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

reuters.com

71–80 of 319 posts

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

#71
post #50

This is how you create terrorists. What do you think the children and friends feelings towards the US will be from now on? People get radicalized for much less than that.

I hear this a lot but is there any basis for this? Were any of the 9/11 attackers widowed/orphaned by the US? Or were they just whipped up in religious fervor and an abstract idea of a cultural war with the US? And does it go the other way? Do you create violent anti-Islamists when Muslims commit terror attacks? Were the orphans of 9/11 more likely to sign up for the US military, or commit hate crimes against Muslims…

There was a wave of anti- Muslim hate crime in the US after 9/11, although not by any of the specific families of the victims.

> Do you create violent anti-Islamists when Muslims commit terror attacks?

Yes? E.g. after the murder of Lee Rigby in the UK there was a small wave of attempted arson on mosques.

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

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many "error's" does the US make? Far too many for them to be called "error's" anymore. How many kids were radicalised by the US going into Iraq and killing millions of their people? Tens of thousands of orphans, with an evil imperial army coming into their home, bombing their farms, raiding their homes, murdering civilians. Enough to create ISIS and radicalise thousands upon thousands more. How many families were…

> How many "error's" does the US make? Usually it's measured in the ratio of civilian casualties to combatants, and as far as I remember, US is keeping this ratio exceptionally low in comparison to other conflicts. That's the key point here: your criticism applies to any war at all. War is hell, everybody knows that. To be objective in your judgement about US though, you have to quantatively compare different conflic…

Anti-ideology is still an ideology, see Lacan's Book XXI "The Non-Duped Err". You can veil your imperialistic ideology behind some idea of an "objective" evaluation but it's transparent to everyone and everyone.

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

#73
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot but is there any basis for this? Were any of the 9/11 attackers widowed/orphaned by the US? Or were they just whipped up in religious fervor and an abstract idea of a cultural war with the US? And does it go the other way? Do you create violent anti-Islamists when Muslims commit terror attacks? Were the orphans of 9/11 more likely to sign up for the US military, or commit hate crimes against Muslims…

Well we have been bombing a Muslim majority country for 18 years. That probably counts.

Counts for what? My question was about the basis for terrorism, not about the facts of bombing campaigns.

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

#75

This is how you create terrorists. What do you think the children and friends feelings towards the US will be from now on? People get radicalized for much less than that.

Their feelings will be affected and rightly so, it is a tradegy. However the feelings of a few people about an error can not be the single parameter to decide if drone strikes are used. War have casualties. What about the feelings of the children and friends after 9.11, Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan, Nice, Stockholm, Trèbes, Paris, Liège and Strasbourg? I could go on. Of the 24 jihadist attacks in the EU in 2018, 10 occurr…

If the West (and USSR/Russia) hadn't been meddling in the political and social affairs of the Middle East for decades, it's completely possible that we wouldn't have any/many Middle Eastern terrorists with the funding and capabilities to do any damage outside their own countries.

It's tempting to suggest, "or if we had done a better job with our meddling", but... no, it just doesn't work, empirically so, and we should stop doing it.

Unfortunately, pushing diplomatic solutions hard would be political suicide in the US; the "us vs. them" mentality is strong here, and I don't think most Americans would be ok with what they'd see as giving in or giving up. And even if the politics at home could work, it's unclear if all that many on the other side are interested in a diplomatic solution, given how radicalized some of them have become due to our recklessness and hubris.

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

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also stories like this will be passed down for generations to recruit new jihadists/terrorists. They use this stuff as proof that the USA is anti-muslim or to prove that there is a war against muslims going on. You simply cannot bomb your way out of resolving the terrorism issue. This will probably have the same effectiveness as the war on drugs: lots of money spent....little to no impact on drug smuggling/drug abuse…

This seems to surprise everyone though, and I don't understand why. I remember in the early days of our being in Afghanistan, there were a few media pieces reporting that they remembered the last time the British were there, 100 or 150 years ago. The tone was very much that it was somehow surprising the Afghans brought this up again. Yet Britain and the US are built on national history, myths and memories. The US has…

People should travel (and live!) more abroad for a while. As you wrote, many seem to be surprised that the people living in Asia, Africa, etc. are humans too (in the sense of: people with history, dreams, expectations on life, etc.)

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

#77

This is how you create terrorists. What do you think the children and friends feelings towards the US will be from now on? People get radicalized for much less than that.

Also stories like this will be passed down for generations to recruit new jihadists/terrorists. They use this stuff as proof that the USA is anti-muslim or to prove that there is a war against muslims going on. You simply cannot bomb your way out of resolving the terrorism issue. This will probably have the same effectiveness as the war on drugs: lots of money spent....little to no impact on drug smuggling/drug abuse…

Yep. Gunboat diplomacy is not a good way to spread democracy.

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

#78

This is how you create terrorists. What do you think the children and friends feelings towards the US will be from now on? People get radicalized for much less than that.

> This is how you create terrorists.

Um no, you are wrong.

_What USA does_ is terrorism. When you drop bombs on people out of nowhere, that's called terrorism. Sorry if you're an American but you've got some learning to do about the biggest terrorist organization in the world before calling others a terrorist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRbnPA3fd5U

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

#79
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we have been bombing a Muslim majority country for 18 years. That probably counts.

Counts for what? My question was about the basis for terrorism, not about the facts of bombing campaigns.

Terrorism is a label slapped on violence that breaks some arbitrary rules someone thinks ought to be followed.

Were the founding fathers terrorists? The British sure thought so...

You can be the gatekeeper of that word all you want, just know that you're playing that role.

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

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also stories like this will be passed down for generations to recruit new jihadists/terrorists. They use this stuff as proof that the USA is anti-muslim or to prove that there is a war against muslims going on. You simply cannot bomb your way out of resolving the terrorism issue. This will probably have the same effectiveness as the war on drugs: lots of money spent....little to no impact on drug smuggling/drug abuse…

Yep. Gunboat diplomacy is not a good way to spread democracy.

I think by bombing other countries and use other military power, US is establishing a target for the terrorists and prone terrorist people, shout out for a peaceful way to solve issues, anyway, it not the policy makers and politicians that got retaliated, it's the innocent civilians.
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