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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

#171

Post by robertlagrant »

oauea wrote: post #133
Y-bar wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This site isn't currently available in the EU Do you happen to know another source or archived version? Edit: thanks for the updated links!

I always think it's interesting when Americans try to hide their news from foreigners. So much for being proud of your country, I guess?

Don't be silly; this is not anyone hiding anything. If a website survives based on advertising and needs to now pay a service to keep them up to date with the latest EU regs, then they may just switch on GeoIP filtering and be done with it.

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

#172

Post by [deleted] »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #148

A Hellfire missile apparently costs $150K [0]. Given that it's apparently OK to launch one of these at a single suspected enemy informant, couldn't we have saved a lot of time, money and lives by just bribing the entire population of Afghanistan to not do things that the West doesn't like? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire

[deleted]

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

#173

Post by queuebert »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #137
dmos62 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hid…

It's never malice. Nobody goes, "hey, this compound is 100% only women and children, let's bomb it." Reality: "A patrol nearby said they took fire from the compound at such and such grid coordinates" It gets bombed. Turns out the unit on the ground was mistaken. War is hell. War criminals should be punished. But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I love seeing these posts because it's clear that almost nobody he…

I would think that deploying lethal force without positive target ID is against ROE.

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

#174

Post by dpatru »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #148

A Hellfire missile apparently costs $150K [0]. Given that it's apparently OK to launch one of these at a single suspected enemy informant, couldn't we have saved a lot of time, money and lives by just bribing the entire population of Afghanistan to not do things that the West doesn't like? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire

The money for a missile could be given to the population, but then it would not go to the missile’s manufacturer. But the whole point of the war is to give money to arms makers. They are the only ones who benefit from the war and who lobby for it.

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

#175

Post by gmadsen »

enriquto wrote: post #151
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never malice. Nobody goes, "hey, this compound is 100% only women and children, let's bomb it." Reality: "A patrol nearby said they took fire from the compound at such and such grid coordinates" It gets bombed. Turns out the unit on the ground was mistaken. War is hell. War criminals should be punished. But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I love seeing these posts because it's clear that almost nobody he…

> But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I suppose that you are from the USA and your family is living there. Imagine that some afghan-controlled drone intended to kill some U.S. soldiers (a legitimate target because they are enemy combatants). But instead they kill your family. If it was a mistake, by the own account of the drone operator, would you still maintain that the killing of your whole family was not a…

Why would I defend an enemy combatant? The issue is whether it is a war crime, it is not. That in no way diminishes the horrible hellscape that is war.

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

#176

Post by lifeformed »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #137
dmos62 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hid…

It's never malice. Nobody goes, "hey, this compound is 100% only women and children, let's bomb it." Reality: "A patrol nearby said they took fire from the compound at such and such grid coordinates" It gets bombed. Turns out the unit on the ground was mistaken. War is hell. War criminals should be punished. But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I love seeing these posts because it's clear that almost nobody he…

Maybe not malice but also not just simply accidents - more like negligence. We can't dismiss mistakes in war as simply a cost of doing business.

> But one side tries it's best to be accountable and limit human suffering while still carrying out missions.

Is that side really doing their "best"? I feel like a lot of these mistakes are avoidable with better procedures, training, and reducing being in situations where mistakes are even possible. I'm not expecting a war to go perfectly but is tens of thousands of accidental civilian killings the best we can do?

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

#177

Post by gmadsen »

wayoutthere wrote: post #118
ubermonkey wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of a bit Stephen Colbert did, about the Abu Ghraib torture scandal back when he was on the Daily Show. "Even if this is something we did, it's not something we would do."

I was a big fan of his show in the 00s, but in hindsight I think Colbert did a great disservice to the media landscape in this country by normalizing this kind of sarcastic mimicry. It gives the far-right plausible deniability so they can say “lol it’s just a joke I don’t actually think that” when it doesn’t go over well.

You can't outlaw stupid. Society shouldn't be relegated to the lower common denominator

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

#178

Post by [deleted] »

dTal wrote: post #166
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never malice. Nobody goes, "hey, this compound is 100% only women and children, let's bomb it." Reality: "A patrol nearby said they took fire from the compound at such and such grid coordinates" It gets bombed. Turns out the unit on the ground was mistaken. War is hell. War criminals should be punished. But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I love seeing these posts because it's clear that almost nobody he…

Nestled in between "malice" and "honest mistake" is "criminal negligence". When you put yourself in that position - when you invade a country - every resulting civilian casualty is on you. You do not have the moral standing to decide what is and is not acceptable "collateral damage". War is hell, but you chose to make war there. The civilians didn't. >the Taliban and its allies were responsible for 76% of civilian ca…

[deleted]

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

#179

Post by nceqs3 »

avh02 wrote: post #86
nceqs3 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war on ISIS? I heard Raqqa was lovely under their control.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this might (obvi, wild speculation) just be a premature version of: "I heard kabul was great under the taliban" That said - yeah, I'm glad ISIS's great swoop was thwarted.

The Taliban is like New Zealand compared to ISIS.

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

#180

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

coding123 wrote: post #162
enriquto wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I suppose that you are from the USA and your family is living there. Imagine that some afghan-controlled drone intended to kill some U.S. soldiers (a legitimate target because they are enemy combatants). But instead they kill your family. If it was a mistake, by the own account of the drone operator, would you still maintain that the killing of your whole family was not a…

I'm going to be a little dismissive of the question, but that's how the laws work in the united states. If someone was drunk that's a little different, but from the perspective of someone making a mistake on the road, and a family ends up dead - the person that made the mistake (assuming they prove that in court) does not end up with a murder charge. It may still end up being manslaughter and jail time. Now to more s…

> that's not where we started.

This is just wishful thinking. The difference between the Afghanistan when Bush decided to invade it and now is that the Taliban are stronger, have more equipment, and basically sure nobody will ever invade them again after the lessons they gave to the USSR and the USA.

Same when you look at Irak or Libya. Your idea of stabilizing is completely at odds with what happens in reality.

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