Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 361 posts

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

#321

Post by EpicEng »

lolbertarian wrote: post #316
EpicEng wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we don't live in that fantasy world. In reality there always is, and always has been, war looming on the horizon. Maybe we'll someday achieve a utopian, Star Trek like existence, but I don't imagine it will be anytime soon.

That's cute that you think there is an inherent existential threat imposed by the rest of the world that wasn't deliberately exacerbated by those interests who stand to profit from such conflict.

Well I'm flattered that you think I'm cute, but I'm not sure where you pulled any of the other nonsense you wrote from (I have an idea). I never made any of the arguments that you claim I have.

If you read the parent, he doesn't buy the debunking of the industrial military complex because, in a theoretical world where war is not a common occurrence, the conclusion doesn't hold water. Well, that's nice, but in the real world, war happens. A lot. It always has and it still does.

The reason for this is irrelevant. You talk about war being manufactured for personal gain (with no proof I would add, but whatever). True or not, it's irrelevant. We're talking about human nature here. Do you really think a time will come in which everyone is moral and good and wars cease to occur?

If you do then you believe that we will somehow alter whatever it is that brings people like this into existence. I hope you're right, but for now you're living in a fairy tale. I prefer to deal with reality as it is, not what I wish it were.

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

#322

Post by holograham »

pantalaimon wrote: post #244
holograham wrote: post #204

A great book to read on the decline of violence in the world: The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker. The Hacker News community should like it as it focuses on the stats and facts rather than anecdotal stories the media slings. The main thesis: Violence (in nearly every form) has been on a precipitous decline in the modern era. War deaths (and civilian causalities) are at all time…

Now would you say there would be more or less violence if the US stopped killing people on foreign soil?

Loaded question for sure :)

You're asking me if the US's geopolitical and military operations currently are increasing or decreasing total violence in the world. A tremendously complex question to answer accurately.

My answer (opinion) is this: On the whole I think the US has contributed to a decline in total violence in the world. Not to say there haven't been bad decisions along the way. Advances in military tactics and foreign aid policies have been aimed to decreased violence. As for an exact figure, that is impossible to know.

How many future wars were averted when the US won the nuclear arms race? How many civilian casualties are minimized with each advance in precision bombing over the last ~75 years of military aviation? How many wars have been averted through foreign political action (aid, coups, treaties, etc)?

Obviously those are unmeasurable in each discrete instance but the book I referenced above provides some aggregate statistics which, when correlated the US's rise as a world power, show a huge decline in worldwide violence (and not just in 1st world countries).

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

#323

Post by blei »

Codhisattva wrote: post #196
xradionut wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not all US citizens. Only well-connected, wealthy US citizens have rights. The rest of the US citizens are semi-disposable like the rest of the world.

There are two Americas now; the first consists of those who perform surveillance and the second are the suspects.

While the above parent tree of comments is mostly correct, I can't help but feel like the commenters are just regurgitating sound-bite memes. I wish there were less of an echo chamber around here.

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

#324

Post by lolbertarian »

mattlutze wrote: post #215
rdtsc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I will continue to refuse to believe American military personnel choose to strike otherwise-collateral civilian targets. You're talking about moral humans, here. Our soldiers/airmen/marines/sailors are not soulless automatons, nor are officers that develop strategy and provide direction. Nor would I consider their pay to be either incentive or motivation.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201311/drone-uav-...

Read this. Follow orders or get court marshalled. Its no surprise that after objections from pilots that they started singling out people who didn't give a shit about things like ethical objectives other than shooting their target accurately.

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

#325

Post by justin66 »

mattlutze wrote: post #215
rdtsc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I will continue to refuse to believe American military personnel choose to strike otherwise-collateral civilian targets. You're talking about moral humans, here. Our soldiers/airmen/marines/sailors are not soulless automatons, nor are officers that develop strategy and provide direction. Nor would I consider their pay to be either incentive or motivation.

Do they escape culpability if they do not ever choose to intentionally "strike otherwise-collateral civilian targets" but instead choose to take part in a process where there's a known error rate, and a certain amount of collateral damage will happen no matter what the intentions are?

A choice is being made in either case. Innocent people are being killed in either case.

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

#326

Post by dragonwriter »

eropple wrote: post #312
dragonwriter wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What war are you talking about? Presumably the one that was either (a) initiated by the 9/11 attacks and formally recognized as already existing by Congress in Public Law 107-40, or (b) was provoked by the 9/11 attacks and declared by Congress in Public Law 107-40, depending on how you choose to look at it. > What is the objective? "to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by"…

The AUMF is not a declaration of war; it expressly avoids being called a "war" in much the same way as ye olde Vietnam. What it is is probably illegal under international law, but nobody has the standing to make the United States back down.

> The AUMF is not a declaration of war

It most certainly is an exercise of Congress' Constitutional power to declare war. It may not be a formal declaration of war under international law, but those are two very different things.

> it expressly avoids being called a "war" in much the same way as ye olde Vietnam.

Vietnam was also a war for which Congress exercised its Constitutional power to declare war. See, e.g., Orlando v. Laird, 443 F.2d 1039 (2nd Cir., 1971).

> What it is is probably illegal under international law

Please cite the provision of international law (either a treaty to which the US is a party, or a generally accepted provision of customary international law -- and, if the latter, please also provide evidence that the cited principle is a generally accepted provision of customary international law) under which the AUMF itself is illegal.

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

#327

Post by peterashford »

sethbannon wrote: post #12

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

Killing innocents from the air indiscriminately is pretty much terrorism by any definition of the word. The problem with this approach is that it turns moderates into people who hate you. If the someone bombed my family, I would hate them. It's pretty much human nature.

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

#328

Post by peterashford »

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.

Wall street traders were confronted with the proof that their speculation on produce futures was causing famine and actual, real deaths. They were aware, they just didn't care.

People acting unethically for profit is pretty much the American way, isn't it? It seems to me that if there's a buck in it and it's not illegal (or you can get away with it) it's pretty much justified in the US.

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

#329

Post by swamp40 »

The anti-American rants on here are disgusting.

Nobody's calling this a mistake except the media.

5 Al Qaeda dead, 5-10 people sitting next to an Al Qaeda member also dead.

Intelligence even pointed out which 4 cars out of the 11 car convoy contained the Al Qaeda members.

If you think there is no war going on over there, the 52 civilians slaughtered by Al Qaeda on Dec. 5 in a Sana'a hospital would disagree with you.

Check out how Al Qaeda operates here at the 56 second mark, where one of them casually lobs a grenade into a crowd of civilians during the Dec. 5 attack: http://www.guns.com/2013/12/14/graphic-cctv-footage-militant...

The US drone strike was a direct response to the Dec. 5 massacre by Al Qaeda.

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

#330

Post by peterashford »

nickff wrote: post #230
RyanZAG wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blowing up a wedding is not extraordinary? 'Not taking sides' doesn't cut it - you're either doing your bit to end drone strikes like these, or you are morally bankrupt. There is no fence sitting when civilians are being blown up.

Civilians are blown up in every war, drones did not create this problem, and eliminating UAVs will not end it. If you want people to be "doing your bit to end drone strikes", you should consider that the probable counter-factual is not an end to non-combatant (civilian) deaths; civilian mortality may increase, decrease, or stay the same, depending on what tactics are chosen to replace drones.

If you were actually at war with Pakistan, then civilian deaths there might be explainable as collateral damage. But last time I checked, they're a US ally. Killing innocent citizens of your allies is not an act of war, it's terrorism.
Post reply on HN