Common Dreams reports:
The U.S. government's so-called "pinpoint"(NYT paywall) drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen are, in fact, leaving wide perimeters of death, as people on the Kill List are targeted--and even reported dead--again and again, according to a report published Monday by the UK-based charity Reprieve.
While drone attacks and their victims are kept secret by the U.S. military and government, Reprieve compiled public information available, most of it from media reports and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, to determine who actually died when the U.S. went after individuals in Yemen and Pakistan between November 2002 and November 2014.
The study examines the cases of 41 people included on a Kill List--a classified U.S. assassination program personally approved by President Obama with no judicial or public oversight. According to the report's findings, up to 1,147 unnamed people were killed in pursuit of these 41 known individuals.
Furthermore, each of these 41 men was reported killed multiple times.
"This raises a stark question," states the study. "With each failed attempt to assassinate a man on the Kill List, who filled the body bag in his place?
Related Stories
Raw Story summarizes a New York Times report that Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as "trigger warnings," explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.
The debate has left many academics fuming, saying that professors should be trusted to use common sense and that being provocative is part of their mandate. Trigger warnings, they say, suggest a certain fragility of mind that higher learning is meant to challenge, not embrace. "Any kind of blanket trigger policy is inimical to academic freedom," said Lisa Hajjar, a sociology professor, who often uses graphic depictions of torture in her courses about war. "Any student can request some sort of individual accommodation, but to say we need some kind of one-size-fits-all approach is totally wrong. The presumption there is that students should not be forced to deal with something that makes them uncomfortable is absurd or even dangerous."
Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said, "It is only going to get harder to teach people that there is a real important and serious value to being offended. Part of that is talking about deadly serious and uncomfortable subjects."
A summary of the College Literature, along with the appropriate trigger warnings, assumed or suggested in the article is as follows: Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (anti-Semitism), Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" (suicide), "The Great Gatsby" (misogynistic violence), and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (racism).
Note: The Raw Story link was provided to provide an alternative to the article source, the New York Times, due to user complaints about the NYT website paywalling their articles.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:01PM
When they're wondering what is in the body bags, they should already know it's body parts of children. My biggest issue with the whole thing. Apparently the war on terror must include hundreds (possibly more than that) children and their mothers.
Drone strikes are inefficient and don't work. At least when the people operating it treat all the little dots on the screens as nothing more than NPCs that are expendable.
It's been clear for awhile that the US government treats drone strikes and the equipment as one large video game, and the players for whatever reason just simply see nothing human on the other end of the screens. That's my only explanation of how the US can keep on killing normal folks in the world that have nothing to do with terrorism.
I live with terrorists in my country too, and that doesn't make me a terrorist. Heck, I can't be. I don't even vote.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0, Troll) by frojack on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:35PM
You run with terrorists you get hit with terrorists.
The idea that a terrorist can forever escape the consequences of the death and destruction that they continue to impose on others by simply keeping some children around legitimates the human shield concept of warfare.
Be careful what you wish for.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Funny) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:48PM
Right on!
And that especially applies to the terrorists who use flying death robots to rain down bombs on innocent children, too -- amirite?
...wait, wut? Doesn't count if the children have a built-in suntan?
Well, I'll be damned. Never thought of that one....
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:11PM
So how do you deal with terrorist leaders? Let them be? The drone strikes cause collateral casualties, but they are effective with regards to the capabilities of the organizations that are targeted.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Dunbal on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:26PM
Actually it looks like the "terrorists" are the "collateral damage" if you look at the success rate. You realize that the end does not justify the means, right? Otherwise hey why not kill everyone in the country that way you'll be sure to get them...
