8 ms·

She could have approved drone strikes using smoke signals or carrier pigeons... - it all boils down to the same thing - execution of human beings without a tria

She could have approved drone strikes using smoke signals or carrier pigeons... - it all boils down to the same thing - execution of human beings without a trial...

golergka 10y ago
This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here. Clarification: I'm not a fan of CIA assasinations, far from it; but "execution without a trial" isn't logically justifiable complaint: we do it in a lot of situations no reasonable person would argue with. Edit: my original comment was pointing out errors in someone's logic. Sadly, everybody seems to think that this means that I've taken a certain side in drone debate. This is not the case; please, read my comment and understand what exactly am I saying — and what I'm not — before reacting.
- voidz 10y ago
  > no reasonable person would argue with. By framing it like this, that's where you take a wrong turn.
- x0x0 10y ago
  It's one thing to shoot soldiers without a trial. It's a far different thing to bomb random folks living their lives in Afghanistan, then retcon all male casualties to terrorists.
- m_eiman 10y ago
  Saying that the US is at war with various groups of people in the country side of Pakistan is a rather generous definition of the concept of war, isn't it? It's more like "the US is blowing up people who may or may not be those intended, but it's kinda hard to tell since they're doing it all by remote control".
  - jflatow 10y ago
    Also, congress hasn't declared war since WWII, which is required by law.
    - rurban 10y ago
      No it's not. They came up with the interpretation that the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution allows them to engage into limited armed conflicts without Congress authorization. Which is dearly needed, because that's what they are doing since decades, with the CIA and friends. And several such CIA wars happened even without the President's authorization, but usually the just lie to the president to able to engage in such armed conflicts. What this War Powers Resolution does not authorize is a formal declaration of war (Clinton did not care) and any engagement voiding the Geneva conventions. All those drone killings are of course war crimes. This is one of the reasons the US does not recognize international law.
    - Retric 10y ago
      They are happy to use weasel words, this is a declaration of war: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/h455 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/h455
    - nikdaheratik 10y ago
      There are a number of reasons why this has happened. Some more nebulous than others. There are a number of extra powers granted to the Executive during a time of war that Congress didn't want activated. There are a number of requirements that kick in when war is "legally" declared that Congress didn't want activated as well. I'm not saying drone strikes aren't shady, but they aren't strictly illegal. This is a case where Congress needs to get it together and start overseeing if they want it to stop happening. Otherwise, we're just left depending on diplomacy or the UN trying to put a stop to it, which likely won't happen either.
  - golergka 10y ago
    > Saying that the US is at war with various groups of people in the country side of Pakistan is a rather generous definition of the concept of war, isn't it? Nobody's saying that though.
- pjc50 10y ago
  enemy soldiers There is a legal obligation in the Geneva protocols 1949 to identify who you're targeting and refrain from targeting civilians. https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/9ac284404d38ed2bc1256311002afd89/50fb5579fb098faac12563cd0051dd7c https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/9ac284404d38ed2bc125... "refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;" Article 52 para 3: "3. In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used." The US has taken an extremely lax approach to this with the intelligence-based targeting. Air strikes in the course of combat are probably defensible - if you see someone running into a house carrying a weapon it becomes a military objective - but the intelligence-based targeting lacks that confirmation.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    The very words you quote authorise "incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects" as long as it's not "excessive", and the treating of a "place of worship, a house or other dwelling or school" as a military target as long as you're fairly sure it's being used for military purposes. Obviously you can argue about what is "excessive" and what is a "case of doubt" but whoever wrote these lines was clearly anticipating blowing churches and civilians up and it being within the rules. I don't say this to make drone killing seem more humane, but to make war in general seem like the everyday insanity that it is.
    - ionised 10y ago
      Most of the deaths in drone strikes have been civilian. We're talking like 70%+ of the casualties being 'incidental'. That should warrant a description of 'excessive' I think.
  - golergka 10y ago
    A lot of comments with similar sentiments, so I'll reply just to yours, because it's on top. Basically, you're making my point for me: there's nothing inherently wrong with remote strikes or drones in particular. It's just a tool; and as a tool, it can be used rightly and wrongly. So, the fact that Clinton used that tool doesn't make her bad. But if you would have information about her using that tool to authorize a strike which she would've known would cause significant collateral damage, and which wouldn't save as many innocent lives as it would take — this would. But the article presents no such information, so all emptional reaction you can have to such a headline is not really justified.
- belorn 10y ago
  Any action? Lets look at some specifics and ask which ones should count as murder. A reasonable person might see a different degree of justification in each case. A person wielding a gun is running and firring their weapon towards a solider. The solider shoots back and kills them. A boat full with military weapons enters an areas which marines are defending and refuse to turn back. The marines sinks the boat. A tank drives into a town. The Solider defending the civilians attacks the tank and the tank driver dies in an explosion. A bomb plane that drops bombs on military facility with tanks, airfield with bombers on them, and docks with military ships. A bomb plane that dropping bombs on a factory that produce tanks and guns, killing workers. A bomb plane that fire bombs on housing districts to demoralize the population. A person is driving down the road in uninhabited area, and a solider sends a remote missile. A person is celebrating a wedding in their own house, and a soldier sends a remote missile to kill everyone in the wedding.
  - tajen 10y ago
    I don't see what degree of difference there is in your first 4 examples: They're all armed people in a situation of war. Of course the last 3 are murders (although we know that the Allied erased most of German and Japanese cities, including the civilian neighbourhoods, for morale and retaliation) and the 4th before the end (killing military workers) is debatable. Last point, concerning French nationals who went to Syria twice to train in military camps and came back to lead the terrorist attacks with actual killings: Can we please extend the Geneva convention to consider them ennemy military corps (and thus, prisonners of war)? I have zero tolerance for police investigating innocents or listening to everyone, but once we know what they've done, I wonder why they just face some penal law (a few years in jail, max, like a driver in a car accident).
