When he was in office, former President Barack Obama earned the ire of anti-war activists for his expansion of Bush's drone wars. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning head of state ordered ten times more drone strikes than the previous president, and estimates late in Obama's presidency showed 49 out of 50 victims were civilians. In 2015, it was reported that up to 90% of drone casualties were not the intended targets.
Current President Donald Trump campaigned on a less interventionist foreign policy, claiming to be opposed to nation-building and misguided invasions. But less than two months into his presidency, Trump has expanded the drone strikes that plagued Obama's "peaceful" presidency.
"During President Obama's two terms in office, he approved 542 such targeted strikes in 2,920 days—one every 5.4 days. From his inauguration through today, President Trump had approved at least 36 drone strikes or raids in 45 days—one every 1.25 days."
That's an increase of 432 [sic] percent.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @02:07PM (75 children)
Why exactly are attacks by UAVs worth mentioning as opposed to attacks via other means? There's nothing special about using a UAV vs. any other death delivery method.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday March 20 2017, @02:21PM (27 children)
It's a disproportionate use of force. You can spam as many drone attacks as you want without risking American lives (unless you are killing American citizens with them). That's why the Chair Force is now the Drone Force [reuters.com].
Drones could be equipped with some nonlethal means of subduing targets for later pickup, but that's either not feasible or not seriously considered. As an easy and convenient way of dealing death, there are no obvious consequences [theintercept.com] of increasing the amount of drone strikes.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @02:37PM (6 children)
1) It can be, but is not necessarily, disproportionate.
2) So what? Force should always be used in an overwhelmingly disproportionate manner or it shouldn't be used at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @03:09PM (1 child)
I think he prefers general carpet bombing and leveling the city as a whole. It is more fair to people because they all have an equal shot of getting it. With drones, the civilians who hang around high value targets have unfair odds.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 20 2017, @08:13PM
Sounds like somebody drank the military's kool-aid.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147 [theguardian.com]
https://www.justsecurity.org/33333/drones-accurate-piloted-aircraft-2/ [justsecurity.org]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/obama-continue-signature-strikes-drones-civilian-deaths [theguardian.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @08:29PM (1 child)
So, what you're saying is, if someone walks up to you and starts punching you, you should either completely ignore it, or go on a rampage and kill every living thing within 50 miles.
Got it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @09:17PM
No, I am saying you should beat them so badly that they never consider doing it again though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:45AM (1 child)
Whenever the antagonist is sitting in a chair 12,000 miles away from the target, that is disproportionate and especially cowardly.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:29PM
You're thinking in terms of fair. That is not just wrong but downright idiotic when it comes to war.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @02:48PM (10 children)
I suppose you're against hunting while making use of firearms or crossbows. Are you okay with cattle chutes and captive-bolt guns?
As for humans: maybe you'd like it if all combatants used muskets and lined up in neat rows on an open field?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday March 20 2017, @04:05PM (9 children)
Agreed.
Or if they all stayed in a couple of buildings: you know, towers or such. Two towers, looking much the same, like...oh... yeah! Twin towers.
You could planes into those twin looking towers, and if you kill a few civilians, well.... what is the problem.
FUCK!!!
It doesn't matter if innocents are killed, does it? I mean, really? If your cause is good: like oil.... lots of oil. Own the oil: Pwn it even. No matter what.
Drone, plane. Same.
FUCK... most intelligent species on Earth, my white/black/yellowpurple ass.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @04:53PM (8 children)
The point is: if you have cause to use force, use the amount of force necessary to bring the conflict to an end in the shortest possible time. If that means use of wildly disproportionate force, then so be it.
The question YOU are focused on (and one which I ignored up until now) is whether or not force should be used in certain cases. Therefore your issue is not US soldiers' use of drones to blow certain people up - it is US soldiers' killing of certain people in the first place regardless of the method used to kill them. That's an entirely different matter from the use of "disproportionate force", and a matter which you and I are likely to be in general agreement on.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @05:18PM (3 children)
> If that means use of wildly disproportionate force, then so be it.
Nuke the whole Middle-East!
Nobody will ever be resentful for collateral damage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @08:59PM (2 children)
TFA is talking about drones here: little [wikipedia.org] go-karts [wikipedia.org] in the sky carrying a few missiles, each bearing a ~10kg conventional warhead [wikipedia.org].
That said, to respond to your attempted reductio ad absurdum: if there is a group of people, largely concentrated in specific geographical areas, who adhere to written religious materials [prophetofdoom.net] that literally call for a world-wide war [quran.com] until "all religion is for [our god]", who consider lying to advance their case as moral [thereligionofpeace.com], whose religion could be thoroughly disproven by destruction of specific physical property on lands they inhabit, and whose members actively [wikipedia.org] engage [thereligionofpeace.com] in warfare [markhumphrys.com] or support those who do [wikipedia.org], yes, it does seem wise to take such peoples' claims and actions at face value and nuke them and their lands to glass. (That US soldiers kill such people in small numbers and for different reasons (oil/mercantilism) is nonetheless objectionable.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @10:14AM (1 child)
Leave Trump/Congress out of this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:39PM
I see what you're trying to say, that "Trump/Congress" is trying to take over the world through war. So let's run with your assertion for the moment:
Are you paying taxes ("zakat") to the US federal government? If so, it would seem that you are personally responsible for a measure of the warlike actions taken by said government's soldiers, and that while you personally may not be the most effective war target, you are nonetheless a valid war target for the enemies of the USA due to your direct financial support.
