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Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

theguardian.com

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Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#71

Post by rjuyal »

eruditely wrote: post #66
rjuyal wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few innocents died while killing terrorists. I see no harm in that. In any case that single terrorist would have killed lots of innocent. That innocent could be from USA, Russia, Israel, India. And at that time there will be hue and cry saying it is intelligence failure. Innocents will die either by terrorists or may be by US drones.

terrorists do not have a good kill death ratio

Then you are not in the country where bomb blasts are very common. Their KD ratio is real good.

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#72

Post by lostlogin »

srean wrote: post #26

My comment here will sound emotionally tone deaf and heartlessly opportunistic. Let there be no mistake I consider these operations that kill innocent Pakistanis despicable and illegal. At the same time I wish the political class that shaped the history of Pakistan take a tough and straight look at themselves and the role their decisions (in particular unfettered encouragement of Jihadism and building this identity o…

Interesting then that the US backs the Pakistani shenanigans so throughly, do you include the US in the political class that need to take a look at themselves? I wouldn't claim to have a lot of confidence in my numbers, but the following links state greater dollars to Pakistan, by a fairly significant factor. $98.3 million for fiscal 2013, versus $2 billion for Pakistan. It's mostly military aid for Pakistan, because what they need is more weapons. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/world/asia/aid-to-pakistan...

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-04-15/india...

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#73

Post by rjuyal »

bruceb wrote: post #68
zzsleepzz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@srean, There's no such thing as Hindu extremism or Hindu terrorism. It's just a reaction to atrocious Islamic terrorism activities that happened/happening in India. The increase of jihadi extremists and sleeper cells in India are what that terrifies Indians.

@zzsleepzz The RSS seem extreme to me and to a lot of Indians who fear voting for Modi because they may come with him. (not saying this is the case but that is the fear).

This is how current govt. and media have shown RSS to the pubic. Media rarely show when RSS helps people regardless of their religion.

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#74

Post by kubiiii »

res0nat0r wrote: post #41
dobbsbob wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the intent is to terrorize. You are utilizing systematic violence to coerce an entire population for political reasons, and deliberately targeting or disregarding the safety of non-combatants to achieve this goal. There also isn't a war in Waziristan. Your comparison to WWII is total BS

Sorry but targeted drone strikes are the exact opposite of terrorism. If the US wanted to terrorize we could carpet bomb cities much quicker and cheaper than with drone strikes. I 100% agree that accidental killing of unintended targets is terrorizing the native population of countries where this happens, and also leads to creating more terrorists/enemies of the US than it possibly eliminates. Jeremy Scahill wrote a…

Not sure that "complete opposite" is the right term here. Drones prevent people to like sunny days, to go to school (and learn something else than becoming terrorists).

Completely agree with the second part of your comment though. But accidental killing of unintended targets should at least : -be something the US apologize for, if possible directly to families, if possible by the highest rank official. -be compensated even if money doesn't heal wounds like that. If there are no consequences (both political and financial) to those strikes, targeting errors will never be a big deal.

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#75

Post by lostlogin »

jasonlotito wrote: post #48
tdfx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airst... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deh_Bala_wedding_party_airstrik... I'm not sure whether the airstrikes were performed by manned aircraft or drones.

Can you share the reason for why these weddings were targeted? I'm only wondering if the members might have been combatants or insurgents or terrorists? Or was their something about the wedding itself that made it a target? What is the US policy on weddings?