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:11PM
Because nuking countries would probably get the US nuked in retaliation. The goal is to preserve American lives, the only lives that count, but murdering as many brown people as necessary to get to the terrorists. Brown people don't count, it's just that as I said you can't simply nuke them, so you have to use less efficient means.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 29 2014, @12:00PM
so the only reason you wouldn't nuke other countries is fear of retaliation?
that's good to know since i was under the apparently false impression that there was some kind of moral reason for not nuking other countries
heaven forbid america somehow develops countermeasures to foreign nukes... then there'll be nothing stopping you from nuking every other country that doesn't pander to your demands
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:59AM
The way you deal with terrorists is you try them in court. And the way you deal with war criminals is you try them in court. And unless you want to look silly, you should start with the biggest, meanest, most notorious terrorist and war criminal. Fortunately, he would be easy to locate. He lives near Dallas, and his name is Bush II. ~Anonymous 0x29B1D963
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:33PM
The drone strikes cause collateral casualties, but they are effective with regards to the capabilities of the organizations that are targeted.
Can you please define "effective" in this use? Maybe provide some comparison of terrorist capabilities 2002-2007 (before drones) and 2009-2014 (after drones). Some discussion of how well drones have restrained ISIL, for example. Or the number of terrorist attacks stopped because a particular "leader" was assassinated. I contend that the US assassination program is - at best - as good at stopping terrorist attacks as my anti-tiger charm is at stopping tiger attacks. I suspect that the US assassination program is much more useful to terrorist organizations as a recruiting tool than the "leaders" they have lost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:47PM
No doubt your logic is impeccable and well thought out and you'd say the same thing if the terrorist was sitting in a cafe frequented by western tourists, who had no idea there was a terrorist nearby.
I would suggest an alternative theory: the people who decided how and when to do the bombing are the ones most responsible for who gets killed by those bombs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:49PM
Sorry that was meant to be a reply to the person one level up. My Mistake.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:51PM
I'm glad that you were too busy that day to take charge of the Sandy Hook response team.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:43PM
You've opened up my eyes. All those women, children, and men at the wedding were not deserving of any mercy or justice. They were within like 50 miles of terrorists!!! It's perfectly reasonable to conclude that every single death, down to the toddlers, was justified because they were terrorists at the wedding. Now I feel better about it. Hmmmm.... those drones are expensive though dude. We already have a bunch of nuclear material lying around. How bout' we just kill em all and let God sort them out instead?
Don't get the impression that the intelligence work is top notch here. The assholes in charge have lowered the bar down so far for what can become a target. There is no situation in which the Pentagon was fully aware of the imminent hundreds of deaths of civilians and still ordered the strike. This was not a situation in which they knew civilians were being used as shields and fired anyways. Intelligence was caught unaware of the casualties, and their natures, in almost every single case in which civilians died. This was because, obviously, that just before the strike got there nobody gave a shit about what was on the ground once the decision was made. Nobody cared to verify targets because they could not ascribe any value whatsoever to the human beings there.
Obviously that doesn't work, and we can't go around offing children at weddings because we *thought* there might be a terrorist there. If you feel that way, then the children have become expendable in the goal of securing America.
Children are not expendable. Not even to fight terrorists. At least not remotely with drones. If you want to risk killing children, then do it face to face over there with soldiers at least. Not drinking a Fresca with central air and heating. So don't bring up logistics and strategy considerations as if it excuses the complete incompetence of the US military in choosing targets for their plethora of advanced weapons platforms. You will never convince me that the target selection and mission operations aren't anything but callous men deciding the fates of others, in ways that no general from World War II would even consider. Those generals were busy leveling Germany too. City by city.
This isn't the 1940s either. We have GPS, surveillance, and weapons systems quite capable of extremely precise targeting and execution. We don't even have an excuse in some cases to damage a wheat field 100 yards away. We can be that *good*. Those generals would have been appalled at the performance of the men under their command if the weapons system were that precise and they could have targeted only factories and Nazi supply lines, and somehow didn't.
Yet, if we are so capable of sophisticated destruction... why are innocent people dying? Explain to me how the billions we've spent on these systems are incapable of not killing women and children at weddings? The entire CIA has no kick ass Virginia farm boys willing to be there and verify targets before firing? Where's the SEALS? Where's Rambo?
It's so wrong from about every conceivable angle, including actual military performance irrespective of mission goals.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0, Troll) by frojack on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:24PM
Yes, yes, we all know that every group of terrorists shooting in the at aircraft air is instantly categorize as a wedding.