    - tajen 10y ago
      I don't mind the downvotes, please explain first how parent's 8 examples are different, and how people being trained in enemy military camps and coming back doesn't raise the POW legislation.
  - golergka 10y ago
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here. What everyone else said. What you can do to people you're at war with isn't relevant; there is not even a pretense of being at war here. The description doesn't even match what happens in war; execution implies sentencing, which does happen here but doesn't in war, where there would be no point.
- Natsu 10y ago
  It's one thing to shoot back at people who are shooting at you, but we're talking about blowing up people in remote places who aren't currently attacking anyone or doing anything obviously bad, along with anyone near them at the time.
  - golergka 10y ago
    OK, so come up with a more precise definition than "execution without a trial".
  - notahacker 10y ago
    International law has always been very careful not to proscribe the bombing of enemy leaders just because they're not in a conflict zone, never mind going so far as to require soldiers to wait until they're under fire before shooting enemy soldiers. There are serious questions about the adequacy of the intelligence reports and whether - as with many conventional military operations - the tendency to cause civilian casualties means the strikes do more far harm than good, but on the other hand more research has been put into identifying that the intended targets were responsible for "obviously bad" things than virtually anyone else killed in warfare.
- bootload 10y ago
  "This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war." Except there is no man in the loop in the kill chain. "where the maimed survivors of a mistaken drone strike on unarmed civilians in February 2010, which killed 23 people, describe what happened when they were attacked. The juxtaposition of the appallingly gung-ho attitude of the drone operatives, re-enacted from a transcript of the event, and raw footage of the dead bodies" [0] How do you confirm ground-truth? That truck you targeted with a high statistical chance of having X leader also is surrounded with non-combatants. Eyes on the ground will be responsible and wrestle with this and take responsibility. [1] Even if it's personal. Death by algorythm, remote control, sanctioned higher up the command chain, does not. [0] "National Bird review – chilling film reveals truths about drones" ~ https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/17/national-bird-review-us-drones-program-tribeca-film-festival https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/17/national-bird-r... [1] "Into the Fog of War" ~ http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-23/soldier's-story-exposes-serious-flaws-in-deadly-adf-raid/7435548 http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-23/soldier's-story-exp...
- superuser2 10y ago
  Exactly 0 people have ever been in the category "enemy soldiers" since WWII because we haven't declared war.
huffmsa 10y ago
Cellphones are functionally equivalent to laptops and desktops-- they're computers. Now, independent of that, if the regulations and law do not treat them equally, they are not legally equal.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  I think the issue here is she used her unsecure cellphone and presumably "private" email server to approve these strikes in which case it might have caused operational information to leak. This isn't about someone using a cellphone or a laptop, this is about someone using any communication device that wasn't clear for the transmission of classified information to approve strikes which i would only presume to be classified if only due to operational reasons.
  - hacker42 10y ago
    It leaves the impression of a quick and weakly informed decision (especially so in the context of executing people). I personally would never respond to an important inquiry on mobile because the relatively limited screen and input interface (e.g. auto-correct) would make me anxious that I am missing some crucial piece of information.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Not really a lot of times this can be a "last moment" highly time sensitive decision based on who exactly is identified at the strike target. Allot of people are involved in the decision making, various heads of agencies, the joint chiefs, cabinet members, the president, the vice president, members of congress, the speaker of the house etc. all can be involved depending on the strike. You also have variables that can change for example a large than expected number of non-combatants or an unexpected high value target and when those parameters change the mission planners and operators usually have to refer up to notify people like the Secretary of State and have them make a decision to proceed, abort, change mission parameters (e.g. from survey to kill, or from kill to capture) etc. Like it or not from all aspects these aren't decisions that can be open to lengthy debate this isn't how combat works, and having to make a time sensitive decision is something that people at those levels of government and the military have to do all the time. So sorry I don't see how the fact that a cellphone has been used is some how makes it look worse than what it already is, it's just a tool like anything else.
factorialboy 10y ago
Question is are you in a state of war? Are these considered casualties of war? If yes, then execution without trial is a given.
- chopin 10y ago
  Last I looked the US weren't at war with Pakistan.
  - democracy 10y ago
    You are so last century mate!
  - bduerst 10y ago
    But the U.S. is at war with ISIL, as part of a joint task force involving the Pakistan armed forces. It's not total war, so the real issue is whether or not the CIA drone assassinations killed innocent civilians. The article mentions how drone attacks have killed civilians, but it doesn't specify if those are the CIA requested attacks or if they were approved by Clinton.
    - chopin 10y ago
      By the same logic, China could declare war at certain dissident groups, say Tibet activists (which I think China assumes to be terrorists) and then drone strike their members in the US, if the US refuses to act against those. I don't think this is the standard a civilized nation should hold. EDIT: spelling
      - bduerst 10y ago
        Assuming that the U.S. Military is allied with China against (and at war with) the Tibeten activists, and the drone assassination was of a leader in that group - then yes, your hypothetical slippery slope is analogous.
      - awesomerobot 10y ago
        I too, believe that war should not exist.
tomjen3 10y ago
Using this results in a lot fewer civilian casualties compared to carpet bombing the area. War will always have civilian casualties and it will always be with us.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Easy to say when your side is the one causing them...
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  Carpet bombing results in a lot fewer civilian casualties compared to nuking the population centres. So does not performing drone strikes.

