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We need to seriously examine our own morality for allowing these ghouls to basically genocide brown people. We are absolutely the baddies; between Iraq, Afghan

We need to seriously examine our own morality for allowing these ghouls to basically genocide brown people. We are absolutely the baddies; between Iraq, Afghanistan and our air strikes on Syria, Libya, and Yemen during the same period killed 1 million civilians. We’re within an order of magnitude of the Holocaust, and we all just pretend everything is ok. I really don’t know why there aren’t more discussions of how this is basically the Islamic Holocaust.

salawat 5y ago
Until you can actually pierce the National Security curtain to have a frank discussion involving details on Ways and Means in the Intelligence Community, this is a "pointless act of hyperbolic futility". The answer will just be "Need to know, and you don't" or some other platitude. As what you're asking in the end is what are the inputs that drive these decision making processes. This will never be a public conversation. Note, I think it's an absolutely sound and necessary thing to happen, I just never see it happening.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Yep, as you can see now any discussion of it is downvoted into oblivion / killed immediately. It’s not astroturfing but I think the cognitive dissonance between what we believe our country is versus what it actually does is too great. We all wonder how German citizens could have gone along with Nazi atrocities.. and the truth is that they largely didn’t know about them and what they did find out was considered “fake news”.
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    I'm reminded of a bit Stephen Colbert did, about the Abu Ghraib torture scandal back when he was on the Daily Show. "Even if this is something we did, it's not something we would do."
    - wayoutthere 5y ago
      I was a big fan of his show in the 00s, but in hindsight I think Colbert did a great disservice to the media landscape in this country by normalizing this kind of sarcastic mimicry. It gives the far-right plausible deniability so they can say “lol it’s just a joke I don’t actually think that” when it doesn’t go over well.
      - gmadsen 5y ago
        You can't outlaw stupid. Society shouldn't be relegated to the lower common denominator
crazy_horse 5y ago
Genuine question - how do you get that 1 million figure?
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  It’s 800,000 direct civilian combat deaths and likely several times that from the ancillary dangers of war (starvation, land mines, etc). The designation of “non civilian combatant” was grossly overapplied (see OP about “he had a radio” or “he had an AK-47” as if every Afghan household didn’t have one after 40 years of war). https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    The cited source does not support the stated proposition. Your link says 335,000 civilians, and it counts all deaths, not just those caused by the U.S. I was directly involved in U.S. CIVCAS mitigation measures in a Daesh convoy engagement by U.S. air power in the summer of 2016. I cannot comment on anything that transpired within the classified space. However, there was substantial reporting on the discrepancy between the measures implemented by U.S. drone strikes during the engagement, and measures implemented by Iraqi helicopters during the engagement. I encourage you to think about what that discrepancy might mean, if true, about how you're using those numbers.
    - wayoutthere 5y ago
      Actual combatants have been estimated closer to 150,000 (the only numbers we have are DOD numbers which have been shown to be highly suspect whenever things have been leaked from people like Chelsea Manning).
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - zd123 5y ago
      I don’t think the guy is missing the point here. Looking at the breakdown: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2019/Direct%20War%20Deaths%20COW%20Estimate%20November%2013%202019%20FINAL.pdf https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/20... I dont see how it can be seen as anything but a humanitarian disaster
arminiusreturns 5y ago
It's not about morality per se, and rather about understanding the people, organizations, and mechanisms that allowed it to happen. Afghanistan wasn't my war (Iraq), but I've spent most of my lifes free time since I got my brain back (left the military) tackling this topic. I think it was Ge. Wesley Clark or maybe Col. Wilkerson who said something to the effect of "There was a policy coup, some very hard nosed people took over and never informed the rest of us". Its true, there was a policy coup, but I've traced it much further back. Besides the JFK episode, the biggest one was Woodrow Wilson and his handlers. A good examination of these things though is uncomfortable and difficult even for those of us with a passion for truth, but the public doesn't want to hear about it. The elite don't want to discuss it (often because they make money off it). The media wont discuss it because it is controlled by the same people that pushed us into war. I keep coming back to the media angle, and I also think thats one of the reasons for the increasing attacks on the freedom of the internet; essentially the oligarchs finally understood that as the last bastion of anarchistic freedom of thought, it was their primary threat.
- CapricornNoble 5y ago
  >>>Its true, there was a policy coup, but I've traced it much further back. Besides the JFK episode, the biggest one was Woodrow Wilson and his handlers. Glad to see you call out Wilson, I consider him possibly the worst President ever. Federal Reserve Bank? His fault. Federal income tax? His fault. European intervention? His fault.