Run along son, stop being a useful idiot for these people.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:07AM
You're that guy from Robin Hood Men in Tights, aren't you? Let's see...
Yup, that's about as coherent as your ranting.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:01AM
You really just digging yourself in with the willful ignorance aren't you?
I guess the lottery payouts for the survivors were the Yemeni government just funding terrorism right? [washingtonpost.com]
* This incident is really just hilarious for people like you. They killed the man's son at the wedding, and they had been actively working on pro-Western goals and defeating terrorists in Yemen. I guess they were double agents!! Thankfully, the father is probably not still pretending to support the US *
Here's some journalism from the other side of the world [aljazeera.com]
You know I initially thought the drone strikes were a very good thing too. Then I kept hearing about the fuckups. One after the other.
I guess you're right... I mean what's a few dead bodies of children and allies as long as get that "reasonable" certainty that a terrorist gets killed?
Pull your head out of your ass. The people using these weapons systems are clueless heartless morons.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:21AM
You will never convince me that the target selection and mission operations aren't anything but callous men deciding the fates of others, in ways that no general from World War II would even consider. Those generals were busy leveling Germany too. City by city.
Their only question would be "How soon can we get this to the front lines?" Smart bombing alone is a game changer. Coupling it with instant feedback, no risk to military personnel, and a considerable loiter time, would make it instantly adopted by any competent general of that era.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:40AM
You misunderstand me. I agree with you.
A WWII general would have jumped at it, that much is obvious.
What I am saying is that the generals bombed entire cities simply because that was the best way to sabotage Germany and win the war. If you told a general that you didn't need to risk the lives of any soldiers, could attack with precision, and reduce all secondary damage and causalities, he would have absolutely. That same general would have marched you to a firing squad personally if you told him that not only the factories got hit, but that 3,456 civilians also lost their lives in the city. Why? That's not what the general asked for.
There is a serious issue with civilian casualties when you have the means and technologies to prevent it. Smart bombing is a game changer. I wish they would actually use it too.
As a final analogy, we are arguing about muskets and sniper rifles. A musketeer could be forgiven for accuracy and accidents. A sniper at average range hitting the wrong target can not. Our "snipers" are making themselves look like retarded Mr. MaGoos. Repeatedly.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @03:18PM
But if you merely kill wedding parties and scores of children you're just making things worse. Especially if you are killing people who think they will go to Jannah/heaven if they fight you.
And the other problem is who has the authority and ability to surrender for who? At least when you bombed Japan, the Emperor could say "Japan surrenders" and enough of the Japanese would accept that. When you drone strike a village wedding party, who surrenders? It's likely that after the strike a higher percentage of those in the village are now at war with you. The rest were probably not even your enemies in the first place. What do you really achieve other than giving promotions to a few terrorist lieutenants?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:16PM
The problem is that "smart" bombs are dumb bombs without REALLY good intel on the ground and wadda ya know, terrorists tend not to hang out with non terrorists which makes gathering any type or concrete intel damned near impossible.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:52PM
No doubt your logic is well thought out, and you'd say the same thing if the terrorist was bombed while sitting in a cafe frequented by western tourists, who had no idea there was a terrorist nearby.
Or are you suggesting every one of these victims knew that they were within the blast radius of a terrorist at the time?
I would suggest an alternative theory: the people who decide how and when to do the bombing are the ones most responsible for who gets killed by those bombs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:52AM
You run with terrorists you get hit with terrorists.
I find your lack of empathy disturbing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @06:22AM
Reading threshold set to 1. So pleasant.
And oh so deliciously ironic
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:38AM
Oblig, though not xkxd.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/09/muhammad-isis-iraqs-full-story.html [waitbutwhy.com]
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:05AM
1. That's xkcd
2. Linking to a page with 13 unnecessary images, 15 unnecessary stylesheets, and 22 unnecessary scripts to get one 100kB graphic?
Jesus Fucking Christ. Learn how to deep-link.
http://waitbutwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/caliphs-and-imams-1024x731.png [waitbutwhy.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday November 27 2014, @03:17PM
1. Oh noes, I typoed.
2. I did intend to link to the entire article, not just one image.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:50AM
At least when the people operating it treat all the little dots on the screens as nothing more than NPCs that are expendable.
