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I'm kind of over the whole "Look, we killed someone far, far, far away for dubious reasons with NEW technology" articles. These folks halfway across the world
by x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
I'm kind of over the whole "Look, we killed someone far, far, far away for dubious reasons with NEW technology" articles. These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form.
- ravi-delia 6y agoI've pretty much only seen articles like these take a 'warcrimes, but even worse because technology is NEW' stance, which is honestly just as bad but at least gets the harm in it.
- spamizbad 6y agoWe have to fight them over there otherwise the alternative is armed radical militias in our streets (something that we definitely do not have anywhere in America at the moment) /s
- TheDesolate0 6y agoOk, racist.
- wongarsu 6y agoYeah, if we didn't make those people afraid of swift death from the sky they might grow to despise the US and start working to destroy it /s
- t413 6y agoYeah, the headline seems to imply it’s some new ‘big bad’ where the article just slowly exposes that it’s a non-explosive missile. Killing fewer people by not combusting the surrounding area sounds like an improvement.
- danaos 6y agoAnd spending your valuable resources on developing such weapons shows that you're the good guy.
- sneak 6y agoMass murdering fewer people still makes you a mass murderer.
- Koshkin 6y agoKilling one's enemies does not necessarily make one a "murderer."
- approxim8ion 6y agoBy very definition it does.
- wongarsu 6y agoExtrajudicial targeted assassinations are pretty far on the bad side, no matter how few other people get killed in the process. Sure, if you are doing it, killing fewer bystanders is preferable on the surface. But if individual assassinations are less likely to cause an international outcry since fewer people died that likely leads to more assassinations.
- nine_k 6y agoIsn't the US is, like, at war in Syria? Wars being a terrible thing and all, one won't expect a speedy and fair trial on a battlefield.
- ben_w 6y agoI only leaned this a few days ago in another HN thread, but no, the USA has not declared war since 1942: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24567355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24567355
- bdamm 6y agoThe US is not at war in Syria. ISIS is deemed to be a threat to stable governments in the area including Israel, Iraq, and even Turkey, and US is assisting those governments in fighting ISIS back. The seemingly endless civil war in Syria is still a civil war although US had at one point been supporting certain groups.
- nine_k 6y agoMy idea was that the US is fulfilling the ally obligations towards these governments. ISIS itself is not a recognized sovereign, so it cannot be declared a war to, thus no congressional approval.
- gwright 6y agoThe rise of non-state actors has definitely complicated public policy regarding the use of force. IANAL, but it seems like much of the legal frameworks around use of force, just war, etc. is predicated on Westphalian sovereignty, which doesn't really have a place for groups like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, etc.
- Pfhreak 6y agoDoesn't that line of reasoning presuppose you need to be firing missiles into crowded areas? Rather than develop those missiles, what could be achieved by investing those millions into developing economies and relationships abroad?
- plazmatic 6y agoYou're asking this while trump is president? Lol. Americans expecting a change in the middle-east then voting for republicans. Lol.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoI think it's more along the lines of you can hit a car or a meeting without decimating everything nearby. It's the difference between sending an assassin and a suicide bomber.
- wongarsu 6y agoBut usually we despise both suicide bombers and assassins, not congratulate the assassin on killing so few bystanders. The question by GP is more along the line of "what if instead of spending lots of money to kill fewer bystanders we spent that money to reduce the number of people that are so dangerous to us that we kill them". Of course we know that won't happen because building weapons helps US companies and building hospitals and helping local people in foreign countries doesn't.
- SubiculumCode 6y agoUsually because it costs more to do so. Many times the local governments are corrupt, and U.S. money gets funneled to terrorist organizations or just pocketed, never actually helping the populace have better lives..
- pas 6y agoGo ahead, build a hospital in Assad's backyard, no biggie. Or just build a hospital somewhere and watch as it gets captured/used by the regional dictator. Yes, wars are bad. Yes, if it were that easy to export peace and prosperity we wouldn't be talking about it, but the reality is that there are power structures that consider their selfish short term goals more important than the lives of many-many of their fellow humans. (Eg. Putin, Xi, Assad, etc.)
