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Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

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Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#111

Post by knowaveragejoe »

tessierashpool wrote: post #87
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a surprise to you, but it is the military who learned the most from Vietnam. It is the American public and our politicians who seem to have learned the least. The military is simply doing its job when presented with a task, whether it was spawned out of noble intentions or kneejerk reactionism. They know that they must be careful in pursuing anything that looks vaguely like a target, because the sentiment…

knowaveragejoe: "the billions the US is pumping into these communities" the actual article: "$5000 and a goat"

What a frustratingly simplistic retort.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#112

Post by chinathrow »

iaskwhy wrote: post #70
chinathrow wrote: post #18

If you happen to work for one of the contractors in this program: I kindly ask you to think about your goals and your ideals for humanity. I used to work for a sub-contractor to the military-industrial complex. I quit for ethical reasons. Never looked back. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd like to have this subject discussed much more often than it is nowadays. Military is on an extreme of the ethical-unethical scale but there are many more cases which would deeply fall into the unethical side of the scale and are not being talked about at all.

This. Like unethical research, unetically selling 0days to various gov/3letter agencies etc. etc.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#113

Post by melling »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #102
melling wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what we tend to do in fact. We support whatever dictator is in power because it's better for business. With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's. As we now know, that turned out to not be the case, and they actually did destroy them. Before the war, it was reported by most media outlets that WMD's were still in Iraq. Then you had the UN weapons inspectors who kept…

> With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's That doesn't explain the necessity of the attack. If he'd had WMDs he'd had them since the 1980s and it's not clear why it was important at that point to remove a capability that had not caused us trouble in twenty years.

Well, he was clearly fine with using WMD's.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_progra...

I suppose if someone has a weapon, isn't afraid to use it, and actually has used it and many occasions, you'd be a bit foolish to argue that point, "well, he hasn't used them in 20 years..."

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#114

Post by saiya-jin »

happyscrappy wrote: post #72
lazyjones wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't believe ISIS would kill as many innocents as possible? It is practically their mission statement. It's pointless to argue about statements containing words with highly subjective and arbitrary meanings like "innocents". Were the employees of the TV station the US bombed (with good precision and information!) in Serbia "innocent"? Of what crime were they guilty if not? The US apparently thought they weren'…

> Who are we to claim the people brutally murdered by the IS are - to the IS - "innocent"? If you believe the West and IS are morally equivalent then you may want to revisit your worldview.

yes, US is less bad than ISIS. Still far from being good guys though

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#115

Post by shangxiao »

outworlder wrote: post #59

I don't really think the drones are the problem. The problems are: - Lack of intelligence. The drone may be hovering overhead, but you still need local intel. Which is unrealiable - The weapons are not designed for the task. A hellfire missile is not the right weapon to target a single individual. There will be collateral damage unless the target is standing in a deserted area by himself. Also, while the hellfire may…

Let's not ignore the disgusting gun-ho attitude of these "pilots" who are looking for any excuse to pull that trigger and ignoring any possibility that these were civilians.

"I was hoping we could make a rifle out. Never mind."

"Yeah, review that shit . . . Why didn’t he say possible child, why are they so quick to call fucking kids but not to call shit a rifle."

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#116

Post by 6d0debc071 »

melling wrote: post #113
6d0debc071 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's That doesn't explain the necessity of the attack. If he'd had WMDs he'd had them since the 1980s and it's not clear why it was important at that point to remove a capability that had not caused us trouble in twenty years.

Well, he was clearly fine with using WMD's. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_progra... I suppose if someone has a weapon, isn't afraid to use it, and actually has used it and many occasions, you'd be a bit foolish to argue that point, "well, he hasn't used them in 20 years..."

> Well, he was clearly fine with using WMD's

And? He didn't use them against us. To do so would have been suicide. From a strategic perspective, why was it necessary to our interests in the world to remove him from power in Iraq - as it was not during the Gulf War?

