31–40 of 66 posts
Assuming we are at war and okay with bombing the enemy, civilians will die. That is how war works. A drone (Even one pointed at the wrong target) does a lot less damage than the traditional carpet bombing. Civilians die either way, but a lot less die with modern technology.
Wait, ANOTHER wedding? Didn't we do this a year or two ago also? We just wiped out 15 completely innocent people? Destroying their lives and their families forever? Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city? Shut down all armed drones. Review the entire use of them from top to bottom. This isn't a video game, there is no do-over.
Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city? You've just stepped into that intellectual minefield that's called "American Exceptionalism". Enjoy your stay.
Wait, ANOTHER wedding? Didn't we do this a year or two ago also? We just wiped out 15 completely innocent people? Destroying their lives and their families forever? Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city? Shut down all armed drones. Review the entire use of them from top to bottom. This isn't a video game, there is no do-over.
Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city? After the events of the last year, I don't have that much trouble imagining the US government doing that in a US city.
No fucking difference at all.
I swear to christ someone has to pay for this kind of mistake, or we are just mindless thugs. We have to pay attention to correcting our mistakes, or we are tacitly endorsing them. The problem, of course, is that there is no accountability. None. What do I do, write to my senator and say how mad I am? People write to senators saying how mad they are all the time. And the press stands by and does nothing. They are jus…
The only question that really puzzles me and probably should puzzle USA citizens is: Why is a USA drone flying in Yemen anyway?
There's nothing puzzling about it. This is the way the world has worked for centuries, and how the U.S. has worked since its founding. The great powers intervene in small nations to put out brush fires that could upset the global status quo. It's like the history of Europe from 1500-1945.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city? You've just stepped into that intellectual minefield that's called "American Exceptionalism". Enjoy your stay.
No, this does not have to do with "American Exceptionalism." It has to do with the much more basic concept that sovereign nations reserve the right to kill people in other sovereign nations in pursuit of their own security. The U.S. just gets the brunt of the blame for these sorts of accidents because it bankrolls geopolitical stability for the rest of the world.
"bankrolling geopolitical stability for the rest of the world" is a nice attempt to recast maintaining a global empire through military power as if it was a selfless, altruistic deed.
But its not even remotely accurate.
There seems to be conflicting information: "their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy" "An air strike missed its target and hit a wedding car convoy" Were they targeting the wedding car or not? One is a failure of intelligence, the other is a failure of the technology.
It's a failure of intelligence either ways, I'll tell you that.
Wait, ANOTHER wedding? Didn't we do this a year or two ago also? We just wiped out 15 completely innocent people? Destroying their lives and their families forever? Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city? Shut down all armed drones. Review the entire use of them from top to bottom. This isn't a video game, there is no do-over.
> Shut down all armed drones. Review the entire use of them from top to bottom. This isn't a video game, there is no do-over. To be clear, this isn't a "drone" problem per so, so much as an "airpower" one. There have been plenty of incidents where the use of manned aircraft have resulted in similar (probably) inadvertent civilian casualties -- e.g. the AH-64 attack depicted in the "Collateral Murder" video or the bom…
So as you approach zero risk, the occurence of applied lethal force accelerates on a curve toward an asymptote.
Wait, ANOTHER wedding? Didn't we do this a year or two ago also? We just wiped out 15 completely innocent people? Destroying their lives and their families forever? Can you imagine the holy hell if a foreign government did that in a US city? Shut down all armed drones. Review the entire use of them from top to bottom. This isn't a video game, there is no do-over.
There is a reason for that. The locals use the US as their weapon of revenge. So if one family has an ongoing argument with another family and one of them is throwing a wedding, the other family reports it as an Al Quaida meeting.
Often these family conflicts have lasted for years already and likely more people died in the past (not by drones)
So it was a successful hit, you know, just not for the party that shot off the actual hardware.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, this does not have to do with "American Exceptionalism." It has to do with the much more basic concept that sovereign nations reserve the right to kill people in other sovereign nations in pursuit of their own security. The U.S. just gets the brunt of the blame for these sorts of accidents because it bankrolls geopolitical stability for the rest of the world.
> The U.S. just gets the brunt of the blame for these sorts of accidents because it bankrolls geopolitical stability for the rest of the world. "bankrolling geopolitical stability for the rest of the world" is a nice attempt to recast maintaining a global empire through military power as if it was a selfless, altruistic deed. But its not even remotely accurate .
Use your head for a second.
The US government hands out millions of dollars in foreign aid to it's "enemies" - governments who are quite happy to parade around talking about standing up the US, and then holding out their hand for handouts from them.
It's quite clear what they're doing - they're basically doling out money in the hopes that it'll prevent civil unrest and nations imploding - sure, they might not like these people, and they might even be actively trying to destroy them - but the alternative is to have a messy civil war, and then have to come in to clean it all up.
The US is very interested in global stability - you can argue that's also in their own interests as well, but you can't argue they don't bankroll geopolitical stability.