She could have approved drone strikes using smoke signals or carrier pigeons... - it all boils down to the same thing - execution of human beings without a trial...

golergka 10y ago

This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here. Clarification: I'm not a fan of CIA assasinations, far from it; but "execution without a trial" isn't logically justifiable complaint: we do it in a lot of situations no reasonable person would argue with. Edit: my original comment was pointing out errors in someone's logic. Sadly, everybody seems to think that this means that I've taken a certain side in drone debate. This is not the case; please, read my comment and understand what exactly am I saying — and what I'm not — before reacting.

voidz 10y ago
> no reasonable person would argue with. By framing it like this, that's where you take a wrong turn.
x0x0 10y ago
It's one thing to shoot soldiers without a trial. It's a far different thing to bomb random folks living their lives in Afghanistan, then retcon all male casualties to terrorists.
m_eiman 10y ago
Saying that the US is at war with various groups of people in the country side of Pakistan is a rather generous definition of the concept of war, isn't it? It's more like "the US is blowing up people who may or may not be those intended, but it's kinda hard to tell since they're doing it all by remote control".
- jflatow 10y ago
  Also, congress hasn't declared war since WWII, which is required by law.
  - rurban 10y ago
    No it's not. They came up with the interpretation that the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution allows them to engage into limited armed conflicts without Congress authorization. Which is dearly needed, because that's what they are doing since decades, with the CIA and friends. And several such CIA wars happened even without the President's authorization, but usually the just lie to the president to able to engage in such armed conflicts. What this War Powers Resolution does not authorize is a formal declaration of war (Clinton did not care) and any engagement voiding the Geneva conventions. All those drone killings are of course war crimes. This is one of the reasons the US does not recognize international law.
  - Retric 10y ago
    They are happy to use weasel words, this is a declaration of war: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/h455 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/h455
  - nikdaheratik 10y ago
    There are a number of reasons why this has happened. Some more nebulous than others. There are a number of extra powers granted to the Executive during a time of war that Congress didn't want activated. There are a number of requirements that kick in when war is "legally" declared that Congress didn't want activated as well. I'm not saying drone strikes aren't shady, but they aren't strictly illegal. This is a case where Congress needs to get it together and start overseeing if they want it to stop happening. Otherwise, we're just left depending on diplomacy or the UN trying to put a stop to it, which likely won't happen either.
- golergka 10y ago
  > Saying that the US is at war with various groups of people in the country side of Pakistan is a rather generous definition of the concept of war, isn't it? Nobody's saying that though.
pjc50 10y ago
enemy soldiers There is a legal obligation in the Geneva protocols 1949 to identify who you're targeting and refrain from targeting civilians. https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/9ac284404d38ed2bc1256311002afd89/50fb5579fb098faac12563cd0051dd7c https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/9ac284404d38ed2bc125... "refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;" Article 52 para 3: "3. In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used." The US has taken an extremely lax approach to this with the intelligence-based targeting. Air strikes in the course of combat are probably defensible - if you see someone running into a house carrying a weapon it becomes a military objective - but the intelligence-based targeting lacks that confirmation.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  The very words you quote authorise "incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects" as long as it's not "excessive", and the treating of a "place of worship, a house or other dwelling or school" as a military target as long as you're fairly sure it's being used for military purposes. Obviously you can argue about what is "excessive" and what is a "case of doubt" but whoever wrote these lines was clearly anticipating blowing churches and civilians up and it being within the rules. I don't say this to make drone killing seem more humane, but to make war in general seem like the everyday insanity that it is.
  - ionised 10y ago
    Most of the deaths in drone strikes have been civilian. We're talking like 70%+ of the casualties being 'incidental'. That should warrant a description of 'excessive' I think.
- golergka 10y ago
  A lot of comments with similar sentiments, so I'll reply just to yours, because it's on top. Basically, you're making my point for me: there's nothing inherently wrong with remote strikes or drones in particular. It's just a tool; and as a tool, it can be used rightly and wrongly. So, the fact that Clinton used that tool doesn't make her bad. But if you would have information about her using that tool to authorize a strike which she would've known would cause significant collateral damage, and which wouldn't save as many innocent lives as it would take — this would. But the article presents no such information, so all emptional reaction you can have to such a headline is not really justified.
