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U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

eminetra.co.uk

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Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#91

Post by inglor_cz »

SandunGunn wrote: post #67

An old soldiers take: https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_gallimore_why_it_matters_ho... In summary drones make it to easy for the countries like the UK and the US to kill with no risk to their own service men. The missiles are not magic, there will be collateral damage. Solders on the ground could mitigate this

"kill with no risk to their own service men"

Reducing the risk to your own troops is a fundamental concern of most armies out there and has been for millennia.

Robot warfare is a logical endpoint of such development. I cannot see anyone opting out of this race and remaining militarily relevant.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#92

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

torstenvl wrote: post #50
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #39

Can someone explain the origins of the slang for 'charger'? That one would not occur to me.

We didn't use this term in Iraq, so I wouldn't call it "military jargon for child" like the article does. It is common for units to come up with code words for various things, especially when the topic is emotionally charged or could be used for propaganda or intel. For example, almost nobody would use the term "FKIA" over the radio, even on a secure channel; they might say "flowers" instead.

River City = reduced comms = something very bad happened, probably KIA

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#94

Post by scoopertrooper »

cameronh90 wrote: post #11

Is it cynical to think this was intentionally leaked to boost support for withdrawing from Afghanistan?

You think the U.S. government leaked videos of themselves bombing afghan civilians in the middle of tense negotiations with the Taliban?

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#95

Post by blitzar »

ricardobeat wrote: post #71

Having watched a few documentaries on the war, from multiple periods, my first thought was “who did they target with these drone strikes?” seeing as they usually had no idea who or where the enemy was. The answer is much worse than I could imagine: “a guy with a radio … which is reasonable grounds for suspicion”. Nothing accidental about it. These should be considered war crimes.

> “We killed two innocent men and a charger,” the U.S. official wrote in a personal journal that day, using the military jargon “charger,” which means child.

Got to wonder why the need to replace a 5 character 1 syllable word with a longer 7 character 2 syllable word, a little easier to stomach than saying, writing, or feeling like you just killed a child?

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#96

Post by Laremere »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #12

I wonder if Facebook Twitter etc. banning violent and bloody content has prevented the public from protesting these things more widely. It is well known that TV broadcasts of Vietnam led to outrage growing against that war.

In a similar vein, I wonder if medical privacy laws are hurting us in this pandemic. If every time the hospitals filled up with patients, camera crews went through and documented all of the people suffering and dying, would those who aren't taking the pandemic seriously have their mind swayed? Obviously those medical privacy laws exist for a reason, but perhaps there should be more effort to ethically document suffering?

In both cases, as much as I like to think facts are what sway my opinion, an emotional connection is far likelier to motivate action.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#97

Post by hermannj314 »

eurasiantiger wrote: post #77
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #39

Can someone explain the origins of the slang for 'charger'? That one would not occur to me.

It means someone who starts running towards a group of soldiers. This may mean they are carrying explosives, but it may just be a play to get the soldiers to shoot an unarmed child in broad daylight.

If that is the case, a charger is someone that poses a potential threat to a service member due to physical proximity. Turning around and using that term to refer to a kid on the back of a motorcycle you killed from thousand of miles away with an errant drone strike seems disingenuous.

Is the idea to pollute the record of history by using the term incorrectly?

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#98

Post by dmos62 »

ricardobeat wrote: post #71

Having watched a few documentaries on the war, from multiple periods, my first thought was “who did they target with these drone strikes?” seeing as they usually had no idea who or where the enemy was. The answer is much worse than I could imagine: “a guy with a radio … which is reasonable grounds for suspicion”. Nothing accidental about it. These should be considered war crimes.

Checkout Ben Anderson's 2 part ~30 minute report from Afghanistan for Vice from around 10 years ago [0][1]. He was embedded with British troops and ANA during a patrol with a lot of gun fights. The British strafed an empty field, almost bombed themselves twice and once an Apache launched a Hellfire missile into a compound with British and ANA troops in it and hit a building where a family with small children were hiding. Noone was hurt luckily. My point being, it's not always malice: sometimes it's just a chain of people making small mistakes and bad decisions that end up adding up.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_yOI_WVGdY

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1JNuFPiTbs

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#99

Post by coliveira »

jiggawatts wrote: post #58
baybal2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed it was. It is a potent infoweapon. Israel tried hard to prevent release of news coverage with blown to bits Palestinian children on every silly pretext, including "gory content." Yet, when it were blown to bits Israeli children from bombings, they were all over CNN. The world's outrage is clearly not poweless.

Conversely, in more than a few asymmetric conflicts around the world, the weaker side would often parade around footage of dead children. Often carried in the arms of a weeping parent, with their tears making very visible streaks down the concrete dust on their face. Later, we'd find out that the "parent" was a soldier that found a dead kid in the nearby morgue or hospital for the photo-op. Or that the video clip was…

> not saying that powerful countries aren't responsible

No, but you're making their apology, nonetheless.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#100

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

refurb wrote: post #76
DoctorNick wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiding behind women and children, you say? MONSTERS!! http://www.angryflower.com/hiding.html

That comic doesn’t even make sense.

In what way? It makes sense to me: the person causing a lot of collateral damage (in the form of women and children) in pursuit of their target is calling the target a monster. The target didn't kill anyone, but the person chasing them behaves as though the murders they themselves have committed are somehow the fault of the person they're trying to kill.

It's like, imagine you catch someone breaking your car window to steal your car radio, and you say "hey, you broke my window!" but they retort "you made me break your window by locking your doors!".

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