Wow... 1,700 air strikes just last year alone. That's more than 1 air strike every 6 hour for entire year! I'm wondering how much damage is being inflicted on civilians here. Not just people getting killed, but people becoming homeless or their livelihood getting destroyed. If these are not ultra-precise air strikes then we would be giving birth to future heavily disgruntled middle east population.
Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
31–40 of 322 posts
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#32If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played. Brainwashed by years and years of media programming. One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity. If the bombed people retaliate, they are terrorists. The truth is not black/white. Same way U.S data surveil…
> If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played.
People don't know the half of it, and in my experience, they don't want to know. It's comforting to feel like the good guys. The media is complicit, in that it intentionally leaves out relevant facts that might make us look bad.
For example, take Iran. In 1953, we overthrew their democratically-elected government in favor of the opposition, because their citizens didn't want BP to have control of their oil. We bribed politicians, street thugs, and demonstrators; incited deadly riots; bombed houses; etc. BP actually contributed funds to help out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état
Or you've probably never heard of Iran Flight 655, where in 1988 a reckless US cruiser drifted into Iranian waters and shot down an Iranian commercial airplane in Iranian airspace. 290 fatalities, including women and children. 8th deadliest disaster in aviation history, nary a peep in the US media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655. But they are the reckless terrorists to watch out for.
And it gets worse, much much worse. Look into our activities in South America, especially Guatemala. Our terrorist activities in Cuba. Our "defense" of Vietnam. Our thinly-justified and roundly-condemned embargoes. (Quite common to see UN votes that are 190-1, everyone vs the US. Or the US and Israel.) We've killed hundreds of thousands, millions of people in many cases. Often explicitly for US business interests.
Honestly, I somewhat doubt a thread like this could make it to the top of HN at a time when most Americans aren't sleeping. Americans don't want to read this stuff.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
People complain about US govt surveillance all the time. It doesn't always lead to change but there's a healthy degree of dissent.
> healthy degree of dissent Hardly, to be honest. Most folks dont care about surveillance at all, and ask for more state powers.
With the media (and gov't, and everyone else) bombarding non-tech Americans about how dangerous cyberterrorism could be, with the ISIS social media accounts ready to snatch up your children... I'm entirely unsurprised there are many people who would be willing to give up their privacy for "safety."
If only there were a way we could inform Americans that they aren't actually doomed.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#34i'm disappointed that hardly any members of the media or Democratic party establishment talk about Obama's expansion of the drone program. we have a long list of names. the executive branch of our government curates the list unilaterally and in secret. then, we cross names off the list by killing them. sometimes, they're American citizens. often, they're in countries we're at peace or even allied with. there are chil…
> i'm disappointed that i haven't seen a single member of the media or Democratic party establishments talk about Obama's expansion of the drone program. I have been hearing and reading about the expansion of Obama's drone program for years in "the media". Some quick Googling shows several examples. - http://www.npr.org/2013/04/28/179597464/leading-senate-democ... - http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155389081/are-drones-…
Just because you posted a few example articles, does not negate the fact that the media fails to provide front-page coverage of such an important issue.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#35i'm disappointed that hardly any members of the media or Democratic party establishment talk about Obama's expansion of the drone program. we have a long list of names. the executive branch of our government curates the list unilaterally and in secret. then, we cross names off the list by killing them. sometimes, they're American citizens. often, they're in countries we're at peace or even allied with. there are chil…
> i'm disappointed that i haven't seen a single member of the media or Democratic party establishments talk about Obama's expansion of the drone program. I have been hearing and reading about the expansion of Obama's drone program for years in "the media". Some quick Googling shows several examples. - http://www.npr.org/2013/04/28/179597464/leading-senate-democ... - http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155389081/are-drones-…
That's fair. It's not that it's gone completely unreported--but often the coverage is uncritical.
