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US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

theguardian.com

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Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#81

Post by GekkePrutser »

nine_k wrote: post #52
wongarsu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extrajudicial targeted assassinations are pretty far on the bad side, no matter how few other people get killed in the process. Sure, if you are doing it, killing fewer bystanders is preferable on the surface. But if individual assassinations are less likely to cause an international outcry since fewer people died that likely leads to more assassinations.

Isn't the US is, like, at war in Syria? Wars being a terrible thing and all, one won't expect a speedy and fair trial on a battlefield.

Well that's the thing... None of the superpowers are actually at war with anyone there.

It's mainly a local conflict with the superpowers backing different factions. Kind of like a proxy war during the cold war. A lot of countries backing opposing local factions while trying not to escalate.

A full blown declaration of war would give us WWIII in no time due to it being such a complex mess of alliances they're.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#82

Post by tafox »

jimbob45 wrote: post #57
x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #2

I'm kind of over the whole "Look, we killed someone far, far, far away for dubious reasons with NEW technology" articles. These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form.

That same argument could have been used to justify staying out of WW2. Even if Hitler was guaranteed to stay out of US affairs post-war, the fact remains that joining sooner would have resulted in millions of Europeans keeping their lives. Same here. Prematurely joining conflicts now allows us to save scores of lives abroad (at least in theory).

Nazi Germany declared war on the US first.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#83

Post by liability »

liability wrote: post #49
rayiner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re certainly bothering people and threatening peoples’ freedom. Thanks to the export of fundamentalist Islam from certain countries, my home country of Bangladesh is a more dangerous place today then when we left 30 years ago. (And it was under a military dictatorship then!) Unsurprisingly, we take harsh measures to crack down on fundamentalism, including banning Islamist parties and executing terrorists: https:…

If radicalization in these countries works anything like it does in the west, then the missiles would be more effective at preventing radicalization if pointed at social media tech executives.

Rayiner, I wrote this response to you before you deleted your comment:

If the US were targeting the House of Saud then I might believe what you say, but those guys going untouched undermines claims that the US is combatting radicalization coming from the euphemistic "rich middle eastern countries with fundamentalist ideologies funding schools"

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#84

Post by duxup »

fuoqi wrote: post #67
duxup wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the relevance of a government is if they're internationally recognized, but don't actually control their own territory. Who operates where and does what has always been more fluid than just 'well they're internationally recognized'.

The biggest reason why they do not control the territory is the US and Turkey military presence in the region (with some active interventions from time to time), effectively it's a military occupation, but with extra steps. After Trump declared that US troops will be withdrawn and they will not defend Kurds against Turkish forces, the government has easily reclaimed control over the large area with a very limited fig…

I would go a little farther back and say the biggest reason was the Civil War... after that things played out.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#85

Post by dfsegoat »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #2

I'm kind of over the whole "Look, we killed someone far, far, far away for dubious reasons with NEW technology" articles. These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form.

> These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form.

Rest assured, there are people who wake up every single day plotting how they can kill Americans or Westerners, or training to do so.

This may be the West / USA's fault - but it's where we find ourselves, regardless.

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

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#86

Post by fuoqi »

jimbob45 wrote: post #57
x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #2

I'm kind of over the whole "Look, we killed someone far, far, far away for dubious reasons with NEW technology" articles. These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form.

That same argument could have been used to justify staying out of WW2. Even if Hitler was guaranteed to stay out of US affairs post-war, the fact remains that joining sooner would have resulted in millions of Europeans keeping their lives. Same here. Prematurely joining conflicts now allows us to save scores of lives abroad (at least in theory).

I would say that the recent interventions in Libya, Syria, Iraq have only destabilized the region, thus resulting in a huge loss of live and miserable living conditions for citizens of affected countries, which in turn supports and revitalizes radical Islam organizations and further destabilizes situation in Europe, which has to be on the receiving end for refuges created by those interventions.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#87

Post by rayiner »

Pfhreak wrote: post #16
t413 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the headline seems to imply it’s some new ‘big bad’ where the article just slowly exposes that it’s a non-explosive missile. Killing fewer people by not combusting the surrounding area sounds like an improvement.

Doesn't that line of reasoning presuppose you need to be firing missiles into crowded areas? Rather than develop those missiles, what could be achieved by investing those millions into developing economies and relationships abroad?

We already invest billions abroad. But economic development cannot happen in the absence of security. Recall that in Syria, we got involved because our allies around Syria got freaked out about that the civil war would mean for their own countries’ security.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#89

Post by non-entity »

pas wrote: post #64
wongarsu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But usually we despise both suicide bombers and assassins, not congratulate the assassin on killing so few bystanders. The question by GP is more along the line of "what if instead of spending lots of money to kill fewer bystanders we spent that money to reduce the number of people that are so dangerous to us that we kill them". Of course we know that won't happen because building weapons helps US companies and build…

Go ahead, build a hospital in Assad's backyard, no biggie. Or just build a hospital somewhere and watch as it gets captured/used by the regional dictator. Yes, wars are bad. Yes, if it were that easy to export peace and prosperity we wouldn't be talking about it, but the reality is that there are power structures that consider their selfish short term goals more important than the lives of many-many of their fellow h…

Many of the countries were arguably better under the regional dictator. I'm sure the people of Iraq, Libya, etc. Are so glad that "peace" and "prosperity" were exported to them.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#90

Post by unnouinceput »

nimish wrote: post #35

It's not clear to me why we're focusing on killing people in Syria. What are we gaining from doing this?

1 - Because Russia is there and apart from a brief period of time at beginning of 90's in the rest three quarters of century US and Russia (Soviet or not) went to war with each other by proxies. Syria is just the latest proxy in that wrestling.

2 - Probably maintaining/honing the skills. "If you don't use it you lose it" it's a very old and very actual saying.

I got hit very hard by this one at beginning of my programming career. Went home for vacation after my 1st year at Uni and when came back 3 months later I got very surprised to find I lost my speed typing ability. Had to start from beginning and was very frustrating. Never let my guard down after that.

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