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Then you really lack perspective on what any warfare is: it's always critical, life or death decisions that have to be taken without sufficient information. US

Then you really lack perspective on what any warfare is: it's always critical, life or death decisions that have to be taken without sufficient information. US civilian to combatant casualty ratio in the recent conflicts have been significantly better than any other modern wars as well. So, what do you suggest instead?

devoply 7y ago
Goldstein is dead. The war is over. Stop killing Afghans. Let me sort their own issues and politics out. If you are worried about them coming to your country and messing with you then stop all Saudis from coming to your country... you can also ban Afghans if it makes you feel better. It's like really what are the hoping to gain from all of this. The people resent you as much as anyone can resent anyone else. The government is a puppet government. The country is fractured beyond repair. It's highly lawless. It's like yes if we can just prevent people from gathering in the Middle of nowhere they can't conspire against us. While most of their enemies came from their greatest ally in which country they can do as they please. This war is a massive Orwellian joke.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  The US did overreact and attempted to do nation building in Afghanistan. But your prescription for letting them sort things out on their own has already been tried, and it was a colossal failure. The government hosted terrorist organizations who killed thousands of people in the US and mounted attacks on civilians of many nationalities around the world.
  - devoply 7y ago
    You mean the US has been sitting there since the 70s. Trained a bunch of militants there who eventually turned on their colonial masters using them for brute force to fight the Soviets, don't you? The government who hosted the terrorist organization in Afghanistan then could be said to be the US.
    - harimau777 7y ago
      I'm not sure that's a fair characterization. Regardless of whether the US should have gotten involved or should have seen future problems coming, my understanding is that at the time that the US was supporting the Mujahideen they were attacking military targets and where therefore guerrilla fighters, not terrorists.
      - devoply 7y ago
        It's funny how brainwashed most Americans are about this conflict, we might as well as be living in 1984's world. Have you heard the ancient saying one man's freedom fighter, another man's terrorist? What would happen if no terrorists had been trained by the US (and their Islamic puppet that wags the dog, Saudi Arabia)? The Soviet Union would have fallen and Afghanistan would be a normal country like its neighbors. > After Taraki was murdered the new Afghan Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin repeated requests for Soviet military support, at least to protect his residence. Finally, in December the Politburo decided to deal with the situation in Afghanistan,[8] and in early December sent special forces which attacked Amin's palace and killed him, putting the exiled Babrak Kamal in his place. These forces were subsequently reinforced by the 40th Army which entered Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. As the Kremlin foresaw, this intervention would cause problems around the world for the USSR, with the policy of detente and, not least, at the forthcoming Olympic Games due to take place in summer 1980 in Moscow.[9] The result was a far-reaching boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, supported not only by the United States but by many of the 65 other invited countries that did not take part. > At its greatest extent the Soviet military contingent in Afghanistan numbered 100,000 personnel. This presence remained for a decade and kickstarted U.S. and Saudi funding for Islamic Mujahideen groups opposed to both the Afghan government and the Soviet military presence. The local Mujahideen, along with fighters from several different Arab nations (Pathan tribes from across the border also participated in the war; they were supported by the Pakistani ISI), fought the Soviet forces to a standstill. On 24 January 1989 Gorbachev's Politburo took the decision to withdraw most of the Soviet forces,[10] while continuing to provide military assistance to the Afghan government.[11] Eventually, in-fighting within the Mujahideen led to the rise of warlords in Afghanistan, and from them emerged the Taliban.[12] The Soviets left behind the only highway in the country as well as many concrete structures built in the major cities, and airfields that are still in use (e.g. at Bagram).
  - rhizome 7y ago
    Afghanistan has been a known quantity for decades: heroin or Taliban, pick one. Beyond that, what's the international opinion on Erik Prince?
    - e12e 7y ago
      Decades? How about the British presence in the region? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War (and so on and so forth..)
      - rhizome 7y ago
        I don't see Taliban or heroin (or "opium") in that article, but sure, if you want to expand the relationship to being between theocratic rulers and vice production I'm fine with that. I didn't read the article to see if that's actually what was going on 200 years ago, but I'm assuming you aren't posting an offtopic reply.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      Taliban hosted AQ, gave us 9/11. We may be stuck in a quagmire, but there’s more to the Taliban than banning heroin and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
      - glogla 7y ago
        Saudi Arabia gave you 9/11 yet your president is super friendly with them. It's almost as if you're looking for excuse to kill people.
        devoply 7y ago
