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>Shortly before 3 a.m. on July 19, 2016, American Special Operations forces bombed what they believed were three ISIS “staging areas” on the outskirts of Tokhar
by helaoban 5y ago
>Shortly before 3 a.m. on July 19, 2016, American Special Operations forces bombed what they believed were three ISIS “staging areas” on the outskirts of Tokhar, a riverside hamlet in northern Syria. They reported 85 fighters killed. In fact, they hit houses far from the front line, where farmers, their families and other local people sought nighttime sanctuary from bombing and gunfire. More than 120 villagers were killed.
Are we the baddies?
P.S I wonder what was extracted in exchange for a Saturday publish date.
- nathias 5y agoYes, of course, and you could have known that with certainty since Wikileaks.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago> Are we the baddies? No but we can do better.
- vmception 5y agoWould you rationalize it that way if a different country did it? For bonus points: non-NATO and non-“Western”
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoIf a different country was trying to bomb ISIS and made a mistake? Nope.
- vmception 5y agoand killed thousands of civilians and children with dehumanizing ambiguous categorizations?
- klyrs 5y agoIf another country was bombing our villages because one our soldiers was thought to live there, would they be baddies?
- chernevik 5y agoYeah. Because we don't form our troops among civilians.
- tata71 5y agoYes, we do, wow. They're just someone else's civilians!
- refurb 5y agoIf a terrorist group was formed in America, invaded surrounding countries then use American towns as bases to hide, then no, I’d say another country accidentally bombing civilians wouldn’t make them baddies.
- American12143 5y agoThat's what we literally say every single time. We've been doing this kind of thing since at least Vietnam.
- EarthIsHome 5y ago> Are we the baddies? Yes, we are the baddies. This is where a large portion of our tax dollars go instead of providing the people in the US with universal healthcare, public housing, high-speed rail, etc. Instead of building a better life for all the people, the US destroys the lives of others for some very small amount of people to become filthy rich. Now on to the next manufactured conflict with China [0][1] and repeat what we have been doing for decades and well through the 20th century [2]. [0]: https://mobile.twitter.com/wearytolove/status/1430959562652192769?s=20 https://mobile.twitter.com/wearytolove/status/14309595626521... [1]: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year-campaign-to-convince-people-the-usa-and-not https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year... [2]: https://monthlyreview.org/product/washington-bullets/ https://monthlyreview.org/product/washington-bullets/
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ethbr0 5y ago> where a large portion of our tax dollars go instead of providing the people in the US with universal healthcare, public housing, high-speed rail, etc. 23.4% of the FY2022 DoD budget is for direct payments to personnel. Including health insurance for military members and their families. 1.2% in family support programs: child care, schools, etc. With about 1/3 of total funding going to some sort of job or benefit. > Instead of building a better life for all the people Like the 0.5% dedicated to DARPA, which among other things funded research in 2013 into rapid development of novel vaccines using mRNA platforms under the ADEPT program? ... I won't say 100% of the DoD budget is morally pristine. Or even most of it. But it's a huge budget, and it funds a ton of good work that wouldn't otherwise be palatable to the legislative branch, but magically becomes so "because military." So as the quip goes, American defense spending is as much about social welfare and foreign aid as it is about bombs and bullets.
- tata71 5y ago> American defense spending is as much about social welfare and foreign aid So all the headlines regarding missing piles of cash and appeasements being given to local child-abusing warlords etc was just a one-time thing, or fake, or...
- thanatos519 5y agoThe military-industrial parasite that built your economy and feeds on perpetual war makes you the baddies. It's like cultural toxoplasmosis.
- 14 5y agoYes you are the baddies. And how 4 of your presidents have received the Nobel peace price makes me really question the integrity of such a prize. Drone strikes one day Nobel peace prize the other. You should automatically be disqualified the moment you call up a drone strike. There are literally hundreds of other contenders that are not responsible for killing children and innocent civilians that should get that prize instead.
- American12143 5y ago[flagged]
- DSingularity 5y agoThe Nobel peace price is a joke. So many of the winners have literally shed or facilitated the shedding of blood. -Henry Kissinger !!!!!!!!! -Menachem Begin ! -Aung San Suu Kyi !!! -Barack Obama -Abiy Ahmed
- American12143 5y ago>Are we the baddies? Yes, we are, and people will literally bury their heads in the sand every time our government cries about Russia, Iran, or China (despite the fact that none of those are invading any other countries). Not saying those countries never do bad things, but we are way worse, and even worse, we try to justify our actions with words like "democracy" and "freedom" which actually hurts those causes. There is so much innocent blood on America's hands from just the last two decades alone, its really quite something unfathomable everytime I hear one of those CIA people cry about what Russia or China is doing.
- ozfive 5y agoYES WE ARE! IT'S BEYOND ENOUGH! But pacifists are not served well throughout history. So defense is critical now.
- tinbad 5y agoYou must be kidding or willfully ignoring the atrocities committed by Russia just in the last decade or two (occupying Crimea, Afghanistan, wars in Chechnya, Georgia and likely Kazakhstan sometime soon) or China (Uyghurs). All in the sole interest of continuing their highly oppressive, dictatorial regimes.
