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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

#111

Post by Veratyr »

return0 wrote: post #71
gonvaled wrote: post #19

Earlier 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…

> you'll have to justify what in my comment you do not like. Off topic, but i see this line over and over all the time lately. Nobody has to justify anything. I get downvoted all the time, and would never dream to complain about it. We can disagree without being confrontational/preachy.

> I get downvoted all the time, and would never dream to complain about it. We can disagree without being confrontational/preachy.

Aren't up/downvotes meant to reflect whether a comment contributes to discussion? Up/downvoting things based on whether or not people agree on them would turn this into a Reddit-like echo chamber.

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

#113

Post by dogma1138 »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #106
dogma1138 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The attackers of 7/7 used TATP which you can make if you have sufficient knowledge of chemistry, you can also make RDX and PETN and even C4 at "home", this isn't "diy" explosives that kids make by mixing fertilizer and sugar over a hot plate, this is very potent stuff that requires quite a bit of expertise and experience to make.

Because the UK might have stricter control over it? Because the attack was less funded? Hamas never had issues of manufacturing PETN and C4 for it's suicide vests. The brussels attackers used very high quality / commercial grade TATP and HMDT.

BTW one of the main reasons to use peroxide based explosives like TATP and HMDT is because most "explosive detectors" look for a few specific signatures.

TATP decomposes into hydrogen peroxide and acetone both of which are very common in cosmetics and various cleaning products which is a big problem as it would sound the alarm for every woman that just had her nails or hair done, so while it's technically not hard to detect practically it's virtually impossible to do so effectively unless you are screening very specific items.

P.S. To anyone who've read this post welcome to the watch list :)

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

#114

Post by lewisl9029 »

Veratyr wrote: post #111
return0 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'll have to justify what in my comment you do not like. Off topic, but i see this line over and over all the time lately. Nobody has to justify anything. I get downvoted all the time, and would never dream to complain about it. We can disagree without being confrontational/preachy.

> I get downvoted all the time, and would never dream to complain about it. We can disagree without being confrontational/preachy. Aren't up/downvotes meant to reflect whether a comment contributes to discussion? Up/downvoting things based on whether or not people agree on them would turn this into a Reddit-like echo chamber.

Ideally that's what I'd like to see as well, but in practice, downvotes are used overwhelmingly to express disagreement here, with little regards for the quality of the actual post. I'd love to see something in the official guidelines to discourage this toxic behavior.

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

#115

Post by hacker42 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #67
huffmsa wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cellphones are functionally equivalent to laptops and desktops-- they're computers. Now, independent of that, if the regulations and law do not treat them equally, they are not legally equal.

I think the issue here is she used her unsecure cellphone and presumably "private" email server to approve these strikes in which case it might have caused operational information to leak. This isn't about someone using a cellphone or a laptop, this is about someone using any communication device that wasn't clear for the transmission of classified information to approve strikes which i would only presume to be class…

It leaves the impression of a quick and weakly informed decision (especially so in the context of executing people).

I personally would never respond to an important inquiry on mobile because the relatively limited screen and input interface (e.g. auto-correct) would make me anxious that I am missing some crucial piece of information.

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

#116

Post by nikdaheratik »

raddad wrote: post #89
factorialboy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The US stopped having wars with nations and instead has gone onto wars against ideas and things. The war against terror and the war against drugs being two of them. This way they can pick and choose which country to war with those elements without warring with a nation.

While I'm not a big fan of drones and other shadow warfare type approaches, it's not like the U.S. just decided this on its own. The terrorists are choosing the kind of warfare because they know they can't win a standup shooting war with the U.S.

The drug war is kind of a completely different thing as well because so much of it is a fight against our own citizens, and "victory" is pretty much unobtainable, which is maybe how the SWAT-team industrial complex wants it.

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

#117

Post by nikdaheratik »

chopin wrote: post #62
bduerst wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By the same logic, China could declare war at certain dissident groups, say Tibet activists (which I think China assumes to be terrorists) and then drone strike their members in the US, if the US refuses to act against those. I don't think this is the standard a civilized nation should hold. EDIT: spelling

It's not really a good analogy simply because, in many cases the U.S. strikes, while not always condoned by the governments controlling the land, they are at least not unwelcome. If China pulled that same thing on the U.S., or vice-versa, it would likely start a war. But if they pulled that in Mongolia or Nepal, and those governments were willing to turn a blind eye, it wouldn't.

This kind of situation isn't good, but it's why the State department has the lead instead of Defense.

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

#118

Post by nikdaheratik »

jflatow wrote: post #11
m_eiman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Also, congress hasn't declared war since WWII, which is required by law.

There are a number of reasons why this has happened. Some more nebulous than others. There are a number of extra powers granted to the Executive during a time of war that Congress didn't want activated. There are a number of requirements that kick in when war is "legally" declared that Congress didn't want activated as well.

I'm not saying drone strikes aren't shady, but they aren't strictly illegal. This is a case where Congress needs to get it together and start overseeing if they want it to stop happening. Otherwise, we're just left depending on diplomacy or the UN trying to put a stop to it, which likely won't happen either.

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

#119

Post by awesomerobot »

gonvaled wrote: post #90
awesomerobot wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 I get the sentiment — but the commander of military power is basically saying yes or no to military intelligence — it's not their role to be the researchers, just the approvers…

> it's not their role to be the researchers, just the approvers of the people in command of the research. Poor Abdulah dies. He was just buying some groceries for his family, and was taken for Muhamed, who really looks like him, but they just were once in a bar drinking tee, just by chance on the same place at the same time. Somebody fucked up. The gatherers of information on the field are not responsible because the…

Even if you track down the person in the chain of command who's responsible, they just get a slap on a wrist for making the "mistake" of bombing a civilian hospital.

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

#120

Post by awesomerobot »

babuskov wrote: post #85
awesomerobot wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: is there a definition of the difference between execution and combat?

Sure. Execution is where the victim is captured, disarmed and has no means of retaliating.

So would like... the UN consider a drone strike an execution rather than combat?
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