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Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

militarytimes.com

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Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#161

Post by mirimir »

arethuza wrote: post #120
wz1000 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With regards to domestic policy, the US was miles better than the USSR. With regards to foreign policy, the distinction isnt anywhere near that clear. The US has supported mass murders in Guatemala, Iran, Nicaragua, Pakistan/Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq since WW2 and I'm sure I'm missing a few. The nuclear arms race was also hardly one sided, and Kennedy in particular has a terrible record when it came…

"Kennedy in particular has a terrible record when it came to the imminent nuclear destruction of the world" To be fair to Kennedy - I think he pretty much prevented a war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. A weaker president might have gone with the recommendations to invade Cuba and that would probably have turned out rather badly for all concerned (particularly the Cubans and Soviets).

He and Khrushchev did that together. As I recall, it was Khrushchev who suggested trading US missiles in Turkey and Italy for Soviet missiles in Cuba. And it was arguably a far greater political risk for Khrushchev.

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#162

Post by facepalm »

This is part of how I explain to me the outrage over the travel ban: people have been denial over being at war with certain countries. Travel ban makes it public - people get angry because their self-perception is challenged. (And of course there are the inconveniences of not being allowed to travel - but imo it is not completely nonsensical to limit travel from countries one is at war with).

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#163

Post by maxerickson »

csallen wrote: post #32
educar wrote: post #5

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. 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-e…

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/04/world/downing-flight-655-u...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/flight80...

The "Page A01" on the WaPo article is the front page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuWOCLEuXu4

Which is not to say that such events are prominent in the memory of Americans, but it's just not true that they don't get put on the news. 2 of the biggest papers in the country (and I'm sure many others) and major TV news operations covered the event.

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#164

Post by enkid »

Trundle wrote: post #155
linuxkerneldev wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the USS Vincennes incident took place Summary for those who like me didn't know about the incident. Our guy shot down a passenger flight, murdering 290 human beings, we gave him a medal but we then paid USD$213,000 in blood money per passenger to Iran without ever admitting fault. " Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating on this route was sh…

Didn't know they gave that guy a medal. That's straight up sadistic.

He got a medal for completing his tour. He didn't get a medal for shooting down the plane. It's normal to get a medal whenever you move in the military. Not saying he deserved one, but the military wasn't going out if it's way to reward the shoot down if a civilian airliner.

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#165

Post by paulmd »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #99
chinathrow wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree: it's not ridiculous at all when it comes to war crimes or crimes against humanity. Also, Iran was one example, the list of U.S. aggressions against sovereign nations without U.N. mandate goes on up to very recent times (Syria).

The system of getting UN mandates has become useless because Russia is both on the security council and an offender of the rules it was supposed to defend. By all rights, there should be a UN mandate to fight IS in Syria. There should have been a UN mandate to fight the Assad regime, for that matter. Not intervening did not lead to less destabilization, just to more war crimes by the original regime.

The point of the UN has always been - since its establishment - to keep the nuclear powers from going all-out on each other (and the rest of the world).

You may not like the UN, you may not think it fulfills the mandate that the General Audience gives it (it doesn't). But it keeps the Security Council from nuking each other.

And in this case - that's the design criteria. No nuclear wars, not ever. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is in no way a moral judgement on either Russia or the US's activities in the Syrian-Iraq-Saudi-Iran quadrangle. Or any of the other players involved.

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#166

Post by dingaling »

megous wrote: post #48
amenghra wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries use cluster munition for some of their strikes. The usa last did this in 2009. The opposite of precise...

Cluster munitions are bad, but you have to consider that people often try to hide in houses, in cellars during air raids in the city. Cluster munition will not do much to those people, other than being insanely noisy and terrifying. What will kill those people is a bomb that will drop the house on them. Indiscriminate killing is a function of decision making process, not the munition itself.

Cluster munitions such as BL755 ( extensively used in Yemen at present ) were designed in the 1970s to attack massed Warpac tank formations pouring across the German plains.

As a consequence they usually contain a high proportion of shaped-charge bomblets which can quite easily penetrate several inches of concrete. Brick and roof tiles don't stand a chance. Even the shrapnel from the fragmenting jacket can penetrate steel plate.

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#167

Post by pizza »

csallen wrote: post #32
educar wrote: post #5

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. 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-e…

And then there is the shitshow of the Lockerbie bombing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103_conspiracy_t...

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#168

Post by saiya-jin »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #49
fsloth wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what aspect of Chomsky makes him uninteresting. Maybe it's that his message - trying to point out the human flaws of his governmemt - goes so much against the grain of hollywood aided propaganda that people presume it's either minute details or just wrong?

In my experience, the only country in which Chomsky is seen as uninteresting or nitpicking is in the U.S. That's not to say there are no complexities to whether or not a Pax Americana is better than the alternative (based on previous U.S. govts.), or that all governments records are equivalent when it comes to propaganda or human rights (for their own citizens). But no other country sees the U.S. unequivocally as "th…

> But no other country sees the U.S. unequivocally as "the good guys".

well you would have to be a complete ignorant to last 60 years of history and present to consider US the good guys. Economically strong police state with more innocent blood on their hands for last 20 years than any other state in this world. Axis of evil my ass

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#169

Post by saiya-jin »

EliRivers wrote: post #123
2bad4u2b wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assad is the President , he's extremely popular , he won the internationally observed election , hands down . If you say that Assad isn't the legitimate leader your the one spreading crap . I lived there 19 of the last 32 years .

"he's extremely popular" Oh right. So what's with all those people who want him to stop being in charge so much that there's been a civil war raging for years? How popular can he be if so many people are willing to risk their lives to move him out of power? To have a civil war, he's surely got to be massively unpopular with a large segment of society.

large segment of society you describe can still be 10% of it (random number). ie if 10% of Switzerland decided to overthrow their democratically elected government, you would have 700,000 'terrorists' immediately, most with their mandatory military weapons stored at home.

but, we speak about Switzerland. don't forget many in middle east conflicts are mercenaries or volunteers from all over the world

Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported

#170

Post by saiya-jin »

megous wrote: post #78
2bad4u2b wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assad is the President , he's extremely popular , he won the internationally observed election , hands down . If you say that Assad isn't the legitimate leader your the one spreading crap . I lived there 19 of the last 32 years .

We had elections in communist Czechslovakia too, where the party got 99% of votes, just like with Assads. Was it democratic? No. It is frankly ridiculous to say that any elections with these kinds of results are in any way meaningful expressions of popular support. We also had forced demonstration of support for the government. Had to go into parades, etc. The question is if you would be willing to go there now and p…

just going to prison in Syria is very lenient punishment [0]

[0] www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/middleeast/syria-executions-amnesty-international-report/

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