51–60 of 154 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CIA explicitly has no law enforcement capability. Their killing therefore does not represent the enforcement of any law and as such does not require a trial. Their killing is therefore a military action.
Then so too are gang shootings, domestic murder, and terrorism itself?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gangs, civilians, and terrorists are not governmental entities and therefore not military. A state-sanctioned terrorist attack would likely be considered a military action by that state. Organized violence against a foreign country by citizens of another is also referred to as military (e.g. [1]) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_%28military%29
> A state-sanctioned terrorist attack would likely be considered a military action by that state. The U.S., at least, claims that it wouldn't be. According to the U.S., state-sanctioned terrorism is still terrorism, not legitimate military action, and a violation of international law. Therefore the U.S. maintains a list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism", countries that it alleges engage in such unlawful tactics, eithe…
Growing up in the 70s, we looked at news from the Soviet Union and other authoritarian regimes as blatantly untrue propaganda. By comparison, our press and government practiced transparency -- they may have lied, but not on the scale the others did. I keep slipping back into believing the United States government believes in honesty and transparency, at least relatively more than other governments. In some areas it m…
"By comparison, our press and government practiced transparency -- they may have lied, but not on the scale the others did." "I keep slipping back into believing the United States government believes in honesty and transparency..." The U.S. government never believed in honesty and transparency and you're lying to yourself thinking that they did. Our press has constantly manipulated us. Lies and secrets are just getti…
Part 2 is where he examines the myths surrounding the Revolutionary War, and it is very good (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/01/gentle-...)
My recollection is the CIA considers any military aged males in the area of a strike to be enemy combatants, which could be one cause for significantly different numbers. Here we go: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in... "It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a stri…
The scary part is that this line of thinking is not entirely untrue seeing as civilian casualties have a way of radicalizing young men in search of revenge. The REALLY scary part where America goes from being a misguided but well-intentioned brute to a completely evil, opportunistic warmonger is when you think about the data that the US intelligence and military complex has access to. Don't they know that their war i…
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The various international laws and treaties covering the Law of Armed Conflict actually allow for a neutral country to permit military action against unlawful combatants that have taken refuge in their territory. There is no need for them to be camping out in a 'war zone' with a 'Please Bomb Me' sign hooked up to their building. Otherwise, what legal basis would nations have for taking military action against pirates…
Pakistan claims they don't permit the strikes, fwiw, although they seem to de facto go along with them, and may secretly consent. Not that that necessarily makes a difference either way.
[1]http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/07/20137813412615531... [2]http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/15/world/asia/u-n-drone-objection... [3]http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/07/22/get-the-data...
EDIT:
There is also a more detailed article on the "leaked" report on the originating news site. It is a more thorough discussion than the salon article.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/07/22/exclusive-le...
Errr: I think I missed half the article...
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> It is just the pesky Internets that lets "domestic terrorists" like Occupy organize and share idea. Pesky little extremists forums like /r/news lets people discuss issues outside the mainstream media. Why does everyone blame the evil MSM? Fox News was started because the MSM was 'too liberal'. I mean, I sort of agree with your overall point, but if you want to see what 'domestic terrorists' could do before the Inte…
> You know what killed Occupy? Occupy! No goal, no purpose, just "we hate the bankers and we hate the gub'mint!". Well, take a number, guys, you can get in line with practically the whole rest of the country. I never argued for supporting Occupy. The problems isn't about occupy, the problem is that FBI and their corporate partners thought they are dangerous enough to label them as "domestic terrorists". Think about i…
That's rather a mischaracertization. In the FBI documents about Occupy that were released through the FOIA, the overall peaceful nature of the protests is continually emphasized and the occasional militancy (in places like Oakland) is treated as atypical. Articles that suggest the FBI considered it to be a terrorist movement are not really being honest with their readers.
