I guess you're right. Why even pretend we hold ourselves to a higher standard.
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NYU student tweeting drone strikes reveals U.S. war crimes
- Thread starter kame-sennin
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I guess you're right. Why even pretend we hold ourselves to a higher standard.
I would be willing to bet that a large majority of people don't even know that we are carrying out drone strikes in Pakistan. It is that under the radar because the political discourse in this country is so distracted by everything else.
They wouldn't care even if it did get coverage. They've changed the definition of militant so the semantics cover up the awful truth. I'm not sure why they'd take such measures as The Haditha Killings and that Collateral Damage video made it pretty evident that few care about treatment of human beings in that part of the world.
Then what do they say about it?
Edit: Didn't see Zebra's answer. Hm okay, that's... fucked up.
Father_Brain
Banned
For our freedom, of course.
It really is amazing that an election--which should have brought these issues to the table for a nationwide discussion--managed to actually distract us from noticing them at all.
We were too busy analyzing the way our candidates were sitting on their stools.
Most of the countries in the Middle East don't abide by strict Sharia. That isn't the problem.
MrGame&Watch
Member
Better and cheaper then an occupation. Guess what? Funerals for people we targeted contain other targets. They tend to be friends.
Americans only care about war when it directly impacts their life. "Terrorists" getting blown up halfway across the globe does little to affect people's day-to-day activities. The only reason Vietnam was protested so vigorously was because upper middle class whites were getting drafted, so they had a stake in ending the war. If it were only poor minorities getting drafted, I doubt the white college kids protesting would have given a shit. Nixon wanted to end the draft specifically for this reason. Once they were in no danger of getting drafted, the protest organizers would give up and go home, allowing Nixon to continue the war as planned.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Tell that to the face of the children that were killed there.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Not this shit again.
Messofanego
Banned
Kenshin001
Member
I know that is supposed to make me feel guilty or something but it doesn't. It's unfortunate those kids were born into that society. I know the Taliban recruit children into their ranks and train them to become soldiers and suicide bombers. They really are a sick group.
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
welcome to the real world my fellow americans.
The real world isn't black and white.
The real world isn't black and white.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Its sickening to handwave the fact that innocents are killed by the dozens just by the sentence, "eh, its war." Or for us to stop feeling wrong when circumstances and situation forced the children/innocents to be there at that time and place, marking the incident them getting killed mercilessly as solely "unfortunate." I guess we should stop feeling sorry to all the people born/forced into unfortunate situation all around the world then, even if that's not their fault at all to begin with.
Also sickening to actually think that the families/friends of a member of Taliban mourning his/her death automatically qualifies/justifies them being shot to death by an unmanned drone.
I guess it's true: when it's happening so far away to people you don't even know or care about then the price of a person's life immediately turns to nothing.
Are you being willfully ignorant because you don't want to feel guilty, or do you really just think that everyone who dies in a drone strike deserves to die?
Phoenix
Member
These issues were never set up for nationwide discussion (and will never be brought up) because all of the candidates that had a chance of winning the election support exactly what is going on right now.
Terra Firma
Banned
Didn't you recently use Taliban standards to justify these drone strikes? How does that make you any better than them?
At least they're sick because of necessity - they don't have a way out. You and those who support these drone strikes knowingly are sick because of a pathological condition.
Phoenix
Member
That's about as constructive an argument as saying that you have a pathological condition because you permit people in your country to have eating disorders while there are starving people in the world. There is no black or white to this situation and no easy "just stop the drone strikes" solution out there. If you believe this, you're truly being disingenuous.
phosphor112
Banned
I'm sure someone already responded, but do you think they LET them? Also, the approval rate of Obama in Pakistan is shit.
Kenshin001
Member
I feel bad that the Taliban forced the kids to be there or that the people choose to support the Taliban. That is unfortunate. Hopefully they will turn against the Taliban. It's funny you mention feeling sorry for people less fortunate because I sponsor a Cambodian child who was born into an unfortunate situation. There is a country that has fought and renounced barbarity and is building a bright future. How about you? What do you do?
Of course that's true.
Phoenix
Member
Pakistan hasn't lodged any protests with the UN or tried to shoot down the drones so its hard to say that they oppose the action. They may at best be begrudgingly tolerating it, but they definitely don't oppose it.
If only the world were that clear cut. You appear to have a child-like understanding of the situation and your funding of a Cambodian child, while admirable, does nothing to help the case that you are being ignorant.
Come on now. Charity is great, but you can't buy moral superiority for a dollar a day. It has very little to do with military actions that have a pretty poor record when it comes to civilian casualties.
