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U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#271

Post by kmjg88nvf8 »

megous wrote: post #201
kmjg88nvf8 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you care about the civilians, or not? It seems possible US engagement saves more civilians than it kills. At least that is presumably the general idea.

Unlikely. There were massacres during the Taliban rule outside of war, but it was at much lower scale than in the current war, and US only helps taliban grow by its intervention, it seems, if you look at the numbers of fighters. It's not like killing a person with certain beliefs stops the beliefs from spreading.

So you think it would be OK to live under Taliban rule? They didn't come into power by democratic elections, it seems.

Also, killing people with beliefs does stop beliefs from spreading. How much of Afghanistan do the Taliban control these days, anyway?

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#272

Post by rayiner »

wruza wrote: post #2

Now imagine “U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in France” and feel the difference (which is non-existent). Then it goes on tv and reads the list of this morning’s evil men who must be stopped.

I’m pretty sure there aren’t people in France trying to establish a violent worldwide theocracy, and even if there were, the French government would have a handle on it/not be complicit.

We don’t conduct missions in Afghanistan for funsies. We do it because there is no State we can lean on to stamp down on the extremists.

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#273

Post by rqs »

est wrote: post #91
wruza wrote: post #2

Now imagine “U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in France” and feel the difference (which is non-existent). Then it goes on tv and reads the list of this morning’s evil men who must be stopped.

> Now imagine “China drone strike kills 30 Muslim workers in Xinjiang” FTFY

Maybe not the right time and place to being this up, but I personally believe that such illegal activities conducted by the U.S. is hurting people of other nations who is fighting for their own democracy.

Just imagine China start to playing news such like this in those concentration camps, free golden material for showing people how rightful it is to follow the lead of CCP I'd say.

While it is true the U.S. is benefiting from it's strong global influence, but it is also true that nobody wants to be threatened. If the U.S. don't want to be the good guy in this game, at least don't be the bad one.

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#274

Post by mikeash »

rayiner wrote: post #267
mikeash wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“This was a horrible accident, but you have to realize there are probably some very bad people they intended to target and the US doesn't blow up random Afghan farmers for fun and games.” We wouldn’t accept this excuse in my hypothetical, so we shouldn’t accept this excuse when we’re the ones murdering dozens of innocents.

We wouldn’t accept the excuse because what China would be fighting for in your hypothetical would be bad, while what we’re fighting for is good. You can’t just transpose the hypothetical to suggest hypocrisy because there is none.

I didn’t say what China was fighting for. Why are you so sure it’s bad?

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#275

Post by ryanmercer »

igravious wrote: post #162
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #154

Notice the wording - the drone targeted the workers. The drone didn’t make a decision and target the workers, the drone pilot targeted the workers, and whomever was standing behind them gave the order to launch the missle. The whole “I’m just doing what the computer said” defense only works in movies.

Imagine being the person (even if you had little personal autonomy in the matter) who pulled the trigger or pressed the button. Imagine finding out what you had done. Would it break you?

There's a reason they are sitting in trailers half a world away operating the drones usually. Detachment. You're looking at a grainy image, from altitude, on a monitor many time zones away.

Even being in a conventional aircraft you are largely removed from the situation because you are thousands (or tens of thousands) of feet above your target and any individual is an unrecognizable speck that your weapon system strikes after you're already well past your target.

This is a problem, for society, with modern warfare. You can sit a mile away and 'paint' a target with IR for someone else to fire a missile with, or you can call in on your radio coordinates and have artillery take out your target from even farther away, or you can effectively emulate a video game and drop a bomb on a few pixels in Afghanistan while sitting in an air conditioned trailer in Nevada. You can wage war without ever having to see the face of the enemy, you strip the enemy of their humanity making it easier to kill.

I imagine some drone operators struggle with severe depression but I imagine it's generally less than an infantrymen that was in CQB firefights in Ramadi or Fallujah or a trench in WWI.

Modern warfare allows us to be cold and calculating, it allows us to pause our humanity. It's good for a military but it's bad for civilization.

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#276

Post by amingilani »

waffle_ss wrote: post #256
amingilani wrote: post #206

Related: Pakistan body count[0]. "Whether it is a suicide bombing or an attack by a flying drone, for me it's the same: a Pakistani got killed." I posted this site a few years ago, but it didn't get attention, but I'm glad to see the community is finally outraged over drone strikes. [0]: http://pakistanbodycount.org/

The site doesn’t differentiate between terrorists and civilians killed, so I don’t get the point? It’s not like Pakistan is running low on terrorists or the state intelligence service ISI isn’t sponsoring their activities.

