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+1. This does seem like an operation gone wrong, and I certanly condemn the killing of innocent civilians, but it's shocking how quick HN commenters are to thro

+1. This does seem like an operation gone wrong, and I certanly condemn the killing of innocent civilians, but it's shocking how quick HN commenters are to throw America under the bus based on reporting from a leak. There's so much information about this operation that we simply don't have, including the risk/benefit analysis, the other operations that were successes that we don't know about, etc. I'm not saying America is all good, but this thread is surprisingly anti-American.

simplesimon890 1y ago
Maybe try and shake the propaganda you've been ingesting all your life and it be clearer - Easily done by reversing the situation: North Korean special forces get ashore in the US to plant a listening device. They run into issues and are spotted by a boat. So they shoot the civilians, then puncture the lungs of the dead Americans so their bodies don't float, and escaped unharmed. Is throwing North Korea under the bus for this shocking ? I'm not saying North Korea is all good......
- richardfeynman 1y ago
  I see your point about reversing the situation (what if North Korea did the same?) and I agree that's a reasonable way to look at things. However, I disagree with your conclusion. If North Korean special forces were to violate US sovereignty by attempting to plant a listening device on the shores of California, and in the process killed some innocent American civilians, I would certainly condemn it. The reason for this is that it's obvious their values (suppress freedom, make the world more repressive, despotic, totalitarian, communist, and dictatorial) do not justify the collateral damage, whereas with the United States, their values, while imperfect, are much better for civilization, and therefore some collateral damage can be tolerated. To make this illustration even more stark, if Hitler sent some Nazis to the US to perform some sabotage and in the process killed some Americans, I would condemn it; but if Churchill sent some british forces to Germany to perform some sabotage, and in the process killed some innocent WW2-era Germans, I would be more understanding, for the simple reason that Churchill and Hitler were fighting for different things and had different values. Finally, you began your post with some nonsense about "maybe try and shake the propaganda you've been ingesting all your life." In the same way I don't know what propaganda you've ingested that leads you to equate the US with North Korea--or make assumptions about me--you don't know what, if any, propaganda I've ingested here in the south pacific, where I live. So let's stick to the arguments, assume some good faith, and not accuse each other of forming our opinions based on propaganda.
scarecrowbob 1y ago
Threads like this -make me- more anti-American. "I certainly condemn the killing of innocent civilians". No you don't. That's BS you're telling yourself so you can feel unconflicted about what should be a simple moral calculus. I am not sure what certifies your moral; God or logic or whatever that tells you that how you live your life is justified. I do know that I have morals, though. "Don't murder people" is pretty easy for me to justify categorically. If you have to put a big [*] next to that which says "if my boss tells me to kill someone, it's okay", then you really don't have any morals. That math is easy for most folks to do. The thing that probably keeps you from being able to do that math is some relative certainty that you personally will never have to be on the "risk/benefit analysis" board for these kinds of murderers. But that's an error.
- arcatech 1y ago
  So if you kill someone in self defense you simply don’t have any morals? What these agents did was obviously wrong, but how does it help to simplify morality like that?
  - scarecrowbob 1y ago
    I have a rather limited imagination, so I am having a hard time imagining a world where I kill one of my fellow humans and it doesn't cause me to question the morality of my actions. Being aware that people are of limited imagination, I often understand that folks want to make morailty more complicated because they can't imagine themselves receiving the violence of those complicated calculations. So my answer is "yes, if you are killing people and not questioning your actions, you are likely not a moral person." And your question begs another question: "how does it help to complicate those kinds of moral actions". From where I stand, a US-led death squad went and murdered some folks. That seems pretty easy to to understand, and complicating that discussion by adding in hypotheticals about "information about this operation that we simply don't have" such as (for instance) other "successful" illegal operations sounds absurd to me. Like, really, what do we gain in making the murder of fishermen into something complex: this is clearly and simply the murder of some people by professional killers hired by the US government, and it is yet another in several million discrete actions which makes me believe that the US government and the people who support it fundamentally have no morals.

simplesimon890 1y ago

Maybe try and shake the propaganda you've been ingesting all your life and it be clearer - Easily done by reversing the situation: North Korean special forces get ashore in the US to plant a listening device. They run into issues and are spotted by a boat. So they shoot the civilians, then puncture the lungs of the dead Americans so their bodies don't float, and escaped unharmed. Is throwing North Korea under the bus for this shocking ? I'm not saying North Korea is all good......

richardfeynman 1y ago
I see your point about reversing the situation (what if North Korea did the same?) and I agree that's a reasonable way to look at things. However, I disagree with your conclusion. If North Korean special forces were to violate US sovereignty by attempting to plant a listening device on the shores of California, and in the process killed some innocent American civilians, I would certainly condemn it. The reason for this is that it's obvious their values (suppress freedom, make the world more repressive, despotic, totalitarian, communist, and dictatorial) do not justify the collateral damage, whereas with the United States, their values, while imperfect, are much better for civilization, and therefore some collateral damage can be tolerated. To make this illustration even more stark, if Hitler sent some Nazis to the US to perform some sabotage and in the process killed some Americans, I would condemn it; but if Churchill sent some british forces to Germany to perform some sabotage, and in the process killed some innocent WW2-era Germans, I would be more understanding, for the simple reason that Churchill and Hitler were fighting for different things and had different values. Finally, you began your post with some nonsense about "maybe try and shake the propaganda you've been ingesting all your life." In the same way I don't know what propaganda you've ingested that leads you to equate the US with North Korea--or make assumptions about me--you don't know what, if any, propaganda I've ingested here in the south pacific, where I live. So let's stick to the arguments, assume some good faith, and not accuse each other of forming our opinions based on propaganda.

scarecrowbob 1y ago

Threads like this -make me- more anti-American. "I certainly condemn the killing of innocent civilians". No you don't. That's BS you're telling yourself so you can feel unconflicted about what should be a simple moral calculus. I am not sure what certifies your moral; God or logic or whatever that tells you that how you live your life is justified. I do know that I have morals, though. "Don't murder people" is pretty easy for me to justify categorically. If you have to put a big [*] next to that which says "if my boss tells me to kill someone, it's okay", then you really don't have any morals. That math is easy for most folks to do. The thing that probably keeps you from being able to do that math is some relative certainty that you personally will never have to be on the "risk/benefit analysis" board for these kinds of murderers. But that's an error.

arcatech 1y ago
So if you kill someone in self defense you simply don’t have any morals? What these agents did was obviously wrong, but how does it help to simplify morality like that?
- scarecrowbob 1y ago
  I have a rather limited imagination, so I am having a hard time imagining a world where I kill one of my fellow humans and it doesn't cause me to question the morality of my actions. Being aware that people are of limited imagination, I often understand that folks want to make morailty more complicated because they can't imagine themselves receiving the violence of those complicated calculations. So my answer is "yes, if you are killing people and not questioning your actions, you are likely not a moral person." And your question begs another question: "how does it help to complicate those kinds of moral actions". From where I stand, a US-led death squad went and murdered some folks. That seems pretty easy to to understand, and complicating that discussion by adding in hypotheticals about "information about this operation that we simply don't have" such as (for instance) other "successful" illegal operations sounds absurd to me. Like, really, what do we gain in making the murder of fishermen into something complex: this is clearly and simply the murder of some people by professional killers hired by the US government, and it is yet another in several million discrete actions which makes me believe that the US government and the people who support it fundamentally have no morals.