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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

#61

Post by m0llusk »

trasz wrote: post #23
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.

And their weapon system was retired. There were terrible crimes, but trying to make complex situations simple to suit your preferred narrative actually weakens your arguments.

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

#62

Post by mirekrusin »

stunt wrote: post #37

Most of the civilian casualties aren't even documented in a war. If you think the military you support invades a country and only kills the bad guys, you are watching too many hollywood movies.

I think everybody understands there was never in history a war without innocent dying.

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

#65

Post by bayesian_horse »

trasz wrote: post #23
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.

The cases couldn't be more different...

There is no record of an investigation of how the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 got shot down. Whereas the incident with the Iranian airliner almost looks like it was provoked by the Iranian side.

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

#66

Post by __m »

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.

Next you’ll tell us that Julian assange is on the payroll of the us military and the us is not going after him.

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

#67

Post by missedthecue »

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...

The Taliban can not be expected to negotiate in good faith. It would be beyond naive to think they would.

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

#68

Post by prepend »

P-ala-din wrote: post #55
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…

> and isn't torture a well-accepted reason to block extradition.

Maybe for blocking from the UK to US, but Afghanistan legally tortured/tortures so not sure why they would care about that regarding extradition.

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

#69

Post by yardie »

dragontamer wrote: post #34
adolph wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 org…

> 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. I mean... ISIS-K / Daesh is still murdering people in Afghanistan, even after we've left. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/world/asia/afghanistan-mo... Considering that the Daesh / ISIS-K organization is so freakishly violent that they're attacking the _TALIBAN_ for being too moder…

> USA hides it when we do it because we're at least embarrassed about it

Who's embarrassed by it and who's hiding it?

The civilian Afghans killed by ISIS- K are terrified because that is the point. The civilian Afghans killed by Americans are still terrified because they are largely irrelevant to Americans. Which is its own point. These deaths aren't being hidden from Afghans by Afghan media. They are being ignored by US media. The killings are chocked up as "accidents" and the machine moves on.

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

#70

Post by rendall »

missedthecue wrote: post #67
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...

The Taliban can not be expected to negotiate in good faith. It would be beyond naive to think they would.

Can you say more about that? Why not? Have they broken agreements before?
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