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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

#51

Post by photochemsyn »

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...

That's one of the central reasons a regime change op in Saudi Arabia would have been more justified. I think the rational explanation is that Team Bush wanted war, but couldn't directly attack Iraq (the efforts to link Al Qaeda and the anthrax letters to Saddam were largely unsuccessful), so they went into Afghanistan instead.

The complete abandonment of 'nation-building' Afghanistan in 2002 as all efforts shifted to invading Iraq sort of supports this scenario.

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

#52

Post by photochemsyn »

dragontamer wrote: post #48
h2odragon wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

But is that 'official death count' any more reliable than the total count of 350,000? Let's say I'm a grossly corrupt Afghan general, and I'm diverting pay and equipment money, say 50% of the total, to my private bank accounts. Now someone asks me to account for the smallish number of soldiers in my barracks.

"Oh sir, we have suffered great casualties in our fight against the terrorists, here are the records."

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

#53

Post by dragontamer »

photochemsyn wrote: post #52
dragontamer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

But is that 'official death count' any more reliable than the total count of 350,000? Let's say I'm a grossly corrupt Afghan general, and I'm diverting pay and equipment money, say 50% of the total, to my private bank accounts. Now someone asks me to account for the smallish number of soldiers in my barracks. "Oh sir, we have suffered great casualties in our fight against the terrorists, here are the records."

> But is that 'official death count' any more reliable than the total count of 350,000?

No. Because the Afghan security forces would be lying to try to improve their morale.

If anything, the official death count is almost certainly an underestimate. No army likes to admit that their death rates are in the 25%+ level, when you admit such a thing, you won't be able to find recruits.

------

Besides, we paid the Afghans on number of soldiers on payroll. Not on number of deaths. So the number they were corrupt on was #-of-soldiers.

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

#54

Post by tuyguntn »

dragontamer wrote: post #50
tuyguntn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

agree with you, maybe they tried to protect Bin Laden.

But there are multiple questions which should be answered:

1. are we 110% sure that Bin Laden ordered the attack? I am not trying to defend him, but you know there are many organizations who can do that attack, including multiple organizations funded by CIA (don't forget Bin Laden was initially funded by CIA), maybe government could prevent attack but didn't prevent, because they were also interested in natural resources of Afghanistan?

2. Are we 120% sure we can capture and execute Bin Laden without civilian fatalities? if civilian fatalities can't be avoided, did we have numbers in mind, how many people will get killed?

3. Why western media didn't give enough voice to Taliban at that time? If enough people listened to them, maybe US could make public negotiation and if negotiation fails publicly, then everyone would definitely know Taliban is to blame for this war. In reality, US just said, we are super power, we can do whatever we want.

4. Are we sure war wasn't lobbied? You know, US sells lots of weapons, they sometimes need to test, are we sure that war wasn't lobbied? where did 2T$ go? Do you think all were eaten by corrupt Afghan government? even 10% of it would be 200B which would create 100 billionaires.

I am not defending Taliban or Bin Laden, just showing how decisions made was wrong and I still doubt US can make right decision. Now Afghanistan has lots of uneducated people, who lost their families, children. Do you think they would just forgive? Who can guarantee that they won't come over to US and start killing people?

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

#55

Post by P-ala-din »

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

If we put in mind what we know post hoc about the torture and inhumane interrogation techniques used in both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, wouldn't you agree that it's reasonable to assume that there was a high risk of torture? and isn't torture a well-accepted reason to block extradition.

In fact, let's take it even a step further in light of the fabrication of evidence seen in Iraq. The general atmosphere of hate at the time. not to mention that we now know that bin Laden not only was not tried but was thrown in a bag with the fish. How can we be so sure that he would have had received a fair trial? How would you even find an unbiased jury[1]?

Do we deem it ok to extradite someone to a place with a high risk of torture and unfair trial?

[1] - this is a rhetorical question but I'm actually curious how would one find such a jury that hasn't already made its mind?

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

#56

Post by mannerheim »

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...

They wanted proof bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. Given that they've denied he was responsible as recently as a couple months ago despite him claiming responsibility on video in '04 or so, I don't think this was in good faith.

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

#57

Post by charbonneau2 »

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…

> The most foolish notion of all is the belief that everything is just which is found in the customs or laws of nations. Would that be true, even if these laws had been enacted by tyrants?

> What of the many deadly, the many pestilential statutes which nations put in force? These no more deserve to be called laws than the rules a band of robbers might pass in their assembly. For if ignorant and unskillful men have prescribed deadly poisons instead of healing drugs, these cannot possibly be called physicians’ prescriptions; neither in a nation can a statute of any sort be called a law, even though the nation, in spite of being a ruinous regulation, has accepted it.

Cicero

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

#58

Post by dragontamer »

tuyguntn wrote: post #54
dragontamer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

agree with you, maybe they tried to protect Bin Laden. But there are multiple questions which should be answered: 1. are we 110% sure that Bin Laden ordered the attack? I am not trying to defend him, but you know there are many organizations who can do that attack, including multiple organizations funded by CIA (don't forget Bin Laden was initially funded by CIA), maybe government could prevent attack but didn't prev…

> 1. are we 110% sure that Bin Laden ordered the attack?

Bin Laden attacked the USA in the 90s (the original twin tower attacks). Then issued a Fatwa declaring a Holy War against the USA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fataw%C4%81_of_Osama_bin_Laden).

Bin Laden's writings on 9/11 are well published, even on Western Media (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver).

There's no doubt in anybody's mind that Bin Laden was involved in 9/11.

> 2. Are we 120% sure we can capture and execute Bin Laden without civilian fatalities?

Of course not. We would have preferred for the Afghan government (aka: the Taliban) to cooperate with us. But they didn't.

> 3. Why western media didn't give enough voice to Taliban at that time?

We have Bin Laden's writings published and the Taliban's writings published. What exactly is missing from their argument that you want published?

> 4. Are we sure war wasn't lobbied?

Oh, Cheney was definitely a Warmonger. But that doesn't make the Afghan War a wrong move.

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

#59

Post by mannerheim »

tuyguntn wrote: post #54
dragontamer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

agree with you, maybe they tried to protect Bin Laden. But there are multiple questions which should be answered: 1. are we 110% sure that Bin Laden ordered the attack? I am not trying to defend him, but you know there are many organizations who can do that attack, including multiple organizations funded by CIA (don't forget Bin Laden was initially funded by CIA), maybe government could prevent attack but didn't prev…

> are we 110% sure that Bin Laden ordered the attack?

Bin Laden made a video in '04 regarding the US presidential election at the time in which he implicitly claimed responsibility.

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

#60

Post by bayesian_horse »

stunt wrote: post #47
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.

Well, just right now, Russia is doing the same in Syria and sometimes Ukraine and other regions around the world. Then there's Iran. Other "bad guys" are more involved with their general vicinity.
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