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#117

Post by dalke »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #57
dalke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one report, "Attempts to kill 41 men [using drones] resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November [2014]." http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-... . 25 innocent deaths for each enemy kill? Is that really enough to justify "less likely" as a defense for drones? In any case, as hizz pointed out, this specific report is about an attack where the information was gathere…

This article is somewhat unclear as it makes no distinction as to how many of those killed were militants. It's portrayed simply as either high value targets or "unknown", implied as civilians.

It is the OP who has made a statement about innocence, and implied that it's meaningful to make a comparison. The Guardian article sets a baseline as otherwise we're just flapping jaws.

Another baseline is to declare that all males of military age in a given zone are be definition enemy combatants. (Or that all people living in a city which contributes war materiel to the enemy are enemy combatants.)

The Guardian says "An estimated 142 children were killed in the course of pursuing those 24 men" and "17 named men were targeted multiple times. Strikes on them killed 273 people, at least seven of them children". That's about 150 children. I'll presume that these children were not militants. So how about the baseline of saying that for every 6 militants we kill, we also kill one child?

It doesn't really matter though. The questions are 1) does the use of drones improve the baseline (the OP's argument) and 2) does it really make a difference to argue the issue, or draw a distinction? (my argument).

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#118

Post by melling »

Zigurd wrote: post #92
melling wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what we tend to do in fact. We support whatever dictator is in power because it's better for business. With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's. As we now know, that turned out to not be the case, and they actually did destroy them. Before the war, it was reported by most media outlets that WMD's were still in Iraq. Then you had the UN weapons inspectors who kept…

"With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from the 1980's." Nope. It was a straight up war of aggression. Bush and Blair outright lied.

You'd think that if they outright lied, many people would step forward to verify your claim. If not because it's the right thing to do, then for the money; book deals, etc. Especially in politics where they love to stick it to each other. CNN can run with the Hillary email server for days, and everyone will weigh in. Imagine what they could do with anyone who could verify that "Bush lied!"

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#119

Post by knowaveragejoe »

FD3SA wrote: post #107
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course I can. Learn some humility, diplomacy, and restraint. Huh. The fact that there is a chain of command that this decision must pass sounds like the idea of restraint is not lost on these people. In fact it seems quite the opposite, that there is a directive for restraint. It's not up to the pilots and spotters, no matter how gung-ho they may be(many aren't at all, unlike what is portrayed in the article). T…

You are hopelessly mired by incorrect facts and perceived motivations. Many posts above have alluded to this fact, but I'll repeat it since it may help you in the long run. Neither of the two American wars being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq are for traditional reasons. There was no threat to the US. This has everything to do with the Military Industrial Complex, and its iron grip on American foreign policy. The MIC…

No, I am simply approaching this from a balanced point of view. The situation is far more nuanced than the "good guys" are really the "bad guys", and that it's all about the money. That's the plot of a movie, not real life. There are many people at all levels and on all sides who have altruistic intent, just as I'm sure there are those who really are perpetuating further conflict for the money.

I am in no way questioning the existence or influence of the MIC, but to say that across-the-board this is all about blood money is just as narrow minded as blindly defending the US as if what they're doing is morally right. You'll notice that nowhere in my posts do I go about doing such a thing, by the way. Far from it. I could understand you might have preconceived notions about my position though, it's hard to see the nuance in people's opinions when we reduce things to simply "for" or "against". I subscribe to a Sagan-esque view of mankind as I'm sure many do here. But, again, that has to be tempered by reality or we reach solutions only useful in retrospect like "don't invade in the first place".

Anyways, I was originally responding to the commentary that the military had "learned nothing from Vietnam" while "everyone else" did, which is patently false.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#120

Post by happyscrappy »

saiya-jin wrote: post #114
happyscrappy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who are we to claim the people brutally murdered by the IS are - to the IS - "innocent"? If you believe the West and IS are morally equivalent then you may want to revisit your worldview.

yes, US is less bad than ISIS. Still far from being good guys though

Europe works with the US on these attacks, are they evil too?
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