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The Drone Papers

theintercept.com

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Re: The Drone Papers

#181

Post by RevRal »

AUmrysh wrote: post #110
dombili wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so that's what that scene was about! I re-watched it now and it really is incredible. Screenshots of some of Greenwald's notes (they don't say much): 1- http://i.imgur.com/Xk3tefg.jpg 2- http://i.imgur.com/3C7sdIA.jpg 3- http://i.imgur.com/8FNhVfE.jpg

"There are 1.2 m people on various stages of their watch list" :-O That's absolutely terrifying. I wonder how many of those are American citizens.

My gut says a majority, I believe that the war is truly inward. A flagging system wouldn't be too difficult. You could even flag people who aren't dead and yet haven't raised a flag in some time-frame (Unibomber). Statistical analysis, the data's all there. Set up keys that resemble the analyses's output. Find what you're looking for. Unfortunately, those keys are controllable. You'll always find people who fit a certain profile, you will always find who you're looking for. Unfortunately, you'll require some vagueness to ensure that the net you've cast doesn't have holes too large.

Re: The Drone Papers

#182

Post by retrogradeorbit »

jsn117 wrote: post #123
cryoshon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shrug, the actual detail of the Kunduz massacre not being a drone is utterly irrelevant. The actual detail of using a drone rather than another type of airstrike is also irrelevant. The systematic and intentional killing ("collateral damage") of tons of civilians for an endless war is relevant. Look up all those times we droned weddings, killing dozens. Certain people at those weddings were targeted, not that it matt…

So comparing a terrible mistake in an active war zone to a purposeful killing of civilians is..what exactly?

You need to understand how this game works. The word mistake does not mean what you think it means, just like "collect" and "interrogate" doesn't mean what you, and everyone else, thinks it means.

How convenient that it was a "mistake". Reminds me of the time the US "mistakenly" bombed Al Jazeera's offices. [1]

So the US will offer full support of the MSF's calls for a War Crime tribunal investigation?

What really amazes me is that no matter what information comes out, no matter how stark the facts, how brutal the reality, how corrupt the politics, how illegal the tactics, there is always a band of American apologists ready to step up justify cold blooded murder.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_bombing_memo

Re: The Drone Papers

#183

Post by retrogradeorbit »

rhino369 wrote: post #134
DominikR wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? This article by associated press indicates that they attacked the hospital on purpose. http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:5e20fcd92aee49e69... > Obama is trying to kill people to make the world better... I have no words for this. How a person can even entertain such thoughts is beyond me.

>Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? Because there is no motive. From the story you quote "It's unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital — killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff — were aware that the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity." What is more likely. The US suddenly decided to murder a bunch o…

It's not that there was no motive, it's that you don't know enough of what's going on to see the possibilities.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-06/did-obama-bomb-doct...

Re: The Drone Papers

#184

Post by Shivetya »

bambax wrote: post #102
rhino369 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge false equivalence you are making is Obama is waging a war against a truly evil organization. But the college shootings are senseless violence purposely used on innocent people. You can throw in the hospital attack. But that attack obviously wasn't purposeful. It also wasn't a drone. It was ground support strike, something Obama wouldn't be involved in. You can blame Obama for keeping us in the war. In that r…

You're right in that's a false equivalence; but the response of Obama about the two events that happened the same day was striking. He has no control whatsoever about crazy people who shoot other people on campuses; and yet that's what he chose to talk about. He has a lot of control about what targets US armies bomb, drones or no drones. And yet he has almost nothing to say about that. But my point is not even this.…

Because the campus killings score political points and that is the only game he plays. He certainly isn't going to hand points to opponents; here or at home. He portrays a random shooting as an epidemic while totally ignoring the violence in minority areas of US cities where far more die than in the college shooting.

Its all politics. Obama loves guns when they serve his political interest. He doesn't love those he owns, he uses those which support his position.

Re: The Drone Papers

#185

Post by anigbrowl »

smokeyj wrote: post #179
anigbrowl wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are degrees of warfare, and the sort we are conducting at the moment is pretty mild compared to things like carpet-bombing Viet Nam ~50 years ago. I do favor a soft power strategy involving education and opportunity but civic societies are not things that come into being overnight, they can require decades or even centuries to take root. It would help, of course, if we didn't maintain alliances with semi-totali…

As hands off as the war is it still costs more than it's worth. The benefit is not only zero, at the end of the day we have more enemies than we started with - along with all the human collateral. Obama could literally have taken that entire operations budget, spent it on hookers and coke, and we'd still be better off. I'm not sure what the natural state of mankind is, but the increasing flow of information is forcin…

As hands off as the war is it still costs more than it's worth

That's very hard to measure. ISTM that in international relations things tend to either muddle along rather badly with gradual incremental improvements that roughly track economic growth, but when they go bad (ie resulting in war or massive political change) they tend to do so quickly and catastrophically (in the sense of a major discontinuity rather than mere badness, although more often than not it's bad).