- American12143 5y agoThe body counts are not even comparable. In Iraq, ALONE, the U.S. is estimated to have killed 1M+ civilians, between the sanctions it pushed before the 2003 war and the war itself. Here is Madeline Albright saying killing 500k+ kids in Iraq via sanctions was "worth the price" (despite the fact that those sanctions achieved nothing in terms of real political goals): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8 Edit: but you can flag my comments if that makes you feel better
- syki 5y agoWell, the U.S. did torture priests in Latin America because of their social justice views. We’ve overthrown governments to support banana companies and had no problems supporting Saddam gassing Kurds since he was fighting the Iranians. We supported Papa Doc and for a while Noriega. Our government has experimented on it’s own people and has been involved in the drug trade. We’ve tortured innocent people with no one being held accountable. We spy on a grand scale on our own citizens. We’ve supported dictators and brutality when the people in power thought it beneficial to do so. I don’t think we can claim any sort of moral superiority over others. I’m not saying we are the worst but certainly we are no where close to the best. We are not a light on a hill as some of our presidents have proclaimed.
- chernevik 5y agoNo. ISIS would kill innocents in these kinds of numbers _on_purpose_. They also made a policy of hiding among civilians with the express intention of increasing the collateral damage. They're really, really bad. We can and must do better. The brutality of an enemy doesn't justify this indifference to human life, nor the willful blindness, nor the dishonesty. But I expect that the vast majority of people in the region are glad ISIS lost.
- American12143 5y agoWow, we're better than ISIS, thats a relief! Really high standards you have there.
- dang 5y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamewar comments and breaking the site guidelines. That's not ok here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- American12143 5y agoIs flamewar just codeword for "opposing the dominant political ideology"? In which case, you are correct about me.
- dang 5y agoDefinitely not. We reply this way, moderate this way, etc., regardless of which ideological flag an account is flying.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ARandomerDude 5y agoCombat veteran here. One time I almost killed a civilian due to a split second misidentification. I didn't shoot because something just seemed a little "off" but to this day I'm not sure what. I'm so glad that I didn't shoot. No normal person wants to kill someone, and especially not a bystander. The problem is the people we fought did everything they could to look like civilians. They would carry trash bags full of bombs, and dress like women to hide weapons under loosely fitting clothing. This has the obvious effect of causing Americans to suspect normal, everyday activities as terrorist operations. Add to that the facts that things are hard to see at engagement distance and a failure to engage the enemy effectively will result in greater casualties on our side, and it's a recipe for misidentification. It turns out the woman I almost killed was "washing" her dishes in a pothole of a road after a rainstorm. I had never seen someone do that before and her dish was a large metal bowl that resembled a common type of armor piercing IED. I don't know why I didn't kill her. I can't imagine the regret I would feel had I taken her life.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoThanks for sharing. This is my experience serving over there as well. The enemy uses civilians as a shield as much as possible.
- DSingularity 5y agoThanks for sharing and I’m glad you and her are both okay. Well, who knows maybe somebody else ended up shooting her since the. I can’t help but feel like you are blaming the victims. The bottom line is that those are civilians who were killed by US military. When the most powerful military in the world invades and occupies a country it can’t expect its people to fight according to its rules and expectations. And when those occupied people indeed fight back it does not justify the killing hundreds of thousands of civilians by the US military.
- kongolongo 5y agoThe most powerful military in the world doesn't mean it can identify citizen from enemy combatants 100% of time. A lot of this is kinda meaningless to discuss without some sort of comparison to what other militaries false-positive rates are. Where is the US rank in mis-identification and accidental civilian killings in modern wars?
- simonblack 5y agoAre we the baddies? YES.
- tomjen3 5y ago>Are we the baddies? ISIS took civilians as sex slaves, sold them internally and _bragged about it_, so most assuredly no. They threw people suspected of being homosexual of roofs, they killed suspected traitors by drowning them in an iron cage and, lets not forget, they cut the heads of westerners and bragged about it on TV. Only difference between them and the Nazies was that they were only able to do this on a small scale and that the Nazis tried to cover up what they were doing. When you go to war, there are likely going to be civilian casualties. We should understand every one of these cases, ensure that mistakes are prevented and if somebody didn't follow orders they are punished. But if we are not willing to go to war over civilian casualties, those who don't care are going to rule everything.
- tata71 5y ago> if we are not willing to go to war over civilian casualties, those who don't care are going to rule everything. So...the people attacking your troops because of their civilian casualties — no issues, right?
- tomjen3 5y agoThat is frequently taken for granted, but I haven't seen actual evidence of it.
- tcmart14 5y agoAnd allies on the ground we worked with also had sex slaves..... [1] The issue here is, there are no saints. And to claim any side if being saintly is throwing up blinders. As a TLDR for the article. American soldier dismissed for incident involving an Afghan allie who spent money on "dancing boys" and had a young boy chained to a bed as a sex slave. Multiple incidents occured with other afghan militia allies, even on US Bases, US Military policy is essentially to ignore it. [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/military-overlooked-sexual-abuse-by-afghan-allies-investigation-says/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/military-overlook...