belorn 10y ago
Any action? Lets look at some specifics and ask which ones should count as murder. A reasonable person might see a different degree of justification in each case. A person wielding a gun is running and firring their weapon towards a solider. The solider shoots back and kills them. A boat full with military weapons enters an areas which marines are defending and refuse to turn back. The marines sinks the boat. A tank drives into a town. The Solider defending the civilians attacks the tank and the tank driver dies in an explosion. A bomb plane that drops bombs on military facility with tanks, airfield with bombers on them, and docks with military ships. A bomb plane that dropping bombs on a factory that produce tanks and guns, killing workers. A bomb plane that fire bombs on housing districts to demoralize the population. A person is driving down the road in uninhabited area, and a solider sends a remote missile. A person is celebrating a wedding in their own house, and a soldier sends a remote missile to kill everyone in the wedding.
- tajen 10y ago
  I don't see what degree of difference there is in your first 4 examples: They're all armed people in a situation of war. Of course the last 3 are murders (although we know that the Allied erased most of German and Japanese cities, including the civilian neighbourhoods, for morale and retaliation) and the 4th before the end (killing military workers) is debatable. Last point, concerning French nationals who went to Syria twice to train in military camps and came back to lead the terrorist attacks with actual killings: Can we please extend the Geneva convention to consider them ennemy military corps (and thus, prisonners of war)? I have zero tolerance for police investigating innocents or listening to everyone, but once we know what they've done, I wonder why they just face some penal law (a few years in jail, max, like a driver in a car accident).
  - tajen 10y ago
    I don't mind the downvotes, please explain first how parent's 8 examples are different, and how people being trained in enemy military camps and coming back doesn't raise the POW legislation.
- golergka 10y ago
thaumasiotes 10y ago
> This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war. So, either you advocate that war courts review cases of all the enemy soldiers before aithorizing an attack, or you have to come up with a more precise definition of what is exactly wrong here. What everyone else said. What you can do to people you're at war with isn't relevant; there is not even a pretense of being at war here. The description doesn't even match what happens in war; execution implies sentencing, which does happen here but doesn't in war, where there would be no point.
Natsu 10y ago
It's one thing to shoot back at people who are shooting at you, but we're talking about blowing up people in remote places who aren't currently attacking anyone or doing anything obviously bad, along with anyone near them at the time.
- golergka 10y ago
  OK, so come up with a more precise definition than "execution without a trial".
- notahacker 10y ago
  International law has always been very careful not to proscribe the bombing of enemy leaders just because they're not in a conflict zone, never mind going so far as to require soldiers to wait until they're under fire before shooting enemy soldiers. There are serious questions about the adequacy of the intelligence reports and whether - as with many conventional military operations - the tendency to cause civilian casualties means the strikes do more far harm than good, but on the other hand more research has been put into identifying that the intended targets were responsible for "obviously bad" things than virtually anyone else killed in warfare.
bootload 10y ago
"This description fits almost any action that you can perform when you're at war." Except there is no man in the loop in the kill chain. "where the maimed survivors of a mistaken drone strike on unarmed civilians in February 2010, which killed 23 people, describe what happened when they were attacked. The juxtaposition of the appallingly gung-ho attitude of the drone operatives, re-enacted from a transcript of the event, and raw footage of the dead bodies" [0] How do you confirm ground-truth? That truck you targeted with a high statistical chance of having X leader also is surrounded with non-combatants. Eyes on the ground will be responsible and wrestle with this and take responsibility. [1] Even if it's personal. Death by algorythm, remote control, sanctioned higher up the command chain, does not. [0] "National Bird review – chilling film reveals truths about drones" ~ https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/17/national-bird-review-us-drones-program-tribeca-film-festival https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/17/national-bird-r... [1] "Into the Fog of War" ~ http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-23/soldier's-story-exposes-serious-flaws-in-deadly-adf-raid/7435548 http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-23/soldier's-story-exp...
superuser2 10y ago
Exactly 0 people have ever been in the category "enemy soldiers" since WWII because we haven't declared war.