- aww_dang 6y agoFlying swords which cut through the roof of a SUV probably give the targeted individuals something to ponder. https://www.quotes.net/mquote/992742 https://www.quotes.net/mquote/992742 "Paul Kersey: Nothing's too good for our friends!"
- metadatabad 6y agoIt's the fact that the world is waking up to the realization that terror doesn't affect us in the Western world and only is used as a tool by certain other countries.
- Nightshaxx 6y agoWhile we can debate the level to which America needs to get involved, are you forgetting 911 or any of the other terrorist attacks? It honestly feels downright insulting to the victims of terrorism that you would imply these extremist groups do not threaten your freedom. The article specifically references that these devices used on members of aal-Qaida; the group responsible for 911.
- wongarsu 6y agoThe war on terror has killed easily three orders of magnitude more people than 9/11, and antagonizes the US with the regional population. It's neither proportional nor effective.
- SubiculumCode 6y agoProportional? You think a proportionate response would be a bigger deterrent?
- GordonS 6y agoI'm not the OP, but I fully believe the disproportionate response, including invading an unrelated country in an oil grab, racial profiling, and the continued spread of FUD by politicians and lobbiests designed to sell votes and weapons, has itself created many people who now hate the US. Dropping bombs on civilians all over the world in response to 3k people being killed in a single, highly unusual event, is not going to deter anyone - quite the opposite.
- Nightshaxx 6y agoYou clearly didn't read my comment. It starts with "we can debate the level in which America needs to be involved." I was not interested in getting into whether or not these tactics should be used. My point was the OP said "these people do not pose a threat to my freedom" which is categorically false. Aal-Qaida is a terrorist group that directly caused the deaths of thousands of Americans, ripping them from their loved ones. To make _this specific argument_ against this weapon is just insulting to the victims.
- dagav 6y agoThey don't threaten your freedom, but they threaten the freedom of the people who live in the Middle East
- InitialLastName 6y agoI don't see them drone striking and assassinating the Emirs and Saudi royalty who are responsible much of the "freedom-limiting" activity in the Middle East though.
- dagav 6y agoDo you realize you're defending al-Qaeda?
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y agoThe terms of "terrorism" and "Al-Qaeda" are so plastic, that no one is going to really pay attention to when the government slings them around. And let's note that the financial nerve center of AQ is the House of Saud, whom we've seemed to avoid Western wrath since 9/11.
- AnHonestComment 6y agoThey’re not making principled arguments — they’re fashionably bullshitting to signal their virtue.
- InitialLastName 6y agoI'm proposing talking about these issues in terms of the actual (largely commercial, on both sides) interests involved, instead of amorphous terms like "protecting our freedom". In the name of protecting "freedom", the United States has propped up totalitarian and brutally oppressive regimes in countries all over the world. Maybe it's time they start using a different buzzword to describe their goals. IF the US does that right, they might even get the chance to stop arming, training and empowering the next generation's enemies.
- liability 6y ago
- formercoder 6y agoMaybe you are only under the impression that your freedom is not threatened due to the legions of people working in the background to secure it.
- non-entity 6y agoYeah because those "legions of people" surely haven't done more to erode our freedoms over the past decades than some militants in the thord world.
