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Glad it's more precise in theory, but a) why are we fighting again? b) So often they kill the wrong person anyway because it's so easy for them to kill, why bot

Glad it's more precise in theory, but a) why are we fighting again? b) So often they kill the wrong person anyway because it's so easy for them to kill, why bother with being extra careful on the confirmation? c) Trump, in 2017, loosened further the already weak safeguards on conducting strikes, so the number of civilian casualties has increased. d) Why are we fighting again? EDIT: 2018 -> 2017, my how time flies. https://web.archive.org/web/20170414143558/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/us/politics/rules-of-engagement-military-force-mattis.html https://web.archive.org/web/20170414143558/https://www.nytim...

exhilaration 7y ago
And e) I thought Turkey was our ally, with Erdogan and Trump being BFFs -- why are we killing the guys he's backing?
- tehjoker 7y ago
  Turkey is complicated... however, the US backing awful sides while doing realpolitik is famous, we've even backed Al Queda (!!) which undermines entirely the thin public justifications for even being there which seems to be more about securing oil, militarizing a central economically important region, and preventing Iran from gaining influence (why?) and failing given they took control of Iraq following the (baldly illegal) US invasion. Meanwhile we back an absolute monarchy that did 9/11 (probably) and threatened to do it to Canada on Twitter (lol). [0] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-appeared-to-threaten-canada-with-a-911-style-attack-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-appeared-to-thr... (candidate for best tweet of the decade)
x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
The narrative direction for "drone strike tech" doesn't really allow us to ask "what is this for again". The main direction of the narrative is supposed to be "wow, look at how many more "terrorists" we can kill without killing civilians". Of course, the whole process for who and how someone gets slapped with the plastic term "terrorist" and how it's decided they should die isn't to be brought into the picture.
- tehjoker 7y ago
  Yea, that's why it's so important to remind people when these gee whiz tech articles come out that this is just literally war propaganda for a 100% illegal war.

exhilaration 7y ago

And e) I thought Turkey was our ally, with Erdogan and Trump being BFFs -- why are we killing the guys he's backing?

tehjoker 7y ago
Turkey is complicated... however, the US backing awful sides while doing realpolitik is famous, we've even backed Al Queda (!!) which undermines entirely the thin public justifications for even being there which seems to be more about securing oil, militarizing a central economically important region, and preventing Iran from gaining influence (why?) and failing given they took control of Iraq following the (baldly illegal) US invasion. Meanwhile we back an absolute monarchy that did 9/11 (probably) and threatened to do it to Canada on Twitter (lol). [0] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-appeared-to-threaten-canada-with-a-911-style-attack-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-appeared-to-thr... (candidate for best tweet of the decade)

x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago

The narrative direction for "drone strike tech" doesn't really allow us to ask "what is this for again". The main direction of the narrative is supposed to be "wow, look at how many more "terrorists" we can kill without killing civilians". Of course, the whole process for who and how someone gets slapped with the plastic term "terrorist" and how it's decided they should die isn't to be brought into the picture.

tehjoker 7y ago
Yea, that's why it's so important to remind people when these gee whiz tech articles come out that this is just literally war propaganda for a 100% illegal war.