 30-day revolving retention policy for Clinton’s emails, Johnson’s letter noted that Platte River employees were directed to reduce the amount of email data being stored with each backup. Late this summer, Johnson wrote, a Platte River employee took note of this change and inquired whether the company could search its archives for an email from Clinton Executive Service Corp. directing such a reduction in October or November 2014 and then again around February, advising Platte River to save only emails sent during the most recent 30 days.
Those reductions would have occurred after the State Department requested that Clinton turn over her emails.
It was here that a Platte River employee voiced suspicions about a cover-up and sought to protect the company. “If we have it in writing that they told us to cut the backups,” the employee wrote, “and that we can go public with our statement saying we have had backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30 days, it would make us look a WHOLE LOT better,” according to the email cited by Johnson. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/articl...
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which of course is the only bad thing about drone strikes, right? That they could ever hit the "right guys"? Who cares that hundreds of innocent civilians are killed, if they are not american citizens? Disgusting, really. EDIT, for the downvoters you'll have to justify what in my comment you do not like. The parent is making the case that what worries him/her is that drone strikes will eventually be used to attack am…
Black and white decisions are a luxury that not all people are afforded. Yes it's terrible that innocent lives are lost but it's at least equally terrible, many would argue even more so, that innocent lives of your clan are lost. For many decisions outside the obvious, it is often the case that you're selecting from a pool of bad choices.
> Black and white decisions are a luxury that not all people are afforded.
Specially if you are in a hurry for dinner with your pals and you need to press that "yes, do drone strike" button in your mobile phone while you are getting dressed, even though you never heard about this "Abdulah" guy whose photograph you are seeing in the screen right now, but he is unshaven and looks dirty, and is not looking friendly to the camera, so yes, please just strike, and could I have fries with that, please?
> innocent lives of your clan are lost
No, there are right things, and wrong things, no matter what members of what clan they affect. Repeat with me: all human lives have exactly the same value.
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
No if that ever happens i would just think karma is a bitch. I'm not a US citizen and I don't agree with the use of drones if even one civilian get hurt by it. What's the point of precision strikes if you're still get innocent people involved.
> No if that ever happens i would just think karma is a bitch. Don't follow you. > I'm not a US citizen ... You still seem to be specially worried that drones will target "US persons of interest", which is what my comment was highlighting. I do not care a little bit more about drones targeting "US persons of interest" than they targeting innocent civilians. Actually, I might care less, since "innocent civilian" by de…
See this is where you're wrong I'm no worried. You need to see it from my point of view as an outside observer.
They only thing determining the side I choose being my sense of morality no self interest involved at all.
Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here. Clarification: I'm not a fan of CIA assasinations, far from it; but "execution without a trial" isn't logically justifiable complaint: we do it i…
Saying that the US is at war with various groups of people in the country side of Pakistan is a rather generous definition of the concept of war, isn't it? It's more like "the US is blowing up people who may or may not be those intended, but it's kinda hard to tell since they're doing it all by remote control".
> Saying that the US is at war with various groups of people in the country side of Pakistan is a rather generous definition of the concept of war, isn't it?
Nobody's saying that though.