It goes beyond the double-tap, which specifically targets first-responders. With a signature strikes they don't even have specific targets in mind, they'll just attack somewhere they think might have some militants. The general policy behind those is "kill them first and sort it out later". This tends to result in a lot of collateral damage, and even the death of innocent US citizens. They go out of their way to fudge the numbers so it doesn't look as bad in official numbers.
The Pakistani government tolerates it. People who are at risk of being blown apart have much stronger opinions, but what they think really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
Mr.Squirrel
Tom
America doesnt hold itself to a higher standard. It never has, it's just rhetoric.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Hahaha, so you want to turn this into a dick-waving contest? Oh my.
SolidsnackooFoxhound
Banned
After reading this,
My first thought was:
All I need is one blunt, one page, and one pen
One prayer - tell God forgive me for one sin
Matter of fact, maybe more than one.. look back
At all the hatred against me: fuck all of them
Jesus died at age 33, there's 33 shots
From twin Glocks there's sixteen apiece, that's 32
Which means one of my guns was holding 17
27 hit your crew. 6 went into you
Everybody gotta die sometime; hope your funeral
Never gets shot up, bullets tear through the innocent
Nothing is fair, niggas roll up, shooting from wheelchairs
My heart is racing, tasting revenge in the air
I let this shit slide for too many years, too many times
Now I'm strapped with a couple of macs, too many 9s
If y'all niggas really with me get busy load up the semis
Do more than just hold it explode the clip until you empty
There's nothing in our way - they bust, we bust, they rush, we rush
Lead flying, feel it? I feel it in my gut
That we take these bitches to war, lie em down
Cause we stronger now, my nigga, the time is now
All i need is one mic : ).
Deified Data
Banned
We're the United States of America. Pakistan can't just say "no". What do you think would happen if they did? If the UN told us to stop? The drones are here to stay, regardless of whether Pakistan cooperates or not.
Well, that might explain why Pakistan was one of only two countries in the entire world that supported Romney over Obama. Not like Romney would have been any better. Anyway, this has to stop. The one key area I've always strongly disagreed with Obama is foreign policy. You guys might be killing some terrorists, but I guarantee you you're creating more. When so many countless innocent people are losing lives, family members, loved one's etc, it's no wonder they turn to hatred and worse. Heinous.
Just stopping the drone strikes is a pretty good solution, and is far better than the current policy of not stopping the drone strikes.
Amibguous Cad
Member
When one party wants drone strikes and the other party wants more drone strikes, there isn't much attention given to it. Welcome to the 2 party system.
Deified Data
Banned
Let's not pretend they're not both in agreement as far as the drone war is concerned. We're seeing the same thing under Obama now that we'd have seen under Romney.
The war on terror is way too similar to the war on drugs: A complete failure hidden behind insignificant "victories" with a massive human costs that only gets worse with time.
Monumental
Banned
Shit like this makes me sorry for Americans in the next 15-20 years. When the children and relatives of those innocents grow up with their hate for America as the only motivator. When technology becomes even more lethal. Every drone strike, every innocent mother, daughter, wife, son, brother, and father murdered creates a new terrorist. May God have mercy on us all.
curlyfriski
Banned
Lolololol. You sponsor a Cambodian child (because the Cambodians are the good ones!), so that means its ok to support killing civilians overseas.
And war does not mean you can do whatever the fuck you want. Not that the "war on terror" really counts as a war.
Both of them are stupid, open-ended conflicts that will never end because they are issues that can't be solved by military solutions.
Phoenix
Member
So you would argue that there is no strategic or tactical value to them and that the US is attacking just because it can?
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
cause conservatives did such a great job of holding Bush accountable for his bullshit.
KillerMan91
Member
''As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.''
Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson
GhostWriter24
Member
And then they remove that mask and find out it's Joan Rivers.
but the GOP was in favour of bombing. The Dems campaigned against it when Bush was in office and now it's their guy they don't even talk about the issue.
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
Harvey Dent. (Lol.)
I think the US passed in to that villain territory some while back. Illegal war based on lies, countless innocents slain, unlawful imprisonment of hundreds or thousands without trial, guantanamo, torturing, abu ghraib, drone strikes on innocents, countless human rights breaches, the annihilation of entire countries, cities, towns and villages, etc etc.
Well said.
'Eh, it's war. People die all the time.'
I really don't understand this train of thought but it seems to come up regularly whenever the statistics of war casualties are brought up. Al Qaeda's 911 strike was a declaration of war, so should we just shrug off all those innocent lives lost just because it was war? Of course not.
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