The NYTimes in particular, which also played a tremendous role in justifying the Iraq War to the public, has been downright jingoistic in its occasional coverage of drones. Look at this ridiculous results page: https://www.google.com/search?q=nytimes+op+ed+drone+program
But you're ultimately right: some outlets did run some critical coverage.
The Democratic party establishment, otoh... crickets. Even now, two weeks into the Trump presidency.
They seem more worried that he's appointing some incompetent rube to run the EPA than the fact that he just inherited their secret kill list.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#36Wow... 1,700 air strikes just last year alone. That's more than 1 air strike every 6 hour for entire year! I'm wondering how much damage is being inflicted on civilians here. Not just people getting killed, but people becoming homeless or their livelihood getting destroyed. If these are not ultra-precise air strikes then we would be giving birth to future heavily disgruntled middle east population.
Some countries use cluster munition for some of their strikes. The usa last did this in 2009. The opposite of precise...
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#37If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played. Brainwashed by years and years of media programming. One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity. If the bombed people retaliate, they are terrorists. The truth is not black/white. Same way U.S data surveil…
> The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity There's a lot of nuance here, because there isn't really a (current) clear-cut case of the US bombing a sovereign nation where the government has not given the US permission. Of the current active campaigns: - Afghanistan - Iraq - Pakistan Each of these countries has a functioning government, even mostly democratically ele…
Syria: Assad complained about that in recent interview with Belgian press. It's also hard to say he's against ISIS. But anyway, he's a dictator and a paranoic who sees terrorists everywhere and can't even fathom that opposition against him may be legitimate, so his permission means nothing really.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/president-al-assad-to-belgian-m...
[I'm not endorsing this website in any way. It just was the first in the google that had a transcript of the interview.]
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#38Wow... 1,700 air strikes just last year alone. That's more than 1 air strike every 6 hour for entire year! I'm wondering how much damage is being inflicted on civilians here. Not just people getting killed, but people becoming homeless or their livelihood getting destroyed. If these are not ultra-precise air strikes then we would be giving birth to future heavily disgruntled middle east population.
The most recent episode of PBS Frontline offers an interesting view on this.
Note that anyone 15 years old or younger living in Iraq today has never even seen a version of their country that isn't an active warzone, and it's only getting worse. The US are seemingly creating new terrorists faster than they are killing existing ones.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity There's a lot of nuance here, because there isn't really a (current) clear-cut case of the US bombing a sovereign nation where the government has not given the US permission. Of the current active campaigns: - Afghanistan - Iraq - Pakistan Each of these countries has a functioning government, even mostly democratically ele…
'current', for small values of current.
I can only think of one contrary example within the last decade -- Libya, where Gaddafi was still in power when we started bombing. It was complicated, and I think in the end it was a poor decision, but I don't think it's fair to consider it wrong or evil.
Looking farther back you find Iraq and Afghanistan on the list with similar disclaimers. In any case, neither was a "lob a few missiles from the stratosphere and peace out" strikes the parent comment implies.
Let me know if I'm forgetting something.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#40i'm disappointed that hardly any members of the media or Democratic party establishment talk about Obama's expansion of the drone program. we have a long list of names. the executive branch of our government curates the list unilaterally and in secret. then, we cross names off the list by killing them. sometimes, they're American citizens. often, they're in countries we're at peace or even allied with. there are chil…
> i'm disappointed that i haven't seen a single member of the media or Democratic party establishments talk about Obama's expansion of the drone program. I have been hearing and reading about the expansion of Obama's drone program for years in "the media". Some quick Googling shows several examples. - http://www.npr.org/2013/04/28/179597464/leading-senate-democ... - http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155389081/are-drones-…
Sure, they throw the issue a bone every once in a while, but was it even within an order of magnitude as the amount of airtime given when Bush was doing the bombing? (you can even look at the amount of stories coming out now, in the two weeks that Trump has been doing what Obama did non-stop for nearly a decade.)
It's a little disingenuous to link to five stories from five different sources over a five year period and claim that the magnitude of the ongoing stories has been fairly captured over the last eight years.