> The site doesn’t differentiate between terrorists and civilians killed

It does[0].

> It’s not like Pakistan is running low on terrorists or the state intelligence service ISI isn’t sponsoring their activities.

I don't know how to respond to that, since there isn't a question in there, just a belligerent statement. I suppose the best way is to simply not engage.

[0]: http://pakistanbodycount.org/definitions.html

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#277

Post by mapcars »

igravious wrote: post #161
V3ritas1337 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aristotelian logic is flawed.

Only in some situations. In a lot of situations it works as intended. The crucial point is being able to distinguish when it applies and when it doesn't.

This is not a small thing, it easily steers your life only to where it works. In other words your life becomes a slave of your limited logic, it makes you optimize your life for the logic to be a safe and working.

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#278

Post by vonseel »

mikeash wrote: post #253
vonseel wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Reuters is generally a reliable source, but I agree with your double standard points. This was a horrible accident, but you have to realize there are probably some very bad people they intended to target and the US doesn't blow up random Afghan farmers for fun and games. HN is quite the liberal community so I'm not surprised if some of the posters here think the Trump administration is more evil than the peop…

I like to imagine the reaction if it happened here. Imagine that, say, China blew up 30 Americans in the US with a missile. And their reaction was, “sorry, my bad, I thought they were terrorists.” Can you imagine the response? I think we’d have a nuclear war before the end of the day.

Americans don't behead innocent people in the streets and don't relentlessly kill people just because they don't share the same religious or political beliefs.

Your comparison is absurd, ignoring the politics of China launching a missile at American soil. The US War in Afghanistan is 17 years old. There were two suicide bombings just three days ago, each killing over 20 people.

Imagine a group of people who want to kill you because of where you were born. Who want to throw you off a building because you're homosexual.

When America kills terrorists, is it equally as bad as when terrorists bomb Americans or Europeans? Is killing in order to police the same as killing out of deep, radical beliefs (and hate)?

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#279

Post by gokhan »

whiddershins wrote: post #126
wruza wrote: post #2

Now imagine “U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in France” and feel the difference (which is non-existent). Then it goes on tv and reads the list of this morning’s evil men who must be stopped.

Now imagine “France knowingly harbors 911 terrorists.” “French leaders take credit for car bombing which kills 23 civilians.” There’s a historical reason for this discrepancy.

If you think all Afghans are accountable, why stop there? Why just 30? US can bomb the hell out of AF, all terrorists after all.

If you don't think that way, assuming that you're from US, you should demand an answer for each and every civilian death.

Re: U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

#280

Post by justin66 »

rayiner wrote: post #252
whiddershins wrote: post #215

I wonder why, even though we generally try to be skeptical of the news, I’m not seeing many comments here that question whether what this article is saying is even accurate. How exactly does the reporter know which people are IS fighters? Is there some notion that militants don’t ever also farm? Also in these comments there seems to be a huge double standard. The idea the United States might accidentally kill some ci…

I’m against continued involvement in Afghanistan, for financial and practical reasons. That said, many folks have trouble wrapping their heads around all this because they’re moral relativists. The problem with terrorism is not merely the mechanics of asymmetric warfare. Civilians dying is bad and we should avoid it, but it’s obviously not morally dispositive since we do it too. If a foreign power occupied America, A…

There's so much error being displayed here I barely know where to begin.

> Civilians dying is bad and we should avoid it, but it’s obviously not morally dispositive since we do it too.

Of course the killing of civilians is "morally dispositive." If civilians were accidentally killed in the strike our military will exhibit some accountability, and if civilians were deliberately targeted it would be a crime and it would be prosecuted.

When the Taliban kills civilians, that's the point. The civilians are the target.

Civilian deaths are an outrage but there's no moral equivalence between the parties or their actions.

> If a foreign power occupied America, Americans would do the exact same thing. In fact, that’s what Americans did during the Revolution. You can’t hope to make sense of the issue unless you morally analyze the ends for which people are fighting. Islamic State is wrong and must be stamped out because the end for which they’re fighting is wrong. Americans fighting the British to establish a Republic, by contrast, is right.

We aren't talking about the Islamic State, we're talking about the Taliban.

This just scratches the surface of how badly you misunderstand the conflict. There are a number of parties involved in the conflict in Afghanistan - including the Taliban and IS - and some of them are our allies. It is literally nothing like Americans fighting the revolution.

(in that bizarre analogy, we would be... France?)

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