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Did Times Underplay Drone Program Leak?
- skybrian 11y agoI remember scanning the story about that leak and not being able to figure out what was new about it, so I didn't share it. I guess the NYT reporters didn't see a whole lot either?
- morsch 11y agoThe rare exception to Betteridge's law. Note this is not me editorializing but the article's conclusion.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- littletimmy 11y agoThe NYT is establishment central. Of course it underplayed it.
- hugh4 11y agoThe world is more complicated than "the establishment" vs "not the establishment".
- 001sky 11y agothis is a banal truism. it doesn't rebut the strong ties that the obama admin has in the nyt. google the word 'obama' on site: nyt. then ask who is kissing all that ass to get those leaks/scoops/etc.
- hugh4 11y agoRight, and if the comment had been more specific about these sorts of links (ie that the NYT and the Obama administration are not only both "the establishment" but the same flavour thereof) I wouldn't have thought it was silly.
- rhino369 11y agoOther new organizations hyped the fact that 90% of those killed were "unintended targets." But that's exactly what you'd expect when targeting officers in an insurgency. They are going to be surrounded by foot-soldiers. It's certainly possible that among that 90% are too many civilians, but the leaks didn't provide any evidence of that.
- superkuh 11y agoYou seem to be certain that the people targeted are actually "officers in an insurgency". After reading "The Drone Papers." stories I don't think we can take that as a given.
- rhino369 11y agoOr some sort of equivalent like al Qaeda leadership. What in the Drone Papers suggests otherwise.
- putlake 11y agoHow many civilian deaths are "too many"?
- rhino369 11y agoUnfortunately the laws of war aren't very helpful. The deaths just have to proportional to the military value of the target. That's a long way of saying "it depends." Killing 1 civilian might be too many to kill a foot soldier at a Taliban camp in the tribal region of Pakistan. Ten thousand might be fine if it meant saving Afghanistan from Taliban rule, as long as that as low as coalition forces could keep civilian deaths.
- shirkey 11y ago"Ten thousand might be fine if it meant saving Afghanistan from Taliban rule, as long as that as low as coalition forces could keep civilian deaths." The same thinking could then be applied to our "war or drugs" -- the killing of several thousand innocent Colombians could be easily justified in order to eradicate the cartels, albeit temporarily. Do you find that a satisfactory trade-off as well?
- crb002 11y agoIt's sad Iowa Governor Branstad got rid of our Air Guard and replaced the 132nd with drone pilots. Then even advertise they are manning Reapers from the DSM Airport/Camp Dodge at the top of the kill chain. http://www.132dwing.ang.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123450496 http://www.132dwing.ang.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123450496 The US Constitution delegated Congress with the enumerated power to issue letters of marque. This is murder.
- kyleblarson 11y ago"We droned some folks."