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The casualties at the other end of the remote-controlled kill

nytimes.com

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Re: The casualties at the other end of the remote-controlled kill

#121

Post by gunfighthacksaw »

stanfordkid wrote: post #99
rayiner wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not “dated.” The mechanics of why you try to preserve the lives of women and children in war haven’t changed at all. I can’t imagine the thought process that says “humans have had a visceral reaction to the killing of women and children specifically in war, across millennia and across cultures, but surely such thinking is obsolete in our generation.”

It's a biological reality that's gotten lost in our modern world. It's kind of funny no one seems to blink an eye that women and children are allowed to leave Ukraine but men have to stay and fight. The idpol segments seem to think that trans men shouldn't have to stay and fight and that is the true outrage. Personally I think men (or any human being that chooses) should be allowed to flee. Honor shouldn't be enforce…

Honour in this case is being imposed by the state, but Slavic cultures and national pride are 100% driving this too.

Some nations just won’t tolerate their men fleeing a crisis leaving women and kids behind, state or no state. Western Anglo/EU culture skews towards this, but not as hard.

Hence the broad support for them.

Re: The casualties at the other end of the remote-controlled kill

#122

Post by homonculus1 »

paganel wrote: post #27

Really now? I know Western newspapers like the NYTimes have become very, very enamoured with the military-industrial complex, and I get that, de facto, the US is at war, but why should anyone feel sorry for the people mentioned in the article, people whose mission is to kill some poor peasants herding their goats in the mountains of Yemen or who are attending a wedding somewhere in Afghanistan?

If those who repent of evil can't be forgiven then none of us have hope.

Re: The casualties at the other end of the remote-controlled kill

#123

Post by erklik »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #92
erklik wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> around the world I am curious. What conflicts or wars is the Chinese governemnt funding around the world or is involved in? Who are the Afghans or Yemenis of the Chinese government?

>I am curious. What conflicts or wars is the Chinese governemnt funding around the world or is involved in? Who are the Afghans or Yemenis of the Chinese government? In terms of active conflicts happening right now in 2022, none I could name off the top of my head. That's not say there isn't any, of course, but they're not as big/well known as the American ones. My comment was more about them propping up foreign dict…

> In terms of active conflicts happening right now in 2022, none I could name off the top of my head. That's not say there isn't any, of course, but they're not as big/well known as the American ones.

Looked it up. The only current active conflict that China is involved in is "Northern Mali" where they contribute UN Peacekeeper troops. I can't seem to find anything else so maybe something is happening in secret but who knows about that.

> My comment was more about them propping up foreign dictatorships when it's in their national interest (again, similar to what the US does), such as what they've been doing for decades in Kazakhstan, Cambodia and North Korea and are starting to do now in Africa.

That's probably fair. However, I wasn't ever talking about that. I specifically stated Yemen and Afghanistan as the examples because that's actual conflict. Propping a friendly regime to you is bad, yes, and is terrible [1] but I don't think it can be compared with actually dropping bombs on people, which is what the US is doing.

China is clearly, as far as public evidence goes, not funding/involved in any sort of wars. The US is involved in multiple wars and is actively funding one, while supporting the other heavily. This is ignoring that the past two decades, the US has virtually been at war constantly. I really don't think the US and China are remotely comparable today. So, I don't see why it's hard to believe that the rest of the world, the people who are the ones getting bombed, wouldn't prefer China over US. It only makes sense.

1. although not hypocritical in the case of China to support a dictatorship but is very hypocritical for the US

Re: The casualties at the other end of the remote-controlled kill

#124

Post by jimmaswell »

rayiner wrote: post #91
woodruffw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a convenience phrase, meant to impart unambiguous innocence. But it’s definitely a little dated, in both directions.

It’s not “dated.” The mechanics of why you try to preserve the lives of women and children in war haven’t changed at all. I can’t imagine the thought process that says “humans have had a visceral reaction to the killing of women and children specifically in war, across millennia and across cultures, but surely such thinking is obsolete in our generation.”

