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How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

nytimes.com

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Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#21

Post by jessaustin »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #2

As horrible as those allegations are, let's appreciate that the U.S. military may be about the only military force that is both capable of committing these mistakes/war crimes and investigating them. Just imagine what would happen if Russian or Chinese military lawyers or journalists tried to do something similar.

You overestimate the USA military's tolerance for investigation of its many "mistakes". Julian Assange has been persecuted for over a decade now for the "crime" of investigating such "mistakes". Korsak and Tate as described in TFA will probably suffer as previous whistleblowers like Daniel Hale, John Kiriakou, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, etc.

Let's not give TFA too much credit, however. In 12 pages of reporting on USA military action in Syria, they couldn't find space to mention the fact that right now in mid-November 2021 USA military still occupies the oil- and agriculturally-rich eastern third of this nation, thus ensuring that while they can't buy food due to sanctions they're also not allowed to eat their own food because "fuck you"? In order for this brutality to end, it must be reported upon.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/05/tulsi-gabbard-calls-out-t...

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#22

Post by oh_sigh »

curiousgal wrote: post #12
bayesian_horse wrote: post #2

As horrible as those allegations are, let's appreciate that the U.S. military may be about the only military force that is both capable of committing these mistakes/war crimes and investigating them. Just imagine what would happen if Russian or Chinese military lawyers or journalists tried to do something similar.

And y'all wonder why Americans are hated. It takes a special amount of delusion to pat yourself on the back, for whatever made-up reason, after having killed innocent people. Imagine saying the same thing about 9/11 and watch your life be torn to pieces.

Americans are hated? I think you hang out in a fairly small social circle if that is the norm. Or are you just one of those self-hating Americans who thinks everyone else is just like you? Guessing that's the case from the use of "y'all"

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#23

Post by trasz »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #2

As horrible as those allegations are, let's appreciate that the U.S. military may be about the only military force that is both capable of committing these mistakes/war crimes and investigating them. Just imagine what would happen if Russian or Chinese military lawyers or journalists tried to do something similar.

It's a slightly different case, but look at what happened last time Russia shot down an airliner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17): the perpetrators weren't exactly judged, but they got "disappeared", which is a form of punishment. For comparison, when the US shot down an airliner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655), the perpetrators... got decorated.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#24

Post by adolph »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #2

As horrible as those allegations are, let's appreciate that the U.S. military may be about the only military force that is both capable of committing these mistakes/war crimes and investigating them. Just imagine what would happen if Russian or Chinese military lawyers or journalists tried to do something similar.

> Just imagine what would happen if Russian or Chinese military lawyers or journalists tried to do something similar.

There doesn't seem to be English language publication to establish if similar internal criticism occurs in other countries or not. For all we know Daesh PR did a through analysis of burning Jordanian pilots alive in cages [0] and found it unhelpful to their cause. Given that any large enough human organization has internal conflict it would stand to reason that similar internal criticism occurs.

It's not as if US whistleblowers live carefree lives. The NYT associates Mr. Tate's job loss with criticism of the US' internal response to the bombing.

Mr. Tate, a former Navy officer who had worked for years as a civilian analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center before moving to the inspector general’s office, said he criticized the lack of action and was eventually forced out of his job.

0. https://www.albawaba.com/development-iraq/breaking-daesh-bur...

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#26

Post by vmception »

pessimizer wrote: post #17
vmception wrote: post #7

How long until people realize that any authority saying “justified” is not using a definition found in any dictionary. The term used by any American imbued with the option of extrajudicial killings is only to - at best - match your pre-existing agreement with the action or your likelihood of agreeing with authority. “Justified”, for these people, does not mean “other actions were evaluated in a hierarchy and we were…

I think it's even worse. "Justified" means "we issued a document that says that in in order to kill more terrorists, killing a lesser number of civilians is justified, then we issued a document that declared 90% of the civilians terrorists."

yeah, I think this is supported by a large number of people not understanding this.

like, a lot of support comes from evaluating each event in isolation from more neutral people, but I think even more hawkish as well as bigoted people would say "hm this is not okay for domestic or foreign policy"

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#27

Post by hh3k0 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #20

The US record in Afghanistan is arguably even more ridiculous (and psychotic) than in Iraq. We went in with a pretty good justification (Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism) - although to be honest, the argument for doing the regime change op in Saudi Arabia was far more robust, as members of the Saudi government aided the hijackers and Saudi Royal family members were a…

> We went in with a pretty good justification (Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism)

That would _not_ be a good justification to wage a war, but I think the actual casus belli was Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction – later found to be non-existent. 215 Republicans and 82 Democrats voted for this. They paved the way for a war of aggression… and I seem to remember that Americans have previously hanged foreign politicians for precisely that.

Edit: Misread above comment and thought he was talking about Iraq. Point still stands, though.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#28

Post by jessaustin »

gotoeleven wrote: post #19
curiousgal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And y'all wonder why Americans are hated. It takes a special amount of delusion to pat yourself on the back, for whatever made-up reason, after having killed innocent people. Imagine saying the same thing about 9/11 and watch your life be torn to pieces.

In the real world military actions often have unintended civilian casualties. The difference is that some groups don't care (china, russia) or are doing them purposefully (terrorists). If you can't understand the moral distinction then I don't think you're going to be able to add anything but noise to these kinds of debates.

The only intention of our many stupid wars is to further enrich armaments manufactures. It has nothing to do with security; Americans are vulnerable mostly to violence from ourselves. Killing civilians enriches armaments manufacturers just fine, and it plants the seeds for future wars, so it certainly is intended. Probably not by the rank and file (cf. Daniel Hale), but certainly by everyone in the Pentagon.

Claiming otherwise is the best example of "noise".

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#30

Post by dragontamer »

hh3k0 wrote: post #27
photochemsyn wrote: post #20

The US record in Afghanistan is arguably even more ridiculous (and psychotic) than in Iraq. We went in with a pretty good justification (Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism) - although to be honest, the argument for doing the regime change op in Saudi Arabia was far more robust, as members of the Saudi government aided the hijackers and Saudi Royal family members were a…

> We went in with a pretty good justification (Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism) That would _not_ be a good justification to wage a war, but I think the actual casus belli was Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction – later found to be non-existent. 215 Republicans and 82 Democrats voted for this. They paved the way for a war of aggression… and I seem to remembe…

> but I think the actual casus belli was Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction

Afghanistan War was 2001. Iraq War was 2003. Your history is off by about 1.5 years.

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