A List Of Children Killed By Drone Strikes In Pakistan and Yemen • Hacker News Board

Re: A List Of Children Killed By Drone Strikes In Pakistan and Yemen

#41

Post by GlennS » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 12:42 AM UTC

prius770 wrote: post #19

InclinedPlane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder for murder is the way that vendettas and feuds continue for decades, centuries, and even millenia. It's how one death turns into ten then a hundred then thousands then millions. That's not how civilized people should approach violence or warfare, even when violence may be justified. Look at the aftermath of WWII, for example, many of the most bitter enemies (such as the US and Japan) forged bonds of friendship…

So we should let Islamist terrorists continue launching missiles from schools?

Do you imagine that drone strikes will stop them?

Other than that, I'd like to echo the obvious [citation needed]. Which terrorists are launching missiles from what schools at whom? And did someone actually authorize a drone strike on a school in retaliation?

I should think that it's pretty clear that if you blow up a school, you're probably evil no matter your reasoning. I'm not saying there never has been or will be a case to blow up a school, but you'd better be pretty damn sure.

Re: A List Of Children Killed By Drone Strikes In Pakistan and Yemen

#42

Post by mayanksinghal » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 1:09 AM UTC

omonra wrote: post #11

thex86 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just because that happens, we should overlook the fact that there are drones killing innocent children everyday sanctioned by the United States? You seem to be the type of person that says, "What if X is bad? Look at Y, which suits my agenda." Things like this creates more terrorism and more extremism. You may not realize, but it's not a nice thing to see your children and loved ones being killed by planes from th…

You are missing an important point - the reasons drones are up in the sky in the first place is to fight the muslim extremists. So the number of people they kill is an important variable to countenance the number of accidental drone kills. The two are not unrelated.

Yes, I think it is quite appropriate to discuss what these drone strikes prevented as much as it is important to discuss what they caused. Elsewhere in the this thread, it is argued that drone strikes also create enough anguish that they end up creating more extremists than they have killed.

For instance, killing of children is not even the only cause of growing anger towards these drone strikes. It also hurts the sovereignty of these states and fuels to Anti-American patriotism in them. If I live in a failed state, it is still my state. Unless it is abundantly supported from people outside my country (and yours) and almost universally acceptable from people within mine, your government shouldn't be interfering.

Re: A List Of Children Killed By Drone Strikes In Pakistan and Yemen

#43

Post by InclinedPlane » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 1:14 AM UTC

prius770 wrote: post #19

InclinedPlane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder for murder is the way that vendettas and feuds continue for decades, centuries, and even millenia. It's how one death turns into ten then a hundred then thousands then millions. That's not how civilized people should approach violence or warfare, even when violence may be justified. Look at the aftermath of WWII, for example, many of the most bitter enemies (such as the US and Japan) forged bonds of friendship…

So we should let Islamist terrorists continue launching missiles from schools?

Is that what we're talking about? I thought we were talking about drone strikes which are targeted assassinations that, so far, have had considerable "collateral damage" (i.e. death of innocents).

The sad truth is that the American assassination campaign is little better than one that would be carried out using car bombs. Though had those methods been used it would be much easier to place in a more accurate moral context.

Re: A List Of Children Killed By Drone Strikes In Pakistan and Yemen

#44

Post by mayanksinghal » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 1:16 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #13

InclinedPlane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder for murder is the way that vendettas and feuds continue for decades, centuries, and even millenia. It's how one death turns into ten then a hundred then thousands then millions. That's not how civilized people should approach violence or warfare, even when violence may be justified. Look at the aftermath of WWII, for example, many of the most bitter enemies (such as the US and Japan) forged bonds of friendship…

The difference is that the US, Japan, and Germany were civilized and had something to lose from continued war. Tribes in the mountains of Pakistan don't.

That quite a narrow definition of what it means to be civilized and what it means to understand other cultures. The tribes in mountains of Pakistan value their way of living, their religion, their ideologies, their decentralized governance, their barter economy, their local food production, their way of dressing and their way of dealing with internal feuds as much as you love your civilization. To claim that their ways are outdated or unfair to certain sections of their society is fine. But to claim that they have nothing to lose is so effing narrow sighted that I wonder if you being sarcastic.

And I say this being citizen of a country that has suffered from terrorism longer than most civilized countries and paid significantly higher costs.

Re: A List Of Children Killed By Drone Strikes In Pakistan and Yemen

#45

Post by mc32 » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 1:17 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #27

bcoates wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unsatisfying response to this is that circumstances matter, and long lists of names without context do not give the sort of information that would allow one to act.

I don't think this project's lists are aimed at a full analysis of the situation, but just one piece of information: reminding people that there is significant collateral damage, and innocent people killed have names/etc., rather than just being units in some kind of RTS game. People may decide that's unfortunate but ultimately still the right decision; as you note, it's not the only piece of information. But right n…

Maybe people should maintain tallies of easily avoidable deaths:

Starvation, Poor infrastructure, poor medication, poor parenting, etc.

Lots of it is preventable. Should we keep tallies just so we know how (young) people are dying?

You know why people don't make a big deal about those greater tallies? Because it's not a political message which aligns with someone's particular politics. Not because they would be harder to influence.