huffmsa 10y ago

Cellphones are functionally equivalent to laptops and desktops-- they're computers. Now, independent of that, if the regulations and law do not treat them equally, they are not legally equal.

dogma1138 10y ago
I think the issue here is she used her unsecure cellphone and presumably "private" email server to approve these strikes in which case it might have caused operational information to leak. This isn't about someone using a cellphone or a laptop, this is about someone using any communication device that wasn't clear for the transmission of classified information to approve strikes which i would only presume to be classified if only due to operational reasons.
- hacker42 10y ago
  It leaves the impression of a quick and weakly informed decision (especially so in the context of executing people). I personally would never respond to an important inquiry on mobile because the relatively limited screen and input interface (e.g. auto-correct) would make me anxious that I am missing some crucial piece of information.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Not really a lot of times this can be a "last moment" highly time sensitive decision based on who exactly is identified at the strike target. Allot of people are involved in the decision making, various heads of agencies, the joint chiefs, cabinet members, the president, the vice president, members of congress, the speaker of the house etc. all can be involved depending on the strike. You also have variables that can change for example a large than expected number of non-combatants or an unexpected high value target and when those parameters change the mission planners and operators usually have to refer up to notify people like the Secretary of State and have them make a decision to proceed, abort, change mission parameters (e.g. from survey to kill, or from kill to capture) etc. Like it or not from all aspects these aren't decisions that can be open to lengthy debate this isn't how combat works, and having to make a time sensitive decision is something that people at those levels of government and the military have to do all the time. So sorry I don't see how the fact that a cellphone has been used is some how makes it look worse than what it already is, it's just a tool like anything else.

factorialboy 10y ago

Question is are you in a state of war? Are these considered casualties of war? If yes, then execution without trial is a given.

chopin 10y ago
Last I looked the US weren't at war with Pakistan.
- democracy 10y ago
  You are so last century mate!
- bduerst 10y ago
  But the U.S. is at war with ISIL, as part of a joint task force involving the Pakistan armed forces. It's not total war, so the real issue is whether or not the CIA drone assassinations killed innocent civilians. The article mentions how drone attacks have killed civilians, but it doesn't specify if those are the CIA requested attacks or if they were approved by Clinton.
  - chopin 10y ago
    By the same logic, China could declare war at certain dissident groups, say Tibet activists (which I think China assumes to be terrorists) and then drone strike their members in the US, if the US refuses to act against those. I don't think this is the standard a civilized nation should hold. EDIT: spelling
    - bduerst 10y ago
      Assuming that the U.S. Military is allied with China against (and at war with) the Tibeten activists, and the drone assassination was of a leader in that group - then yes, your hypothetical slippery slope is analogous.
    - awesomerobot 10y ago
      I too, believe that war should not exist.

tomjen3 10y ago

Using this results in a lot fewer civilian casualties compared to carpet bombing the area. War will always have civilian casualties and it will always be with us.

coldtea 10y ago
Easy to say when your side is the one causing them...
chriswarbo 10y ago
Carpet bombing results in a lot fewer civilian casualties compared to nuking the population centres. So does not performing drone strikes.