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You speak as if the damage is past-tense. It's still being done! The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people, but they're still proudly assa

by beloch 10y ago

You speak as if the damage is past-tense. It's still being done! The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people, but they're still proudly assassinating people in foreign countries with drones. This is a practice that's really going to bite the U.S. in the ass one day. Sooner or later, some other nation or terrorist group is going to start killing people they don't like on U.S. soil with drones, and the U.S. will have no moral high ground from which to complain!

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
> The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people, but they're still proudly assassinating people in foreign countries with drones. That's a bit different. Arguably, that's taking place in a state of war. Also, what makes you think our complaining actually requires moral high ground? Complaints are made from a high ground made of power, not morality.
- beloch 10y ago
  Drone strikes are taking place in countries like Pakistan and Yemen, where there is no official war with the U.S.. Their success rate is terrible[1]. They miss their intended target most of the time[2]. Thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed[3]. I'm not sure what you meant by saying complaints are made from a high ground of power. Plenty of powerless people in Yemen and Pakistan have complained are are complaining. Perhaps you meant that complaints are actually listened to and addressed when made from a position of power? This is true. However, sometimes complaints can be made from a position of weakness and be listened to when made from a moral high ground and massively supported by the public. e.g. Gandhi's passive resistance movement. My entire point is that, when other actors are able to strike targets on U.S. soil with drones, power is the only thing that the U.S. will have to stop them, and it might not be adequate. Drones are going to be very difficult to control in a few years. The U.S. has opened a Pandora's box by using them in such fashion. Heck, the U.S. government has behaved so outrageously over the last decade that U.S. citizens are likely to blame their own government when drone strikes happen on U.S. soil! [1]http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people-killed-by-us-drone-strikes-in-afghani/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people... [2]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obama-administrations-drone-strike-dissembling/473541/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obam... [3]https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron...
  - MawNicker 10y ago
    > Heck, the U.S. government has behaved so outrageously over the last decade that U.S. citizens are likely to blame their own government when drone strikes happen on U.S. soil! Nah. We respect Hanlon's Dodge. Our government is a tool of the shadow government. It's a dirty mark on Americans just like the Jihad is a dirty mark on Muslims. Balkanize all the things!
- ryanlol 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States#Formal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unit...
pmoriarty 10y ago
"The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people" It's not even an open secret that when you go to jail in the US, you are likely to get raped, seriously injured, or perhaps even killed. Prisoners in ordinary American prisons are routinely thrown in to solitary confinement, denied medical care, and treated in many other horrifying ways that amount to torture. So the torture still goes on, and pretty much in the open. That most people don't think of American prison as having systematized torture -- or, worse, that the prisoners deserve it because they're guilty (despite ample evidence that innocent people are sent to prison all the time, and many are in for victimless crimes, and that no one deserves torture no matter how guilty they are) speaks volumes. Then there are the CIA (and who knows which other of the dozens of secret agencies the US government has, or some military ones) that still probably torture people just as much or even more in secret. They're just a bit more publicity-shy about it now -- at least until the next major terrorist attack or war, when they'll be happy to shed the velvet glove to once again show the iron fist. And then there's what the media refers to as "police brutality", which is also just another Orwellian term for torture. And it's pretty routine if you happen to have the wrong color of skin and/or be of the wrong socioeconomic status, be in the wrong neighborhood, and/or don't kiss up to the police. Again, it's widely acknowledge this happens, but somehow people can still claim that the US doesn't systematically torture people, or only happens in extraordinary circumstances like during the War on Terror, at some far away "black sites". But it clearly does, routinely, inside the US -- and this is yet another sorry, terrifying, and despicable example of it.

by beloch 10y ago

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago

> The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people, but they're still proudly assassinating people in foreign countries with drones. That's a bit different. Arguably, that's taking place in a state of war. Also, what makes you think our complaining actually requires moral high ground? Complaints are made from a high ground made of power, not morality.

beloch 10y ago
Drone strikes are taking place in countries like Pakistan and Yemen, where there is no official war with the U.S.. Their success rate is terrible[1]. They miss their intended target most of the time[2]. Thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed[3]. I'm not sure what you meant by saying complaints are made from a high ground of power. Plenty of powerless people in Yemen and Pakistan have complained are are complaining. Perhaps you meant that complaints are actually listened to and addressed when made from a position of power? This is true. However, sometimes complaints can be made from a position of weakness and be listened to when made from a moral high ground and massively supported by the public. e.g. Gandhi's passive resistance movement. My entire point is that, when other actors are able to strike targets on U.S. soil with drones, power is the only thing that the U.S. will have to stop them, and it might not be adequate. Drones are going to be very difficult to control in a few years. The U.S. has opened a Pandora's box by using them in such fashion. Heck, the U.S. government has behaved so outrageously over the last decade that U.S. citizens are likely to blame their own government when drone strikes happen on U.S. soil! [1]http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people-killed-by-us-drone-strikes-in-afghani/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people... [2]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obama-administrations-drone-strike-dissembling/473541/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obam... [3]https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron...
- MawNicker 10y ago
  > Heck, the U.S. government has behaved so outrageously over the last decade that U.S. citizens are likely to blame their own government when drone strikes happen on U.S. soil! Nah. We respect Hanlon's Dodge. Our government is a tool of the shadow government. It's a dirty mark on Americans just like the Jihad is a dirty mark on Muslims. Balkanize all the things!
ryanlol 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States#Formal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unit...

pmoriarty 10y ago

"The U.S. may have ended the policy of openly torturing people" It's not even an open secret that when you go to jail in the US, you are likely to get raped, seriously injured, or perhaps even killed. Prisoners in ordinary American prisons are routinely thrown in to solitary confinement, denied medical care, and treated in many other horrifying ways that amount to torture. So the torture still goes on, and pretty much in the open. That most people don't think of American prison as having systematized torture -- or, worse, that the prisoners deserve it because they're guilty (despite ample evidence that innocent people are sent to prison all the time, and many are in for victimless crimes, and that no one deserves torture no matter how guilty they are) speaks volumes. Then there are the CIA (and who knows which other of the dozens of secret agencies the US government has, or some military ones) that still probably torture people just as much or even more in secret. They're just a bit more publicity-shy about it now -- at least until the next major terrorist attack or war, when they'll be happy to shed the velvet glove to once again show the iron fist. And then there's what the media refers to as "police brutality", which is also just another Orwellian term for torture. And it's pretty routine if you happen to have the wrong color of skin and/or be of the wrong socioeconomic status, be in the wrong neighborhood, and/or don't kiss up to the police. Again, it's widely acknowledge this happens, but somehow people can still claim that the US doesn't systematically torture people, or only happens in extraordinary circumstances like during the War on Terror, at some far away "black sites". But it clearly does, routinely, inside the US -- and this is yet another sorry, terrifying, and despicable example of it.