Maybe this will help: #NotABugSplat [notabugsplat.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Moru on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:55AM
http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/ [pitchinteractive.com]
This only goes to the end of 2013 but still scary enough.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:06PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:09PM
Do you mean to imply that after a few 500-pound bombs hit a shack, there might be more than one victim, and it might be hard to identify the body parts?
Don't blame the military. It was widely reported that Al-Zarkawi was still alive after the first bomb. That's why you need a few more to be sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:21PM
"Furthermore, each of these 41 men was reported killed multiple times."
Easily explained: they respawned.
(My grip on reality is fine, why do you ask?)
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @09:40PM
... I'd crank up Machinae Supremacy's "Rocket Dragon" right now.
A few more souls to make my day, indeed.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zeigerpuppy on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:42PM
Why they "hate" us?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:26AM
There are more important questions to ask first.
The protesters in Ferguson, for instance, should be asking, "Why do thugs who physically attack armed police officers often get shot to death?"
When they figure out the answer to that question, they'll then be in the position to think about possible answers to the question you posed.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:52AM
Because they're idiots.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:09AM
Another important question that strongly supports your position:
Why do unarmed 7 year old girls get shot to death by police officers?
Must have been attacking him...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:17AM
Another important question that will completely support your position:
Why do seven year old girls get shot to death by armed police officers?
She must have been attacking him....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:33AM
"Why do thugs who physically attack armed police officers often get shot to death?"
Is this about Chris Dorner?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:08PM
Crusades. I don't think they'll be getting over it any time soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:57PM
They have no right to be doing this, especially in our name.
Screw these bastards and I hope they realize they are making the world hate us.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:01PM
Seems like that's what you get when religion runs a country.
When THAT is the best we can hope for...
it's time for that old 'kill em all let god sort it out' plan.
Which does make us just as barbaric.
But at least it's a little more clean and efficient and we're not hiding our insanity behind 'because god told us to'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:58PM
This is so true, praise Jesus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:56AM
It's an operation sponsored by the Christian "god" and the Jewish State of Israel.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday November 27 2014, @04:59AM
Any foreign policy based on killing children, whether intentionally (which is pure evil), or unintentionally but easily foreseen (collateral evil), will result in the destruction of the state that takes its up. Blowback is a bitch, made worse when your allies realize you have gone insane out of deep paranoia and will no longer back you. Except, of course, the already sociopathic allies like Britain, Italy, Spain, Chile, Yemen, Poland, Saudi Arabia, The Armenian Karadashians, and Croatia. They will back you, if you pay them. Paying people to "overlook" the killing of children. I have no words.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:26PM
Don't forget Pakistan. Do you think US bombs areas Pakistan without their consent? Sorry. The leadership of Pakistan may not know the targets in advance, but they agreed with the attacks. They only pretend otherwise, hoping that pretense will be enough to prevent a revolt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:35AM
"... on a Kill List--a classified U.S. assassination program personally approved by President Obama with no judicial or public oversight"
This is interesting -- so nobody can check this list, nobody can stop the process after it is personally approved by the President?
(Score: 1) by lizardloop on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:28PM
What bothers me is there is no accountability. At no point do we ever hear "This guy screwed up, got a bunch of civilians killed and so we are going to court martial him and put him in jail". All we get is "meh, sucks to be brown and live in a rural community".
You'll notice these drone strikes never occur in cities. Even though there are probably plenty of terrorists in cities. My theory (and it is just a theory) is that the people doing the bombing know most people will not care when some brown people in a dirt hut get hit by a missile. It's a situation far removed from their own urban or sub urban lives so they can't empathise.
But show a few pictures of a bombed out apartment block and suddenly everyone gets bent out of shape (see recent Israel/Palestine conflict). Seeing a wall missing, blood everywhere and a kitchen that looks scarily just like their own in ruins makes it feel a bit more "real".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:04PM
It's the boby count baby! Look how well it worked in Vietnam!