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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

#41

Post by h2odragon »

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…

> train and equip 350,000 Afghan Army members

"Afghanistan's ghost soldiers undermined fight against Taliban" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59230564

IIRC there were complaints being published at least as far back as 2009 about that problem.

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

#42

Post by [deleted] »

dragontamer wrote: post #30
hh3k0 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#43

Post by 1cvmask »

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…

The Taliban did offer Bin Laden and the Bush administration had rejected it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te...

Bombing small non-white countries is part of the Ledeen Doctrine and this would fit that bill.

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business,"

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

#44

Post by tuyguntn »

dumdumdumdum wrote: post #38
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…

> Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism That's not entirely true. They wanted to negotiate his extradition. As any sovereign nation would. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te...

Exactly!

US have an excuse all the time, surprisingly, people who represent educated segment don't either want to look to other side, I remember Taliban tried to have a negotiation with US, they tried to get their voice heard in western media, but failed, because everyone was blind sided, no one wanted to hear them and US anyway launched attack, 20 years later, everything is even more fucked up over there.

Now we should be really worried if there are other extremist groups are training and planning another attack soon, this time everyone would know US don't have a justification and obviously will fail again. (I don't remember if US won any war recently? Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan all are in trouble, all of the wars are started wrongly)

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

#45

Post by toiletfuneral »

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.

Perptually committing events like My Lai & Abu Gharib show how much we 'care'

You should read this. https://theintercept.com/2017/01/10/the-crimes-of-seal-team-...

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

#46

Post by tuyguntn »

dumdumdumdum wrote: post #38
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…

> Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism That's not entirely true. They wanted to negotiate his extradition. As any sovereign nation would. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te...

One more thing!

Person who tried to expose what is actually happening is now going to jail, right? I am talking about Julian Assange.

No one needs such "world police", who is trying to build a democracy in other countries, but failing on pillars of democracy by putting journalist to jail in home country.

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

#47

Post by stunt »

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.

I think other NATO members do similar investigations too. But remember, most of the civilian casualties are never recorded to be even investigated. What you hear is just the tip of iceberg.

Not to mention that the US military force is also the only military force that is in the business of invasion and dropping bomb ALL THE TIME, which translates to more and more casualties.

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

#48

Post by dragontamer »

h2odragon wrote: post #41
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…

> train and equip 350,000 Afghan Army members "Afghanistan's ghost soldiers undermined fight against Taliban" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59230564 IIRC there were complaints being published at least as far back as 2009 about that problem.

People keep crapping on the Afghan Army, but it should be noted that the Afghan security forces suffered 65,000+ casualties officially (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Afghan_security_forces...).

And some estimate that the number may be as high as 100,000.

-----

In contrast, the US sent ~110,000 soldiers at its peak (2011 surge), and lost ~7000. The Afghan Army took the bulk of the attacks by any reasonable analysis.

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

#49

Post by csee »

adolph wrote: post #14
csee wrote: post #10

Highlights: - Special task force ordered strike. They didn't have to go through normal checks and balances because they were doing it under emergency provisions apparently due to an emergency request from arab allies on the ground. - They claim they didn't see the civilians because they were relying on SD quality drone feed. - The group is accused of falsifying log records afterwards.

Second paragraph: "Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast." Who is lying about the surveillance quality?

There were 2 drone streams. The HD one that the Qatar base was watching, and the SD one that the task force was watching (if we're to believe their account).

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

#50

Post by dragontamer »

tuyguntn wrote: post #44
dumdumdumdum wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism That's not entirely true. They wanted to negotiate his extradition. As any sovereign nation would. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te...

Exactly! US have an excuse all the time, surprisingly, people who represent educated segment don't either want to look to other side, I remember Taliban tried to have a negotiation with US, they tried to get their voice heard in western media, but failed, because everyone was blind sided, no one wanted to hear them and US anyway launched attack, 20 years later, everything is even more fucked up over there. Now we sho…

Given the official statements of the Taliban (ie: that Osama Bin Laden didn't cause 9/11), what exactly is your proposal?

Taliban were protecting Bin Laden, period. Their official stance on the subject is clearly false, and they were willing to go to war to provide sanctuary to Bin Laden. The main worry was that any such delays at this point would give Bin Laden more room to get away (and Bin Laden did escape: all the way to Pakistan).

So if anything, we should have pursued Bin Laden even more vigorously back then. The Taliban were successful in buying enough time for him to hide with their false diplomacy.

We were at least successful in destroying the Al Qaeda training centers in Afghanistan (successfully located, blown up, and dismantled). Maybe these bases will return now that we've left Afghanistan, but we at least rendered them unable to train new terrorists for the last 20 years or so (and the new Taliban regime officially doesn't want to sanction any such training sites anymore. They've got an ISIS-K problem because of it too)

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