- formercoder 6y agoThis is similar to the prevention paradox with COVID. We will never know what inaction would have brought.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y agoNot really. I'm a black person in the US. Historically, the people "threatening" our freedom have always been in the US. It's never been the Soviets, never been the VietCong, never been the Sandinistas, never been Al-Qaeda or anyone the US has chosen to go to war with. As Jay-Z said: "Bin Laden been happening in Manhattan Crack was anthrax back then, back when Police was Al'Qaeda to black men"
- rayiner 6y agoThey’re certainly bothering people and threatening peoples’ freedom. Thanks to the export of fundamentalist Islam from certain countries, my home country of Bangladesh is a more dangerous place today then when we left 30 years ago. (And it was under a military dictatorship then!) Unsurprisingly, we take harsh measures to crack down on fundamentalism, including banning Islamist parties and executing terrorists: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48154781 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48154781 (noting that British-Bangladeshi teenager who left to join ISIS would be executed if she went back to Bangladesh). And it’s not just in Bangladesh or Pakistan—while America has been fortunate to be spared from a major terrorist attack since 9/11, our European allies deal with them routinely. To a great extent, the United States is subsidizing the cost of fighting terrorism for all of these countries. After all, in Syria, which is the subject of the article, we got dragged into the conflict by our middle eastern allies. Now, it’s fair to say that none of this is America’s problem. And I probably agree with you. But there is a risk we wake up 30 years from now and huge swaths of the world have been taken over by fundamentalist ideologies that are very hostile to us. We should think a bit about what that world would look like and whether it’s desirable. Americans take for granted that we live in a world shaped by American norms. 160 constitutions around the world are based directly or indirectly in our own. (Bangladesh’s constitution begins with “we the people” just like the United States’.) The Star Trek version of the future (“America in Space”) comes about because of our willingness to invest in the security and economic and social development of the world. And maybe we’ve done enough, and maybe it’s time to let others lead. I’m pretty sympathetic to the arguments that it’s time to turn our focus inward, and we’re doing more harm than good. But the analysis is much bigger than whether certain specific people are attacking US soil at this very moment.
- liability 6y agoIf radicalization in these countries works anything like it does in the west, then the missiles would be more effective at preventing radicalization if pointed at social media tech executives.
- adamsea 6y agoThe particular missiles discussed in the article are killing high-value leaders, etc. So not so much about stopping radicalization as wearing an existing organization. But yeah, I’m sympathetic to your overall point, for sure.
- throw51319 6y agoPretty naive to not understand the concept of allowing these terrorists to operate abroad allows them to more easily coordinate and carry-out attacks in the US, but especially in Europe.
- jeanvalmarc 6y ago> These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form. As a counterargument, you can't know that. It seems like this argument could be restated as "I don't trust the US government to dispassionately determine who is a threat and even if they were a threat I am not in favor of killing people as a response." Which seems fair but the world is a complicated place and there are justifiable uses of drone strikes.
- buran77 6y ago> the world is a complicated place and there are justifiable uses of drone strikes Herein lies the problem, different people and groups see different actions as justifiable or not. Drone striking the hell out of a country half way around the world has very debatable justifications. And what throws a lot of shade on the justification is when the country doing the bombing goes on to ally itself with with countries that are, from the point of view of the justification, no better or worse than the one being bombed.
- jimbob45 6y agoThat same argument could have been used to justify staying out of WW2. Even if Hitler was guaranteed to stay out of US affairs post-war, the fact remains that joining sooner would have resulted in millions of Europeans keeping their lives. Same here. Prematurely joining conflicts now allows us to save scores of lives abroad (at least in theory).
- tafox 6y agoNazi Germany declared war on the US first.
- ls612 6y agoEven if they hadn’t we still would have declared war on them. It only moved up the timetable slightly.
- fuoqi 6y agoI would say that the recent interventions in Libya, Syria, Iraq have only destabilized the region, thus resulting in a huge loss of live and miserable living conditions for citizens of affected countries, which in turn supports and revitalizes radical Islam organizations and further destabilizes situation in Europe, which has to be on the receiving end for refuges created by those interventions.
- mhh__ 6y agoHow far do you take that line of thinking? Should the US have entered the second world war in Europe?
- dfsegoat 6y ago> These folks halfway across the world aren't bothering, nor do they actually threaten my freedom in any way shape or form. Rest assured, there are people who wake up every single day plotting how they can kill Americans or Westerners, or training to do so. This may be the West / USA's fault - but it's where we find ourselves, regardless. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_State_list_of_Foreign_Terrorist_Organizations#Groups_designated_as_FTOs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_St...
- GordonS 6y agoGiven the many articles about new and exciting ways to kill brown people from halfway across the world at the touch of a button, I'd wager there are just as many Americans who wake up every single day plotting how they can sell their newest killing machines to the US gov in the name of stopping terrorism etc.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]