If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

Post by meowface » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 8:39 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #85

sethbannon wrote: post #12

The way America is conducting the war on terror is both self-defeating and morally repugnant.

It is profitable. If terrorists disappeared tomorrow. Let's say we use our surgical strike weapons to target every cell every member, and in one hour they are gone. What would happen? Billions of dollars disappear from the pockets of everyone in the chain. Military contractors, drone maintenance, promotions, bonuses, career advancements, no more completed missions, medals, no job to go to. So the direct financial and…

Post by EpicEng » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 8:43 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #268

ChuckMcM wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that the fiction of a coherent "Military Industrial Complex" has been debunked several times right? One by the General Accounting Office showed that military contractors actually had higher profits in peacetime than wartime because they got money for 'research' and didn't have to actually produce any product.

Not that I necessarily buy in to the idea of "a coherent Military-Industrial Complex", but this doesn't really debunk much. It seems to me that peacetime profits for military contractors are dependent on the assumption that there's going to be wartime usage of the research they're doing in the short- to medium-term. Surely if we went a significant period without any military engagements, there would be far less of a…

Post by rdtsc » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 8:47 PM UTC

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #199

bunderbunder wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really nothing extraordinary here; it's just boring old business-as-usual American politics. Consider reactions to the idea that we cancel the Joint Strike Fighter program. Long story short, every politician who had a contractor working on the project in his constituency started making noise about all the jobs that would be lost if we were to shut down the program. No secret conspiracy; that was an open debat…

We know that people go after profits. Nothing extraordinary here. What is extraordinary is the assertion that people acted unethically and (probably) also illegally.

Post by avenger123 » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 9:01 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #145

weland wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very easy to put it in terms of "Yeah, some civilian deaths are a necessary evil which we burden our conscience with. But we do it because we have to protect our civilians", but I think it's intellectually lazy. Because the next question that should inevitably spring up is ok, ok, but why the fuck would someone in Yemen want to kill US citizens? Once you start answering that question, the question of morality in…

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Al Qaeda type jihadists in Yemen who would very much like to kill U.S. citizens. Otherwise I'd agree with you that we shouldn't be there.

Post by cdash » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 9:09 PM UTC

toki5 wrote: post #254

aroch wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For how many years were people dismissed as nutjobs and "conspiracy theorists" when they talked about NSA spying? Now we know it was all true. Just because it is true, doesn't mean those people aren't nutjobs or conspiracy theorists.

It's also not at all logical to say: [Unlikely thing X] came true! Therefore, [unlikely thing Y] will, too! Even if X and Y were incredibly similar -- in this case they aren't, at all -- that's still not a logical assumption. It's not even evidence toward Y.