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U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

eminetra.co.uk

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Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#161

Post by whydid »

queuesorcs wrote: post #157

As much as I love to check hackernews, I’m not normally able to chime in with relevant information on most topics. I feel like this may be one where I can actually do that though as I’m former military and my job directly related to drones on a daily basis. Depending on what’s asked, I may not be able to answer but I’d love to help by sharing any knowledge or information on the subject that I can as I’ve gained so mu…

How much accountability do remote pilots have for incidents like this? I.e., is there an ammo budget? What happens if a pilot decides to "go GTA" and destroy things for fun?

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#162

Post by coding123 »

enriquto wrote: post #151
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never malice. Nobody goes, "hey, this compound is 100% only women and children, let's bomb it." Reality: "A patrol nearby said they took fire from the compound at such and such grid coordinates" It gets bombed. Turns out the unit on the ground was mistaken. War is hell. War criminals should be punished. But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I love seeing these posts because it's clear that almost nobody he…

> But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I suppose that you are from the USA and your family is living there. Imagine that some afghan-controlled drone intended to kill some U.S. soldiers (a legitimate target because they are enemy combatants). But instead they kill your family. If it was a mistake, by the own account of the drone operator, would you still maintain that the killing of your whole family was not a…

I'm going to be a little dismissive of the question, but that's how the laws work in the united states. If someone was drunk that's a little different, but from the perspective of someone making a mistake on the road, and a family ends up dead - the person that made the mistake (assuming they prove that in court) does not end up with a murder charge. It may still end up being manslaughter and jail time.

Now to more specifically reply. So in the United States we may certainly have war on our doorstep at some point in the future. But our country tries to prevent that at ALL COSTS. We do so by making sure other countries are stable. We may fuck up by inserting into the wrong countries. but if ALL COUNTRIES just stabilize themselves we would NEVER have to go. And by the way, that's why the united nations was created. It would (or should) never allow the united states to insert themselves in a war that was not just. It may end up in an unjust position, but that's not where we started.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#163

Post by merpnderp »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #148

A Hellfire missile apparently costs $150K [0]. Given that it's apparently OK to launch one of these at a single suspected enemy informant, couldn't we have saved a lot of time, money and lives by just bribing the entire population of Afghanistan to not do things that the West doesn't like? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire

Infrastructure and industry were the solution to Afghanistan. A tribe which owns a large share in the local mining operation is a tribe which does its best to keep the peace.

The US could have built a lot of roads and propped up a lot of barely profitable enterprises with the money spent on all those military operations.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#164

Post by randomopining »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #148

A Hellfire missile apparently costs $150K [0]. Given that it's apparently OK to launch one of these at a single suspected enemy informant, couldn't we have saved a lot of time, money and lives by just bribing the entire population of Afghanistan to not do things that the West doesn't like? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire

So like 30-50k per person for the total cost of the war. Or 1.6k-3k per year. I guess that's doable but it's probably not a lot of money. Plus the power structures still want to take advantage of any situation, it's not like 3k is going to pacify a warlord in the country.

So nope let's go with teh hellfire.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#165

Post by syshum »

ricardobeat wrote: post #71

Having watched a few documentaries on the war, from multiple periods, my first thought was “who did they target with these drone strikes?” seeing as they usually had no idea who or where the enemy was. The answer is much worse than I could imagine: “a guy with a radio … which is reasonable grounds for suspicion”. Nothing accidental about it. These should be considered war crimes.

>> seeing as they usually had no idea who or where the enemy was.

CIA considers any Adult Male over 16 and under 65 to be "the enemy" in most of these places...

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#166

Post by dTal »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #137
dmos62 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkout Ben Anderson's 2 part ~30 minute report from Afghanistan for Vice from around 10 years ago [0][1]. He was embedded with British troops and ANA during a patrol with a lot of gun fights. The British strafed an empty field, almost bombed themselves twice and once an Apache launched a Hellfire missile into a compound with British and ANA troops in it and hit a building where a family with small children were hid…

It's never malice. Nobody goes, "hey, this compound is 100% only women and children, let's bomb it." Reality: "A patrol nearby said they took fire from the compound at such and such grid coordinates" It gets bombed. Turns out the unit on the ground was mistaken. War is hell. War criminals should be punished. But it's not a war crime to make a mistake. I love seeing these posts because it's clear that almost nobody he…

Nestled in between "malice" and "honest mistake" is "criminal negligence". When you put yourself in that position - when you invade a country - every resulting civilian casualty is on you. You do not have the moral standing to decide what is and is not acceptable "collateral damage". War is hell, but you chose to make war there. The civilians didn't.

>the Taliban and its allies were responsible for 76% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2009

Or to phrase it another way, allied forces killed a third as many civilians as the actual Taliban, a regime noted for its extreme brutality and callous attitude to human life. I'm not impressed.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#167

Post by gccs »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #148

A Hellfire missile apparently costs $150K [0]. Given that it's apparently OK to launch one of these at a single suspected enemy informant, couldn't we have saved a lot of time, money and lives by just bribing the entire population of Afghanistan to not do things that the West doesn't like? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire

No. The purpose of the war is to fund defense contractors and create jobs back at home. Giving the money directly to afganis would not do that.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#168

Post by yardie »

cameronh90 wrote: post #11

Is it cynical to think this was intentionally leaked to boost support for withdrawing from Afghanistan?

The withdrawal doesn't need more support. The public has been calling for withdrawal for years now. It's already popular. The only ones who still support staying are politicians, military suppliers, and the media.

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#169

Post by pvaldes »

bearclaw89 wrote: post #23
robin_reala wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worse that it’s not “out of the norm” than if it was an isolated incident.

....was only saying that this video doesn't prove it was innocent lives....

Only a fair trial can declare anybody guilty. Without a right to say anything they are innocent by default. The video don't record any obvious crime by part of the killed people. They are innocent until proven otherwise.

A world when everybody must prove that is innocent, so is not executed at first sight by a machine is terrifying. And as long as people starts seeing preemptive murder as a good cheaper alternative to justice, the fall is unstoppable. We really want to live in that world?

Re: U.S. drone pilot leaks footage reveals accidental killing of children and adults

#170

Post by thaumasiotes »

ricardobeat wrote: post #71

Having watched a few documentaries on the war, from multiple periods, my first thought was “who did they target with these drone strikes?” seeing as they usually had no idea who or where the enemy was. The answer is much worse than I could imagine: “a guy with a radio … which is reasonable grounds for suspicion”. Nothing accidental about it. These should be considered war crimes.

> These should be considered war crimes.

It's not a war crime unless you lose the war.

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