salawat 5y ago

Until you can actually pierce the National Security curtain to have a frank discussion involving details on Ways and Means in the Intelligence Community, this is a "pointless act of hyperbolic futility". The answer will just be "Need to know, and you don't" or some other platitude. As what you're asking in the end is what are the inputs that drive these decision making processes. This will never be a public conversation. Note, I think it's an absolutely sound and necessary thing to happen, I just never see it happening.

wayoutthere 5y ago
Yep, as you can see now any discussion of it is downvoted into oblivion / killed immediately. It’s not astroturfing but I think the cognitive dissonance between what we believe our country is versus what it actually does is too great. We all wonder how German citizens could have gone along with Nazi atrocities.. and the truth is that they largely didn’t know about them and what they did find out was considered “fake news”.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  I'm reminded of a bit Stephen Colbert did, about the Abu Ghraib torture scandal back when he was on the Daily Show. "Even if this is something we did, it's not something we would do."
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    I was a big fan of his show in the 00s, but in hindsight I think Colbert did a great disservice to the media landscape in this country by normalizing this kind of sarcastic mimicry. It gives the far-right plausible deniability so they can say “lol it’s just a joke I don’t actually think that” when it doesn’t go over well.
    - gmadsen 5y ago
      You can't outlaw stupid. Society shouldn't be relegated to the lower common denominator

crazy_horse 5y ago

Genuine question - how do you get that 1 million figure?

wayoutthere 5y ago
It’s 800,000 direct civilian combat deaths and likely several times that from the ancillary dangers of war (starvation, land mines, etc). The designation of “non civilian combatant” was grossly overapplied (see OP about “he had a radio” or “he had an AK-47” as if every Afghan household didn’t have one after 40 years of war). https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
- torstenvl 5y ago
  The cited source does not support the stated proposition. Your link says 335,000 civilians, and it counts all deaths, not just those caused by the U.S. I was directly involved in U.S. CIVCAS mitigation measures in a Daesh convoy engagement by U.S. air power in the summer of 2016. I cannot comment on anything that transpired within the classified space. However, there was substantial reporting on the discrepancy between the measures implemented by U.S. drone strikes during the engagement, and measures implemented by Iraqi helicopters during the engagement. I encourage you to think about what that discrepancy might mean, if true, about how you're using those numbers.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    Actual combatants have been estimated closer to 150,000 (the only numbers we have are DOD numbers which have been shown to be highly suspect whenever things have been leaked from people like Chelsea Manning).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - zd123 5y ago
    I don’t think the guy is missing the point here. Looking at the breakdown: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2019/Direct%20War%20Deaths%20COW%20Estimate%20November%2013%202019%20FINAL.pdf https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/20... I dont see how it can be seen as anything but a humanitarian disaster

arminiusreturns 5y ago

It's not about morality per se, and rather about understanding the people, organizations, and mechanisms that allowed it to happen. Afghanistan wasn't my war (Iraq), but I've spent most of my lifes free time since I got my brain back (left the military) tackling this topic. I think it was Ge. Wesley Clark or maybe Col. Wilkerson who said something to the effect of "There was a policy coup, some very hard nosed people took over and never informed the rest of us". Its true, there was a policy coup, but I've traced it much further back. Besides the JFK episode, the biggest one was Woodrow Wilson and his handlers. A good examination of these things though is uncomfortable and difficult even for those of us with a passion for truth, but the public doesn't want to hear about it. The elite don't want to discuss it (often because they make money off it). The media wont discuss it because it is controlled by the same people that pushed us into war. I keep coming back to the media angle, and I also think thats one of the reasons for the increasing attacks on the freedom of the internet; essentially the oligarchs finally understood that as the last bastion of anarchistic freedom of thought, it was their primary threat.

CapricornNoble 5y ago
>>>Its true, there was a policy coup, but I've traced it much further back. Besides the JFK episode, the biggest one was Woodrow Wilson and his handlers. Glad to see you call out Wilson, I consider him possibly the worst President ever. Federal Reserve Bank? His fault. Federal income tax? His fault. European intervention? His fault.