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Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

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Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#101

Post by runjake »

bduerst wrote: post #55
chopin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I looked the US weren't at war with Pakistan.

But the U.S. is at war with ISIL, as part of a joint task force involving the Pakistan armed forces. It's not total war, so the real issue is whether or not the CIA drone assassinations killed innocent civilians. The article mentions how drone attacks have killed civilians, but it doesn't specify if those are the CIA requested attacks or if they were approved by Clinton.

ISIL isn't acting active in Pakistan. The US is at war with several Taliban factions and what's left of Al Qaeda and its support groups in Pakistan.

ISIL and Al Qaeda are more enemies than friends at this point in their histories.

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#102

Post by factorialboy »

mohsinr wrote: post #94
factorialboy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could reasonably argue that the location of the strikes were regions which were not under the writ of the Pakistani govt. Didn't the Pak army launch a major operation is recent years to retake control of FATA and NWFP from the Taliban / local armed tribals?

Civilians, lot of civilians were killed! Period!

More civilians (mostly muslims) are killed by the Taliban / ISIS etc. than by the United States.

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#103

Post by kogus »

Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but this line really bothers me:

Under Sec. Clinton, State Department officials approved almost every single proposed CIA drone assassination. They only objected to one or two attacks.

One or two? Which one is it? If they have actually gone through a list of requests and vetted which ones were approved by the State Department, then they know the actual number. A hand-wavy figure indicates that someone sat down, skimmed through the list, found "a couple, I think" and wrote the article. Something of this importance deserves rigor.

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#104

Post by imgabe »

gonvaled wrote: post #58
imgabe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Showing concern for one group of people does not imply a lack of concern for another group. You're drawing conclusions that are not supported by the original comment and being needlessly antagonistic. That's why you're getting downvoted.

Sorry but western media (of which this forum is a subset, whether you like or not), is strangely always extremely affected by all attacks performed against western targets, but usually completely oblivious to the attacks that western powers are performing on foreign targets, usually civilians. This does not look to me like it "does not imply a lack of concern for another group". Once is ok, twice is ok, but whenever…

The commenter you were replying to, as far as I know, is not a professional journalist and does not represent "western media". This is a private individual making a salient observation about the risks of low-tech drone weapons.

I'm not disagreeing that all civilian deaths are a reason to be concerned, but you're coming out of left field and injecting your personal crusade to a completely unrelated comment thread. Make a new top-level comment with your view if that's the point you want to make instead of picking a fight with people who are talking about something else entirely.

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#105

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

gonvaled wrote: post #22
spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compered to the previous method of carpet bombing?

Who is comparing what to carpet bombing? My comment is directly referring to the fact that american targets are something that worries the parent, but foreign targets (civilians) seem to not worry him/her that much. What do carpet bombs have to do with all this?

Its how before drones and smart munitions they used to use air power to attack targets - luckily my father was out of the house when the Luftwaffe bombed it in WW2 - House was close to the biggest spitfire plant in the UK.

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#106

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

dogma1138 wrote: post #30
spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They don't need to improvise mortars, ISIS is riding on captured M1A1's and has access to pretty decent soviet and western arms including ATGM's and AA. Both AQ and ISIS and virtually any other terrorist organization in the world has access to pretty much "state of the art" arms the limit is usually lies in logistical operation not inaccessibility, look at the arm shipments that the Israelis have captures at sea over…

So why did 7/7 use diy explosive?

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#107

Post by carsongross »

factorialboy wrote: post #46
cyberferret wrote: post #2

She could have approved drone strikes using smoke signals or carrier pigeons... - it all boils down to the same thing - execution of human beings without a trial...

Question is are you in a state of war? Are these considered casualties of war? If yes, then execution without trial is a given.

It isn't 1918. That question is meaningless.

We are at war with drugs, terrorism, and poverty, among many other abstract entities. Anyone, any time, any place can be killed for national security.

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#108

Post by barneygumble742 »

curiousgal wrote: post #31

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.

How would drone strikes have saved the americans inside the compound? How can drones be deployed so quickly at a moments notice, let alone get near their target in a reasonable time?

You're thinking of Iron Man. We're not there...yet.

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#109

Post by gonvaled »

imgabe wrote: post #104
gonvaled wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but western media (of which this forum is a subset, whether you like or not), is strangely always extremely affected by all attacks performed against western targets, but usually completely oblivious to the attacks that western powers are performing on foreign targets, usually civilians. This does not look to me like it "does not imply a lack of concern for another group". Once is ok, twice is ok, but whenever…

The commenter you were replying to, as far as I know, is not a professional journalist and does not represent "western media". This is a private individual making a salient observation about the risks of low-tech drone weapons. I'm not disagreeing that all civilian deaths are a reason to be concerned, but you're coming out of left field and injecting your personal crusade to a completely unrelated comment thread. Mak…

We in the west are so convinced that we are speking from high ground, that we go to the extreme to conflate western citizens with "high value people". We are thus not really worried about what happens to the rest of humankind: we are good, and drones are killing some people somewhere, imagine how horrible if the bad guys came to the idea of using drones to kill us good people. That is just horrible!

And you missed this part: this forum is a part of western media. The expressed opinion is not an isolated one, is an extremely widespread one. Call it media, or call it western society, the fact is that it is not a personal opinion: we value the life of "interesting american person" above the life of civilian bystanders in irak, and that is a reflection of what society we are living in.

You call it misplaced rant, I call it pointing a very big fault of our collective opinion, one which is so intrinsically part of our nature that we are even unable to recognize it by what it is: a despicable lack of humanity.

Re: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

#110

Post by superuser2 »

golergka wrote: post #4
cyberferret wrote: post #2

She could have approved drone strikes using smoke signals or carrier pigeons... - it all boils down to the same thing - execution of human beings without a trial...

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…

Exactly 0 people have ever been in the category "enemy soldiers" since WWII because we haven't declared war.
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