Most people I see comfortably opining on drone strikes seem to be doing so without the discomfort of thinking the issue through. My thought process is this: Say the US were to find evidence that a Canadian terrorist group was planning an attack on the Joe Louis Arena. We would inform the Canadian government who would then go, arrest the terrorists and put them on trial. This seems to be what drone critics think shoul…
But my reply is in regard to this -->>"People mention that drones may create terrorists, but if we assume that Pakistani public opinion is proportional to the number of deaths, then terrorism (which has killed far more innocent Pakistanis than drones [2]) ought to be significantly less popular."
I would argue against your rationale here. There is a parallel if not similar problem in the US and in just about every place in the world that is stifled with problems. Just because nothing seems like there is any being done, doesn't mean nothing is being done nor that the people approve or disapprove of it.
Most people I see comfortably opining on drone strikes seem to be doing so without the discomfort of thinking the issue through. My thought process is this: Say the US were to find evidence that a Canadian terrorist group was planning an attack on the Joe Louis Arena. We would inform the Canadian government who would then go, arrest the terrorists and put them on trial. This seems to be what drone critics think shoul…
If they're planning to attack the US, and you already know who and where they are, how about simply tracking them until they hop on a plane, and then arrest them, and give them a trial based on your evidence? It's not like they can magically do damage by giving the US the stinky eye from half across the globe.
If Pakistani terrorists executed so much as a single attack on US soil, you better believe the headlines would read: "Politicians knew of terrorist threat, failed to act."
On the other hand, if you murder as much as one person without a trial and a good reason, you're a nation with a slight, but unmissable scent. Unless you only care about headlines, or that "others do it too", you should care about this... and by that I don't mean "wait for your politicians to care", because that won't happen until you make them.
Technically this violates Pakistan's sovereignty, but who cares?
Uhmmm... yeah, who indeed... non-Nazis maybe?! Obama was your chance to get back from that crap, and he made it worse.
If the US citizens can't keep its government in check, by your own logic: who cares about collateral damage? The only non-risky way for anyone to attack the US would be to poison all the water of everyone, for example. Would that make it okay? I mean, you can't get at Random Pakistani Terrorist Who Talked Shit About The US without murdering a bunch of kids with robots, well.. the rest of the world can't get at your Pentagon without killing a whole lot of Americans, kinda like killing Iraqis to dethrone Saddam. Fair enough?
You see, that's kind of Nazi logic and leads to nowhere good, and that's much easier to notice when the shoe is on the other foot.
remember that the US government's responsibilities are towards US citizens
Bullshit. It's also responsible for not violating human rights. This may be hard to understand, but it has the responsibility towards its own citizens to not do certain things to ANYONE.
terrorism (which has killed far more innocent Pakistanis than drones [2])
Yeah, terrorism done in Pakistan to Pakistanis. As in, not the kind of terrorism you are using as argument, which would be the kind directed at the US. Or did I miss something and the drones are actually there to help out the Pakistanis against their terrorists? Huh!
[1] edit: I didn't mean to imply you're stupid, but simply that the whole point of making a strawman is to make it really weak, e.g. make it something stupid that can be knocked over easily.
(1) We do not torture people on principle
(2) We use drone strikes that sometimes kill innocent bystanders because the ends justifies the means
In the case of torturing someone, you are inflicting only pain (which is not as bad as death) on someone who is probably guilty of a crime (which is not as bad as inflicting pain on someone who is completely innocent).
In the case of drone strikes that kill innocent bystanders, you are inflicting death (which is worse than pain) on a completely innocent person (which is worse than killing someone who is guilty of a crime).
Now I understand that torture is unreliable and that is a good reason not to do it. But if you do not use torture on principle then to be consistent you must also not use drone strikes on principle.
Not that I'm defending the actions of the drone strikes, but assuming the numbers in this report are correct, it does seem to kill a lot fewer civilians than an invasion and full blown war would have, both in relative and absolute terms. With the Iraq war we've had over 100K civilians killed to ~40K combatants. Thinking logically, drone strikes would've severely reduced the number of civilians killed, whilst simultan…