        US gave itself 9/11, it's like the scene from Game of Thrones where Cersei uses religion to increase her power and then that power structure she created fucks her up after gaining power. The same thing is now happening in India and China. Where in India a nut job racist, inspired by Nazi ideology of Hindu racial purity, is running the country and the West is down with it because you know fuck Muslims and their rights... you know after encouraging their religious power structures by protecting Kohmeni in France until he could go in and take over Iran, and disposing of the democratic Iranian government in favor of a dictator. Encouraging Islamic nut jobery in Pakistan to fight the Soviets. Creating Saudi Arabia to control Muslims out of a bunch of backwards nomads that have never led any civilizations in their history. In the case of China, they used China to enrich them and distributed a bunch of technology and know-how to them to increase their own power and now China is basically turning the tables on them. It's like West loves to abuse its power to increase it and then always shies away from taking any responsibility for its action and instead blames the ideology they were exploiting to increase their power.
elif 7y ago
>life or death decisions that have to be taken without sufficient information. Sounds like you're describing warfare before Geneva conventions or the somehow permitted US war crimes to me.
- harimau777 7y ago
  I'm not sure that I understand your argument. War consisted of making life or death decisions based on insufficient information both before and after the Geneva conventions.
  - elif 7y ago
    Of course on the battlefield incorrect decisions must be made. However, drone strikes like the Afghan farmers do not fit that criteria. The decision did not /have/ to be made. It was a voluntary assassination.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  When did the Taliban sign on to Geneva?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - elif 7y ago
    Not only does your logic bending (to for some reason avoid the basis of wartime morality?) fail in its own premise as the Taliban is not allowed to meet your standard as they are not a sovereign nation able to be a signatory, the convention itself does not work as you imply: "this Protocol must be fully applied in all circumstances to all persons who are protected by those instruments, without any adverse distinction based on the nature or origin of the armed conflict"
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    Random Afghani civilians are not the Taliban. (Aside from the fact that the Geneva Convention doesn't work that way, as the other guy pointed out.)
hackeer 7y ago
Shooting people from a drone is definitely not a life or death decision. And doing it just because they look like criminals is not a casualty of war, it's outright murder. Any cop would be in death row for pulling something like this in American Soil.
- glloydell 7y ago
  A cop who followed the same regulations and rules of engagement as a soldier would be committing a crime. Because they have entirely different jobs, in entirely different contexts, with entirely different rules, serving entirely different purposes.
  - rasz 7y ago
    sure https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacramento-po.html https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacrament...
    - glloydell 7y ago
      Precisely! Soldiers in an active military zone would almost certainly not be subject to any scrutiny or investigation for fatally shooting someone who they believed to be armed in the same situation. Thanks for the supporting evidence!!!!
- mieseratte 7y ago
  > Any cop would be in death row for pulling something like this in American Soil. That’s a dubious claim.
  - hackeer 7y ago
    I meant to say He would be granted a paid leave.
journalctl 7y ago
Have we considered maybe _not_ killing them?
- mieseratte 7y ago
  Welcome to war. Bad intel kills good people. I would be more concerned with the classification of any male over 16 killed in a strike as an automatic combatant than a single given operation gone wrong. This is an unavoidable aspect of war.
  - c0nducktr 7y ago
    Thankfully, we can be concerned about more than one thing at a time. And this isn't a single operation gone wrong, there's been 10s if not 100s of these incidents. Framing it as a "single operation gone wrong" is ignorant at best.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Why was a bunch of dudes sitting around a fire a "critical, life or death decision" that couldn't wait for "sufficient information"? Total war was justified in WW2 when the Allies were facing a potentially existential threat. It was us or them. That has never been the case in Afghanistan.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
If another nation's military had accidentally murdered 30 American civilians because they didn't wait for sufficient information, you'd be crying out for blood.
anigbrowl 7y ago
I've been in multiple life and death situations thanks, and I am acutely aware of the complex calculus of war. I don't think drone warfare should be used against civilian targets, military ones are OK. If you want to assassinate people outside of regular military conflict, do it in person.
- golergka 7y ago
  The entire point is being unsure if the target is civilian or a military one.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    You know what definitely is a valid military target? The drone operators and the facilities they work out of. If you care about them so much, maybe you should bend your efforts to reducing their moral culpability and think about the strategic logic of the entire mission, which has now killed 10 times more Afghan civilians than died on 9/11, in a country with 1/10 the population of ours, so as to lower the probability of their being selected as a target. How much longer is the US going to continue trying to win hearts and minds by throwing the most highly equipped military force on the planet at lightly armed peasants, while ignoring the fact that they probably feel just as pissed off about their friends, family, and selves being blown up as we do about ours, and by now have suffered far more than the original injury we are still attempting to retaliate for? There are now kids old enough to sign up for the military who were born after 9/11 and for whom the US has always been at war with Afghanistan, and your moral gymnastics serve only to perpetuate that while foreclosing any inquiry they might conduct as citizens rather than soldiers.

