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I didn't have a concrete moral framework in mind, but I was thinking of a few baseline rules that should hold in most sensible systems, such as not bombing hosp

I didn't have a concrete moral framework in mind, but I was thinking of a few baseline rules that should hold in most sensible systems, such as not bombing hospitals (like what happened with that hospital in Syria a while ago), not killing civilians without due process in countries where there is formally no state of war (drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries), not starting wars of aggression based on falsified intelligence (Iraq, Vietnam), investing reasonable amounts effort to avoid harm to non-combatants (that "Collateral Murder" video, US support for the Saudis' actions in Yemen, drone strikes based on just cellphone signals); all of these points are arguably features of many different moral systems and should be much less controversial than the dilemmas you bring up. I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know to they are all standard components of rules of engagement (like the Geneva Convention). Also, all of these have been repeatedly violated by the US military or its contractors, making me more hesitant to want to help them, even under the assumption that they are necessary to protect our liberal societies from other regimes.

v_lisivka 8y ago
In general, I agree with you that army should not do that. However, enemy rarely tries to help to achieve that, i.e. they are not putting markers "we are soldiers, shoot us" at their positions. So goal of typical army is to minimize loses, not to avoid them completely, because risk is non-zero for every shot. > such as not bombing hospitals (like what happened with that hospital in Syria a while ago) It looks like error (one bomb hit territory near to hospital), not a precise strike. In contrasts, Russians (I will Russian-Ukraine war as example, because I know it better) are shooting civilians pretty often. I had Uber-drive with driver which served in Augustinian during USSR invasion. He told me that in Augustinian they completely destroyed nearest civilian village with all habitats when one of them was killed during mission. AFAIK, Russian army is not changed much since then. > not killing civilians without due process in countries where there is formally no state of war (drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries) Completely agreed. We(Ukraine) are victims of hybrid war too. > not starting wars of aggression based on falsified intelligence (Iraq, Vietnam) Intelligence was not falsified in case of Iraq: chemical weapons are just moved to Syria few months prior to invasion. Not sure about Vietnam, but I know a bit about war in Vietnam from USSR side, and it not good. Not interested much in the topic.
- grumdan 8y ago
  > In general, I agree with you that army should not do that. However, enemy rarely tries to help to achieve that, i.e. they are not putting markers "we are soldiers, shoot us" at their positions. So goal of typical army is to minimize loses, not to avoid them completely, because risk is non-zero for every shot. I agree with that. This is why I was only asking for "reasonable effort" to try to avoid this. I realize this is vague, but there are some cases that are a clear violation. > It looks like error (one bomb hit territory near to hospital), not a precise strike. In the incident I was referring to (but can't find a link to for some reason right now), it was a sustained attack that didn't even stop for 30 minutes after the US forces were informed that it was in fact a hospital. I'm willing to attribute that to negligence and organizational dysfunction rather than malice, but even then this indicates a lack of concern for civilians and medical infrastructure in the country. Another case was the bombing of that infant formula factory in the first gulf war that was, as far as I remember, also claimed to be a chemical weapons site, even though the administration knew this not to be the case at the time. I don't remember many details on this though. EDIT: Okay, seems I was mistaken about this, they didn't know this to be false, but seemingly had no strong evidence to support their claims either. Here are some other examples of US strikes on civilian targets based on very flimsy evidence though, along with details on that original hospital case I brought up: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43079.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43079.htm > Intelligence was not falsified in case of Iraq: chemical weapons are just moved to Syria few months prior to invasion. This is the first time I've heard this claim. Most Western media reported that there was no intelligence to support the WMD claim at the time. e.g: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/09/usa.iraq2 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/09/usa.iraq2 > Not sure about Vietnam, but I know a bit about war in Vietnam from USSR side, and it not good. Not interested much in the topic. In this case the administration lied about the reasons for the war to the general public (this was revealed by the Pentagon Papers). I know very little about the war in Ukraine, so I'll take your word for it. My main argument was that the US military in particular (since this is the one most relevant to Silicon Valley) has a history of this type of behavior that significantly complicates the point of military research to keep us safe.
  - v_lisivka 8y ago

v_lisivka 8y ago

In general, I agree with you that army should not do that. However, enemy rarely tries to help to achieve that, i.e. they are not putting markers "we are soldiers, shoot us" at their positions. So goal of typical army is to minimize loses, not to avoid them completely, because risk is non-zero for every shot. > such as not bombing hospitals (like what happened with that hospital in Syria a while ago) It looks like error (one bomb hit territory near to hospital), not a precise strike. In contrasts, Russians (I will Russian-Ukraine war as example, because I know it better) are shooting civilians pretty often. I had Uber-drive with driver which served in Augustinian during USSR invasion. He told me that in Augustinian they completely destroyed nearest civilian village with all habitats when one of them was killed during mission. AFAIK, Russian army is not changed much since then. > not killing civilians without due process in countries where there is formally no state of war (drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries) Completely agreed. We(Ukraine) are victims of hybrid war too. > not starting wars of aggression based on falsified intelligence (Iraq, Vietnam) Intelligence was not falsified in case of Iraq: chemical weapons are just moved to Syria few months prior to invasion. Not sure about Vietnam, but I know a bit about war in Vietnam from USSR side, and it not good. Not interested much in the topic.

grumdan 8y ago
> In general, I agree with you that army should not do that. However, enemy rarely tries to help to achieve that, i.e. they are not putting markers "we are soldiers, shoot us" at their positions. So goal of typical army is to minimize loses, not to avoid them completely, because risk is non-zero for every shot. I agree with that. This is why I was only asking for "reasonable effort" to try to avoid this. I realize this is vague, but there are some cases that are a clear violation. > It looks like error (one bomb hit territory near to hospital), not a precise strike. In the incident I was referring to (but can't find a link to for some reason right now), it was a sustained attack that didn't even stop for 30 minutes after the US forces were informed that it was in fact a hospital. I'm willing to attribute that to negligence and organizational dysfunction rather than malice, but even then this indicates a lack of concern for civilians and medical infrastructure in the country. Another case was the bombing of that infant formula factory in the first gulf war that was, as far as I remember, also claimed to be a chemical weapons site, even though the administration knew this not to be the case at the time. I don't remember many details on this though. EDIT: Okay, seems I was mistaken about this, they didn't know this to be false, but seemingly had no strong evidence to support their claims either. Here are some other examples of US strikes on civilian targets based on very flimsy evidence though, along with details on that original hospital case I brought up: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43079.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43079.htm > Intelligence was not falsified in case of Iraq: chemical weapons are just moved to Syria few months prior to invasion. This is the first time I've heard this claim. Most Western media reported that there was no intelligence to support the WMD claim at the time. e.g: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/09/usa.iraq2 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/09/usa.iraq2 > Not sure about Vietnam, but I know a bit about war in Vietnam from USSR side, and it not good. Not interested much in the topic. In this case the administration lied about the reasons for the war to the general public (this was revealed by the Pentagon Papers). I know very little about the war in Ukraine, so I'll take your word for it. My main argument was that the US military in particular (since this is the one most relevant to Silicon Valley) has a history of this type of behavior that significantly complicates the point of military research to keep us safe.
- v_lisivka 8y ago