An aid worker who was in Afghanistan in the 1980 told me that people often carried weapons to weddings and fired them in the air at some stage. The weapons were ceremonial. Not sure how reliable the following is, and it refers to Pakistan, but it is interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Pakistan

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#76

Post by lostlogin »

res0nat0r wrote: post #41
dobbsbob wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the intent is to terrorize. You are utilizing systematic violence to coerce an entire population for political reasons, and deliberately targeting or disregarding the safety of non-combatants to achieve this goal. There also isn't a war in Waziristan. Your comparison to WWII is total BS

Sorry but targeted drone strikes are the exact opposite of terrorism. If the US wanted to terrorize we could carpet bomb cities much quicker and cheaper than with drone strikes. I 100% agree that accidental killing of unintended targets is terrorizing the native population of countries where this happens, and also leads to creating more terrorists/enemies of the US than it possibly eliminates. Jeremy Scahill wrote a…

If the EU starts flying drones over the US and killing wanted war criminals, would your views change? Killing is people is crude and unhelpful. It hardens the views of those who remain and creates a uniting cause.

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#77

Post by srean »

lostlogin wrote: post #72
srean wrote: post #26

My comment here will sound emotionally tone deaf and heartlessly opportunistic. Let there be no mistake I consider these operations that kill innocent Pakistanis despicable and illegal. At the same time I wish the political class that shaped the history of Pakistan take a tough and straight look at themselves and the role their decisions (in particular unfettered encouragement of Jihadism and building this identity o…

Interesting then that the US backs the Pakistani shenanigans so throughly, do you include the US in the political class that need to take a look at themselves? I wouldn't claim to have a lot of confidence in my numbers, but the following links state greater dollars to Pakistan, by a fairly significant factor. $98.3 million for fiscal 2013, versus $2 billion for Pakistan. It's mostly military aid for Pakistan, because…

US indeed has done a lot of bad shit, but I hold a leaders and formative agents of their own country to higher standards. Sure one can blame the US but what were their own leaders thinking when they consciously decided, this is the trajectory that is going to be helpful for the country.

And this to your other comment on this thread, I admire your will to engage in a dialogue. I have become much too jaded. Its as if people have become rigid and unquestioning of the history they want to believe in. Google Sunderlal report you I think will find it interesting.

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#78

Post by kubiiii »

jasonlotito wrote: post #52
dobbsbob wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the intent is to terrorize. You are utilizing systematic violence to coerce an entire population for political reasons, and deliberately targeting or disregarding the safety of non-combatants to achieve this goal. There also isn't a war in Waziristan. Your comparison to WWII is total BS

Deliberately targeting non-combatants? No. Disregarding their safety? That's probably closer to the truth. But just because you are a non-combatant doesn't mean you aren't supporting combatants. And that's when tough decisions have to be made. It's a horrible choice that must be made. As for WWII, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio#World_W...

Is it really a tough decision? A tough decision would be to put soldiers on the ground to do that. Killing someone in a far away country with very few chances that it will be reported looks like a rather easy solution.

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#79

Post by zzsleepzz »

srean wrote: post #26

My comment here will sound emotionally tone deaf and heartlessly opportunistic. Let there be no mistake I consider these operations that kill innocent Pakistanis despicable and illegal. At the same time I wish the political class that shaped the history of Pakistan take a tough and straight look at themselves and the role their decisions (in particular unfettered encouragement of Jihadism and building this identity o…

>> @zzsleepzz thank you for illustrating my point.

Well, your point is obviously misinformed and doesn't prove anything. Correlation does not imply causation. Read up a bit on history.

>>Interesting, the story suddenly drops out from first page inspite of 90 upvotes in less than 3 hrs. Seems it just got flagged. That I did not see coming.

Yes, because this is a non-story.

Re: Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress

#80

Post by zzsleepzz »

bruceb wrote: post #68
zzsleepzz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@srean, There's no such thing as Hindu extremism or Hindu terrorism. It's just a reaction to atrocious Islamic terrorism activities that happened/happening in India. The increase of jihadi extremists and sleeper cells in India are what that terrifies Indians.

@zzsleepzz The RSS seem extreme to me and to a lot of Indians who fear voting for Modi because they may come with him. (not saying this is the case but that is the fear).

@bruceb, RSS?? LOL! I guess you're watching too much mainstream TV.
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