devoply 7y ago

Goldstein is dead. The war is over. Stop killing Afghans. Let me sort their own issues and politics out. If you are worried about them coming to your country and messing with you then stop all Saudis from coming to your country... you can also ban Afghans if it makes you feel better. It's like really what are the hoping to gain from all of this. The people resent you as much as anyone can resent anyone else. The government is a puppet government. The country is fractured beyond repair. It's highly lawless. It's like yes if we can just prevent people from gathering in the Middle of nowhere they can't conspire against us. While most of their enemies came from their greatest ally in which country they can do as they please. This war is a massive Orwellian joke.

tomohawk 7y ago
The US did overreact and attempted to do nation building in Afghanistan. But your prescription for letting them sort things out on their own has already been tried, and it was a colossal failure. The government hosted terrorist organizations who killed thousands of people in the US and mounted attacks on civilians of many nationalities around the world.
- devoply 7y ago
  You mean the US has been sitting there since the 70s. Trained a bunch of militants there who eventually turned on their colonial masters using them for brute force to fight the Soviets, don't you? The government who hosted the terrorist organization in Afghanistan then could be said to be the US.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    I'm not sure that's a fair characterization. Regardless of whether the US should have gotten involved or should have seen future problems coming, my understanding is that at the time that the US was supporting the Mujahideen they were attacking military targets and where therefore guerrilla fighters, not terrorists.
    - devoply 7y ago
      It's funny how brainwashed most Americans are about this conflict, we might as well as be living in 1984's world. Have you heard the ancient saying one man's freedom fighter, another man's terrorist? What would happen if no terrorists had been trained by the US (and their Islamic puppet that wags the dog, Saudi Arabia)? The Soviet Union would have fallen and Afghanistan would be a normal country like its neighbors. > After Taraki was murdered the new Afghan Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin repeated requests for Soviet military support, at least to protect his residence. Finally, in December the Politburo decided to deal with the situation in Afghanistan,[8] and in early December sent special forces which attacked Amin's palace and killed him, putting the exiled Babrak Kamal in his place. These forces were subsequently reinforced by the 40th Army which entered Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. As the Kremlin foresaw, this intervention would cause problems around the world for the USSR, with the policy of detente and, not least, at the forthcoming Olympic Games due to take place in summer 1980 in Moscow.[9] The result was a far-reaching boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, supported not only by the United States but by many of the 65 other invited countries that did not take part. > At its greatest extent the Soviet military contingent in Afghanistan numbered 100,000 personnel. This presence remained for a decade and kickstarted U.S. and Saudi funding for Islamic Mujahideen groups opposed to both the Afghan government and the Soviet military presence. The local Mujahideen, along with fighters from several different Arab nations (Pathan tribes from across the border also participated in the war; they were supported by the Pakistani ISI), fought the Soviet forces to a standstill. On 24 January 1989 Gorbachev's Politburo took the decision to withdraw most of the Soviet forces,[10] while continuing to provide military assistance to the Afghan government.[11] Eventually, in-fighting within the Mujahideen led to the rise of warlords in Afghanistan, and from them emerged the Taliban.[12] The Soviets left behind the only highway in the country as well as many concrete structures built in the major cities, and airfields that are still in use (e.g. at Bagram).
- rhizome 7y ago
  Afghanistan has been a known quantity for decades: heroin or Taliban, pick one. Beyond that, what's the international opinion on Erik Prince?
  - e12e 7y ago
    Decades? How about the British presence in the region? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War (and so on and so forth..)
    - rhizome 7y ago
      I don't see Taliban or heroin (or "opium") in that article, but sure, if you want to expand the relationship to being between theocratic rulers and vice production I'm fine with that. I didn't read the article to see if that's actually what was going on 200 years ago, but I'm assuming you aren't posting an offtopic reply.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    Taliban hosted AQ, gave us 9/11. We may be stuck in a quagmire, but there’s more to the Taliban than banning heroin and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
    - glogla 7y ago
      Saudi Arabia gave you 9/11 yet your president is super friendly with them. It's almost as if you're looking for excuse to kill people.
      - devoply 7y ago
        US gave itself 9/11, it's like the scene from Game of Thrones where Cersei uses religion to increase her power and then that power structure she created fucks her up after gaining power. The same thing is now happening in India and China. Where in India a nut job racist, inspired by Nazi ideology of Hindu racial purity, is running the country and the West is down with it because you know fuck Muslims and their rights... you know after encouraging their religious power structures by protecting Kohmeni in France until he could go in and take over Iran, and disposing of the democratic Iranian government in favor of a dictator. Encouraging Islamic nut jobery in Pakistan to fight the Soviets. Creating Saudi Arabia to control Muslims out of a bunch of backwards nomads that have never led any civilizations in their history. In the case of China, they used China to enrich them and distributed a bunch of technology and know-how to them to increase their own power and now China is basically turning the tables on them. It's like West loves to abuse its power to increase it and then always shies away from taking any responsibility for its action and instead blames the ideology they were exploiting to increase their power.