> “humans have had a visceral reaction to the killing of women and children specifically in war, across millennia and across cultures, but surely such thinking is obsolete in our generation.”

This sounds pretty much right at least as far as men vs women, though. If you truly want equal rights then that should come with equal privileges. Historically or evolutionarily, women were valued more in such a situation because they make babies - now, so what, we're clearly not running out of babies if you look at population trends. Either everyone fit to serve should have to stay or nobody should have to stay, not based on the circumstances of their birth.

Re: The casualties at the other end of the remote-controlled kill

#126

Post by qwytw »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #115
pmoriarty wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The air force really isn't interested in wasting multi thousand (or more) dollar bombs on people that don't deserve them and in a manner that just makes more people hate them and makes their job harder." If only that were true, they wouldn't wage all of the senseless wars that the US has fought since WW2.

>If only that were true, they wouldn't wage all of the senseless wars that the US has fought since WW2. Take your low effort trope and shove it somewhere unpleasant. Of course the war machine is gonna war. That's what they do. You don't see Newport making their cigs kill their customers faster unless there's something in it for them. The air force is the same way. They might be in the death business but they're not g…

> Spending the fewest resources to get the most done while forcing your enemy to waste his is one of the most basic concepts in military strategy.

Not in modern asymmetric warfare. US could and did spend several magnitudes more resources than the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. I suppose the idea was to 'convince' the opponents to surrender by using overwhelming force. This mostly worked fine against conventional forces but not against less rational opponents who don't seem to value their lives that much (due to various reasons). Similar thing happened in Vietnam (of course there was a geopolitical component which dettered US from directly invading the north) US spent way more and did disportionately much more damage but still managed to lose the war in the end.

> not gonna go around wasting bombs on people who are no threat to anyone unless they think that's how they're gonna accomplish their goal

Well they might not had intentionally went after civilians, but a case might still be made that they weren't really as concerned about collataerel damage as they should have been.

Re: The casualties at the other end of the remote-controlled kill

#127

Post by dionidium »

rayiner wrote: post #91
woodruffw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a convenience phrase, meant to impart unambiguous innocence. But it’s definitely a little dated, in both directions.

It’s not “dated.” The mechanics of why you try to preserve the lives of women and children in war haven’t changed at all. I can’t imagine the thought process that says “humans have had a visceral reaction to the killing of women and children specifically in war, across millennia and across cultures, but surely such thinking is obsolete in our generation.”

I think you can imagine it :) Our culture conceives of a universal egalitarianism across all domains of human interest, but it hasn't really thought through all the implications of that, which is why a phrase like "woman and children" can still be used in an era where it's supposedly abhorrent to make those kinds of distinctions.

All that's being pointed out here is that it can't both be the case that there are no relevant differences between men and women and also that a phrase like "women and children" is useful. You have to pick one.

Re: The casualties at the other end of the remote-controlled kill

#129

Post by bluefirebrand »

mattzito wrote: post #5
thematrixturtle wrote: post #2

> There were missile strikes so hasty that they hit women and children, attacks built on such flimsy intelligence that they made targets of ordinary villagers, and classified rules of engagement that allowed the customer to knowingly kill up to 20 civilians when taking out an enemy. Why is the article focusing on the goon pulling the trigger, as opposed to these actual killed-dead casualties?

Did you read the whole article? It actually covers a scenario where the wrong person was killed-dead due to some bad intel. In fact, the whole point of the article is that there's a population of people who got lied to and manipulated in order to kill people whose culpability was questionable at best. This is a completely valid journalistic subject, separate from the people who were killed.

> In fact, the whole point of the article is that there's a population of people who got lied to and manipulated in order to kill people whose culpability was questionable at best

I'm pretty sure that's basically standard operating procedure in the military though?

Harder to get soldiers to kill people if they think of them as people and not as the enemy.

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