And while I share your reservations about the US as a global hyperpower whose policing of international relations can frequently result in backlash (not unlike its internal policing culture...) I'm also inclined to look back at the era prior to the formation of the US and note that when there's no clearly dominant actor on the scene you have endemic peer conflict.

the increasing flow of information is forcing us to act rationally

I'm more pessimistic than you about this. It is easier then ever to make rational decisions thanks to all that information and accumulated insight, and I do think the US is maturing as a society. But there's an argument that irrational political behavior is rationally rewarding for voters who know they have very little influence over the political process and take their vote as an opportunity to express their disgruntlement through perversity. Bryan Caplan has a very good book about this called The Myth of the Rational Voter, if you like economics.

Re: The Drone Papers

#186

Post by sooheon »

jacobolus wrote: post #151
themgt wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MSF hospital bombing was pretty clearly not a "terrible mistake", but was in fact "purposeful killing of civilians" https://theintercept.com/2015/10/06/why-bombing-kunduz-hospi...

Your summary is not commensurate with the story you linked. Something can be both a “terrible mistake” and also a violation of international law. At a high level, it seems unlikely that American military leaders would intend to bomb a hospital, considering the horrible human toll and subsequent political and public relations disaster. Perhaps the investigation will turn up a more complete story about why the hospital…

They don't really feel the blowback of a PR disaster when 1. most are uninformed, and 2. of the few informed there are enough people like you who will cover for them and give them benefit of the doubt. If a hospital on US territory is bombed, it would be out of the question whether it was simply an oopsie. But if in the carriage of justice and liberty some humanitarian workers find themselves collaterally damaged, it was a "terrible mistake", which the men with grave furrowed brows, clean suits, and heavy burdens to bear no doubt weighed against imminent national security concerns.

Re: The Drone Papers

#187

Post by sooheon »

abecedarius wrote: post #174
koube wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists[1]: "IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism…

That's interesting: surely almost none of the state violence still being committed under this law is aimed at persons who had anything to do with 9/11, right? As for organizations, isn't Al Qaeda just a brand now?

The obvious intended consequence of that wording was for the enemy to be an abstraction, to be extended as needed. It's much easier to justify going to war once, and simply readjust who exactly you are warring against as required.

Re: The Drone Papers

#188

Post by sooheon »

jsn117 wrote: post #123
cryoshon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shrug, the actual detail of the Kunduz massacre not being a drone is utterly irrelevant. The actual detail of using a drone rather than another type of airstrike is also irrelevant. The systematic and intentional killing ("collateral damage") of tons of civilians for an endless war is relevant. Look up all those times we droned weddings, killing dozens. Certain people at those weddings were targeted, not that it matt…

So comparing a terrible mistake in an active war zone to a purposeful killing of civilians is..what exactly?

Funny how military action causing completely foreseen and accepted civilian deaths is categorised as a "terrible mistake", and contrasted with a "purposeful killing of civilians". Drone strikes on weddings or bombings of hospitals are as calculated and purposeful as can be, and the fact that innocent civilians will die is accounted for, if not an explicit goal. It's just that we can slap the label "collateral damage from targeted precision strikes" on them.

Re: The Drone Papers

#189

Post by heroh »

jacobolus wrote: post #151
themgt wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MSF hospital bombing was pretty clearly not a "terrible mistake", but was in fact "purposeful killing of civilians" https://theintercept.com/2015/10/06/why-bombing-kunduz-hospi...

Your summary is not commensurate with the story you linked. Something can be both a “terrible mistake” and also a violation of international law. At a high level, it seems unlikely that American military leaders would intend to bomb a hospital, considering the horrible human toll and subsequent political and public relations disaster. Perhaps the investigation will turn up a more complete story about why the hospital…

perhaps Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction

perhaps we didn't create Al-Queda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnLvzV9xAHA [Hillary Clinton]

perhaps we're not involved in training/funding ISIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxDKmM8npBQ [John McCain]

or maybe there's something seriously wrong with the traditional narrative - http://naplay.it/763/41-47

Re: The Drone Papers

#190

Post by sooheon »

Shivetya wrote: post #184
bambax wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right in that's a false equivalence; but the response of Obama about the two events that happened the same day was striking. He has no control whatsoever about crazy people who shoot other people on campuses; and yet that's what he chose to talk about. He has a lot of control about what targets US armies bomb, drones or no drones. And yet he has almost nothing to say about that. But my point is not even this.…

Because the campus killings score political points and that is the only game he plays. He certainly isn't going to hand points to opponents; here or at home. He portrays a random shooting as an epidemic while totally ignoring the violence in minority areas of US cities where far more die than in the college shooting. Its all politics. Obama loves guns when they serve his political interest. He doesn't love those he o…

Yeah, I don't see how this is even a question. Politicians will pander.
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