elif 7y ago

>life or death decisions that have to be taken without sufficient information. Sounds like you're describing warfare before Geneva conventions or the somehow permitted US war crimes to me.

harimau777 7y ago
I'm not sure that I understand your argument. War consisted of making life or death decisions based on insufficient information both before and after the Geneva conventions.
- elif 7y ago
  Of course on the battlefield incorrect decisions must be made. However, drone strikes like the Afghan farmers do not fit that criteria. The decision did not /have/ to be made. It was a voluntary assassination.
mieseratte 7y ago
When did the Taliban sign on to Geneva?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- elif 7y ago
  Not only does your logic bending (to for some reason avoid the basis of wartime morality?) fail in its own premise as the Taliban is not allowed to meet your standard as they are not a sovereign nation able to be a signatory, the convention itself does not work as you imply: "this Protocol must be fully applied in all circumstances to all persons who are protected by those instruments, without any adverse distinction based on the nature or origin of the armed conflict"
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  Random Afghani civilians are not the Taliban. (Aside from the fact that the Geneva Convention doesn't work that way, as the other guy pointed out.)

hackeer 7y ago

Shooting people from a drone is definitely not a life or death decision. And doing it just because they look like criminals is not a casualty of war, it's outright murder. Any cop would be in death row for pulling something like this in American Soil.

glloydell 7y ago
A cop who followed the same regulations and rules of engagement as a soldier would be committing a crime. Because they have entirely different jobs, in entirely different contexts, with entirely different rules, serving entirely different purposes.
- rasz 7y ago
  sure https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacramento-po.html https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacrament...
  - glloydell 7y ago
    Precisely! Soldiers in an active military zone would almost certainly not be subject to any scrutiny or investigation for fatally shooting someone who they believed to be armed in the same situation. Thanks for the supporting evidence!!!!
mieseratte 7y ago
> Any cop would be in death row for pulling something like this in American Soil. That’s a dubious claim.
- hackeer 7y ago
  I meant to say He would be granted a paid leave.

journalctl 7y ago

Have we considered maybe _not_ killing them?

mieseratte 7y ago
Welcome to war. Bad intel kills good people. I would be more concerned with the classification of any male over 16 killed in a strike as an automatic combatant than a single given operation gone wrong. This is an unavoidable aspect of war.
- c0nducktr 7y ago
  Thankfully, we can be concerned about more than one thing at a time. And this isn't a single operation gone wrong, there's been 10s if not 100s of these incidents. Framing it as a "single operation gone wrong" is ignorant at best.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

Why was a bunch of dudes sitting around a fire a "critical, life or death decision" that couldn't wait for "sufficient information"? Total war was justified in WW2 when the Allies were facing a potentially existential threat. It was us or them. That has never been the case in Afghanistan.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

If another nation's military had accidentally murdered 30 American civilians because they didn't wait for sufficient information, you'd be crying out for blood.

anigbrowl 7y ago

I've been in multiple life and death situations thanks, and I am acutely aware of the complex calculus of war. I don't think drone warfare should be used against civilian targets, military ones are OK. If you want to assassinate people outside of regular military conflict, do it in person.

golergka 7y ago
The entire point is being unsure if the target is civilian or a military one.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  You know what definitely is a valid military target? The drone operators and the facilities they work out of. If you care about them so much, maybe you should bend your efforts to reducing their moral culpability and think about the strategic logic of the entire mission, which has now killed 10 times more Afghan civilians than died on 9/11, in a country with 1/10 the population of ours, so as to lower the probability of their being selected as a target. How much longer is the US going to continue trying to win hearts and minds by throwing the most highly equipped military force on the planet at lightly armed peasants, while ignoring the fact that they probably feel just as pissed off about their friends, family, and selves being blown up as we do about ours, and by now have suffered far more than the original injury we are still attempting to retaliate for? There are now kids old enough to sign up for the military who were born after 9/11 and for whom the US has always been at war with Afghanistan, and your moral gymnastics serve only to perpetuate that while foreclosing any inquiry they might conduct as citizens rather than soldiers.