281–290 of 322 posts
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Holy hell. Filming that takes guts. Doing the disarming is the next level of courage. I just wonder how much deaths did it cost them to get the knowledge and proficiency in clearing those mines.
I suspect by hand land-mine disarming has a very strong survivor bias... I.e. you don't make it to week 2 of your job if you are clumsy
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…
YES! But this bears question, why is that so? Why is the US empire (and the US oligarchy) so thirsty for war that it is willing (one could even argue: eager) to sacrifice lives, physical and psychical health of its people (soldiers)? Why is it not putting trillions into infrastructure, health, education instead of spending them to wage wars with nations which have not even thought to attack the US, let alone have don…
This article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. deserves some criticism. Kennedy claims that there are 'abundant facts' to support the claim that 'the present crisis [is] just another proxy war over pipelines and geopolitics.' On any view, the conflict involves 'geopolitics,' but Kennedy claims that the Obama administration lied about its humanitarian justification for intervention in Syria,[1] and really intended to advance US economic interests in the construction of the Qatar-Turkey pipeline.[2]
The 'pipeline war' thesis is not credible.[3] Syria, a Russian ally, may have blocked the Qatar-Turkey pipeline to advance Russia's interests as a supplier of natural gas (but see [3] for a critical view), and the US and its allies in Syria (France, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, Jordan) are undoubtedly concerned with matters other than the humanitarian considerations cited in Obama's appeal to Congress, but Kennedy fails to engage with any alternative explanation for the conflict and distorts the facts to support his argument.
For example, he claims that the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria in 2009, 'soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline,' but the source he cites[4] states that US funding of opposition groups began in 2005. Kennedy uncritically repeats claims that the 2011 civil uprising[5] was 'at least in part, orchestrated by the CIA,' but the source he cites is derived from a report from Al-Manar, an anti-Semitic media group affiliated with Hezbollah, which has been designated as a terrorist entity by the US and banned by several other Western democracies.[6]
What Kennedy doesn't mention is the Obama administration's explicit justification[1] for intervention in Syria: the regime's long record of human rights violations ('arbitrary arrests, systematic torture, prolonged detention of suspects, and grossly unfair trials')[7], culminating in the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, a response to the civil uprising which killed over 1,000 civilians.[8]
There is plenty of room for intelligent debate about whether the US should have intervened in Syria.[9] The debate continues, including in the mainstream media[10] – but Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an anti-vaxxer with a history of misinformation,[11] isn't a constructive contributor. Dismissing the conflict in Syria as an oil war is dangerous and reductive thinking.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/31/barack-obama-s...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar-Turkey_pipeline
[3] http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2016/09/23/war-assad-regi...
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syri...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_uprising_phase_of_the_Sy...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Manar
[7] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2005/country-chapters/syria
[8] http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/08/syria-s-w...
[9] https://www.lawfareblog.com/syria-obamas-fault
[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/opinion/dont-intervene-in...
[11] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-robert-f-kenn...
There's only one way to find out the truth: FOIA the mission logs
hah. you, sir, are either an optimist or a satirist. FOIA responses are routinely denied or heavily redacted even for much more mundane requests than asking for details of unacknowledged drone kills.
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> 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
putting aside the simplistic rhetoric, who are the "good guys" then ?
Again, not saying that making attempts to legally commit and then follow through with principles on the part of nations is a bad thing. I am a constructivist, I think nations can "improve morally". But is more a matter of which nation has the best institutions to curb their own (or each other's) abuses in practice, rather than anyone being "the good guys".
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> The military also didn't go out of its way to punish recklessly shooting down a civilian aircraft. It wasn't reckless: it was the right call based on the data Vincennes had, which showed that an Iranian fighter was able to kill it.
Only because no one went out with binoculars to take a look.
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Thought experiment - what is worse - a) expanding a drone program and killing thousands (including by the US's own admission 100+ innocent civilians, but probably many more given that the US classes all military aged men in a strike zone as 'combatants' regardless of whether they are actual combatants or not), or b) issuing a temporary visa ban to a large number of those countries actively being bombed by the above-m…
Seems like we now have the worst of both worlds now. A ruthless drone program, botched operations, and unnecessarily misguided bans.
Call me cynical, but I bet if Obama issued Trumps EO, and Trump expanded the drone program, we would be having the exact same protests against Trump.
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I have gone the opposite direction on him. I think the turning point was the debate with Dershowitz on Israeli/Arab problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ux4JU_sbB0 He seems to speak in broad generalities, rather than getting down into the details. I've reached a point where I need to hear the down and gritty rather than airy statements.
For what it's worth, I think Chomsky blew Dershowitz out of the water. As did Norman Finkelstein in his own showdown with Dershowitz.
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I have gone the opposite direction on him. I think the turning point was the debate with Dershowitz on Israeli/Arab problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ux4JU_sbB0 He seems to speak in broad generalities, rather than getting down into the details. I've reached a point where I need to hear the down and gritty rather than airy statements.
You simply need to listen to more Chomsky. That debate may not have had enough details - such is the nature of the format of the debate - but if one investigates Chomsky further, it is clear that the man lived his life in the details. His position, I believe, is formulated precisely on understanding the details and facts of the situation - it has been his life work to uncover the truth.
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I am not sure what your point is in bringing Iran, maybe its to blame the US for the current situation there. Keep in mind that 1953 was over 60 years ago. To keep on blaming US for acts committed that long ago and apply to today...well, it's ridiculous.
What? If 1953 looks ridiculous to you, the cruise missile on a passenger flight was in 1988!
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I am not sure what your point is in bringing Iran, maybe its to blame the US for the current situation there. Keep in mind that 1953 was over 60 years ago. To keep on blaming US for acts committed that long ago and apply to today...well, it's ridiculous.
Cause and effect. 60 years is not a long time.