If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by infinitone » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #109

bluedino wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very easy to not agree with the way the US government handles these sort of things, but you have to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not doing this for shits and giggles. It might seem nationalistic to some but it reminds me of a quote from "A Few Good Men" - Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I h…

It's very easy to not agree with the way the North Korean government handles many things, but you have to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not doing it for shits and giggles. After all, they have been at war for over 60 years now. It must be obvious to any patriotic Korean that the danger posed by American imperialists who still occupy the southern half of the country is ever-present and growing. Some…

These types of comments are becoming the norm on HN. Perhaps someone should write a script that can generate the reciprocal of the parent like this... it'd be a neat weekend project :d

Btw, not saying the comment is bad in anyway.

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

#152

Post by mythealias » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

pesenti wrote: post #108

I don't understand why commenters don't actually discuss Obama's argument. He has the following options: - Do nothing - Use drones - Use conventional weapons which, he argues, would have more collateral damage - Put troops on the ground and be perceived as an invader. So either you should argue that these are not the options or you should argue that he did not pick the right one.

Lets see our options are 1: do nothing, 2: involve the military through use of force. I wonder what happened to plain old diplomacy. I guess that is too slow and seems ineffective. So is training the locals to fight their war. After all they all live in dark ages and only know how to use stones and sticks to fight. But we cannot put forward these options to general public so we are left with just two.

Even then I feel that more than Obama or any other politicians or military official it is the general public to blame. The public wants democracy but does not understand that democracy does not work out of the box. One needs to get involved to make it work properly. It is a good system but needs fixes. The problem with democracy is it treats my stupidity same as your intelligence and my apathy same as your concern. And as long as people like me hold majority there is not much others can do.

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

#153

Post by weland » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:42 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.

Yeah, my question was in the somewhat broader sense, as in "Why the hell is there an organization that wants to kill people halfway across the globe".

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

#154

Post by michaelt » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:42 PM UTC

pesenti wrote: post #108

I don't understand why commenters don't actually discuss Obama's argument. He has the following options: - Do nothing - Use drones - Use conventional weapons which, he argues, would have more collateral damage - Put troops on the ground and be perceived as an invader. So either you should argue that these are not the options or you should argue that he did not pick the right one.

He has loads of options other than that. Use some imagination.

- Employ soft power / carrots instead of sticks such as foreign aid and literacy education.

- Take actions that make people hate you less instead of more.

- Equip/arrange for the locals or neighbours to do your dirty work.

- Get a UN vote saying whatever you want to do.

- Arm the government, conditional on a transition to democracy over the course of ten years.

- Employ targeted bombings only on terrorist training camps, not on weddings.

- Convince, bribe or threaten local cultural and religious leaders to guide their followers away from whatever you want them away from.

- Divide the country along race, religious or class grounds and install a minority government that serves your interests.

- Place bounties on the heads of people you want killed and increase the payout until the free market takes care of things for you.

- Just let them take care of their own internal political issues and wait for the terrorists to reach the US or one of its allies before whacking them.

- Increase employment rates and workloads so people are too busy/tired to devote attention to trying to destroy america.

- Free bread / circuses / fast food / TV.

- Drugs in the water supply.

- Nuke the whole place as a warning to others.

- Adopt a realistic foreign policy that admits the inevitability of civilian deaths, occasional bad apples engaging in torture and executing prisoners etc. and just agree to monitor and set realistic targets regarding the number of civilian deaths etc.

- Do something low impact and ineffective and let the next president deal with it.

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

#155

Post by mistercow » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #147

mistercow wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is the US not a party to the Geneva Conventions?

Protocol I and Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 are later agreements that added to the 1949 Conventions, the United States is not a party to either Protocol, though it is a party to all four of the 1949 Conventions.

Ah I see now. Thanks for clarifying.

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

#156

Post by a1a » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #135

dalore wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess, you said something similar to all the people that said the NSA were tracking everyone.

They laughed at Einstein[0] but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. The truth of one conspiracy cannot be used as evidence for the truth of others. It simply doesn't make sense. [0] They didn't really laugh at Einstein, but you get the idea.

The metaphor in your argument is dependent on the fact that Einstein and Bozo are two separate entities.

Once Einstein[0] had published his theory of relativity people stopped laughing, and they never laughed at him again.

[0] They still didn't laugh at Einstein, but you get the idea.

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

#157

Post by mikeash » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:46 PM UTC

a1a wrote: post #156

mikeash wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They laughed at Einstein[0] but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. The truth of one conspiracy cannot be used as evidence for the truth of others. It simply doesn't make sense. [0] They didn't really laugh at Einstein, but you get the idea.

The metaphor in your argument is dependent on the fact that Einstein and Bozo are two separate entities. Once Einstein[0] had published his theory of relativity people stopped laughing, and they never laughed at him again. [0] They still didn't laugh at Einstein, but you get the idea.

Hmm, now that is really interesting! My initial reaction to your question is, "Of course they're separate entities." But then the person I'm replying to probably thinks, "Of course they're a single entity."

Is that the true division between conspiracy-minded people and others?

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

#158

Post by jotaass » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:47 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.

I think the point is that those jihadists in Yemen are the direct result of this sort of thing happening in their home towns. It's very easy to recruit someone when they just saw a whole bus of their friends and family being blown off by reasons they can't understand, from a robot in the sky, being controlled by someone miles away.

It's a whole chicken and the egg thing.

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

#159

Post by dopamean » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #25

> Five of those killed were suspected of involvement with Al Qaeda, but the remainder were unconnected with the militancy, Yemeni security officials said." > The New York Times reported in 2013 that the Obama Administration embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties, which in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants. So 5 people were of military-age and male? Given a size o…

The business of considering all military-age males as combatants is really not all that surprising to me. I live in New York and here, in some neighborhoods, the police consider all minority males 14-40 (I really have no idea of the top end) to be suspected criminals worthy of a random search while simply walking down the street. This is the way we treat people. We deem one group of people to be a threat and they immediately lose their rights.

Edit: I seemed to have forgotten that it is black and hispanic males in New York who are stopped.

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

#160

Post by drzaiusapelord » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 3:49 PM UTC

knome wrote: post #121

hazz wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This piqued my interest. The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons, was signed by the United States on the same day it was opened, January 13th 1993 [1]. It came into force in 1997. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Chemical...

I was cast into doubt by the same comment. The United States military does not make use of even things like pepper spray as a non-lethal weapon specifically because of being a signatory of treaties against use of any chemical warfare.

Pepper spray is useless in a combat situation. Wind and other factors mean that it could benefit your enemy more than you (same with other chemical weapons). Also, why bother when we have flash-bang grenades, sonic weapons, and white phosphorous. Not to mention, in war deadly force is authorized under even the most trivial of circumstances. Why pepper spray a guy and take a risk when you can shoot him and not take a risk?