"But but the Internal Revenue Service will steal my stuff and/or point guns at me!" Giving into criminal coercion doesn't make you a good guy, though it does make you a coward.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday March 20 2017, @05:21PM (3 children)
No, it's not just a case of whether force but used. It is a matter of what kind of force.
If drones kill 49 civilians for every 1 legitimate target, well that seems like a pretty shitty way of doing it. Are there ways of reducing the number of innocent victims? Probably. Boots on the ground might do it - I'd reason that a guy standing in front of the target is probably less likely to take out a building full of innocents than a guy splatting bug on a computer screen half a world away, who can only see the target through a grainy camera from a thousand feet up.
Trouble is, one of those situations risks the lives of US soldiers, and the US public seem unwilling to accept that. They would rather see a school full of Syrians blown up than a single flag-draped coffin borne back to the US. That is seriously wrong thinking in my view.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @08:46PM
A century of the Good Guy killing countless Bad Guys and being rewarded by Getting The Girl will warp people's perception of what's appropriate.
The other side is worthless evil wasteland. Our soldiers are Heroes. Why risk even one Hero on the odd chance that he would save a few anonymous people? Those who live near Bad People in The Wasteland are guilty too, otherwise they'd move.
We'd tell the rare good people in those lands to run away so we can carpet-bomb the useless place to smithereens, but they keep asking us to move into Our Paradise.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:48AM (1 child)
This is why drone wars are so evil - they let one side escape the horror of war and thus perpetuate it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:50AM
A Taste of Armageddon [wikia.com] aside, I now presume you will take up an inferior weapon (one on par with the opponents) and charge manfully into their bayonet-equivalents? Y'know, since it'd be wrong for you to escape the horrors of war...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20 2017, @03:22PM (6 children)
There is no such thing a "disproportionate force". Any Marine can tell you, "A fair fight is a fight you come home from." Meet force with overwhelming force. Anything else is just chickenshit. If you have a thousand troops, and I show up with ten thousand troops, I offer you a chance to surrender. That's the gentlemanly thing to do. If you refuse to surrender, then kiss your ass goodbye.
The rest of that sentence touches on the more serious problem with drone strikes. They smack of cowardice. We're Okay with killing them, but we're to skeered to face them while we kill them? Drones don't make me proud, and I'd be surprised if very many veterans are proud of our drone forces.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @03:29PM
I'm neither proud nor ashamed of them. They're just a weapon. They're no more cowardly than wearing body armor or using artillery though. Using them where they can keep a human from being killed is just common sense.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:33PM (1 child)
Depends on your point of view. For the people on those dusty roads the drones are shooting at, the USA is considered the terrorists.
Imagine that an explosive device goes off in your neighborhood targeting some "enemy of ". I think you would be a little upset, and you would certainly be calling whoever sent it the terrorists. Imagine further that a family member gets caught in the radius, and the sender shrugs and says "sorry?".
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @08:59PM
Sender won't say sorry. Never admit guilt or confirm involvement in anything that could bring lawsuits.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snospar on Monday March 20 2017, @05:42PM (2 children)
Perhaps it's just terminology but I definitely think these drone strikes represent "disproportionate civilian casualties". Remember, we are not at war with these countries and all those civilian casualties are non-combatants so your drone is murdering 49 innocents in the hope of hitting one bad guy. I don't think that's a reasonable ratio in anyone's book. The more I think about it the more it starts to sound like a war crime... except, again, we are not at war with these countries just with "terror" or whatever nonsense is currently being pedalled.
Surely we could strap a sniper rifle to a drone and do a much more surgical strike - or come up with some other method of drastically reducing the civilian casualties.
Huge thanks to all the Soylent volunteers without whom this community (and this post) would not be possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @06:54PM (1 child)
Not that I have any ethical issue with the current situation, but sniper drones are way more affordable.
A gun the size of an M-16 mounted like the cannons on the AC-130 would be great. It could even be buried in the wing for aerodynamics.
If we got it down to a 3-foot wingspan, it could be dirt cheap. We could have swarms of them that automatically shoot anything that moves. This could be as effective as carpet bombing and nukes, but way more environmentally friendly. We could obliterate whole countries this way.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:43AM
I like your idea, but you'll never sell it to the military industrial complex. Everyone involved insists on having big booms and flashes, high body counts, and tons of money flowing. Killing one person, dirt cheap, in an unnoticeable way, is anathema to their way of business.
(Score: 2) by Jiro on Monday March 20 2017, @05:40PM
Drones could be equipped with some nonlethal means of subduing targets for later pickup
Such as? All "nonlethal" methods short of "drop a net on them" have a chance of killing the target, incluiding electric shocks, gas, and concussions; life isn't like the movies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @09:33PM
Not disproportionate, indiscriminate. Puts targets and innocents into the same bin.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Monday March 20 2017, @02:42PM (40 children)
Why exactly are attacks by UAVs worth mentioning as opposed to attacks via other means? There's nothing special about using a UAV vs. any other death delivery method.
Without ground-side intelligence, what exactly is the US hitting? It's the usual air power-only problem. There's not much point to what you can destroy, if you don't know what you are hitting.
Also this shows the problem of allowing the US President to accumulate power. We let Obama get away with playing with drones. Now, Trump can take that to the next level.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @02:49PM (19 children)
Exactly. So why single out UAVs?
I don't disagree but again this is has nothing exclusively to do with UAVs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 20 2017, @03:02PM
Exactly. So why single out UAVs?
Well, that seems to be most of what is flying out there and a key part of the intelligence gathering tactics.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20 2017, @03:24PM (5 children)
"Exactly. So why single out UAVs?"
At least an air crew puts their asses on the line. Whether the craft has one, or ten men aboard, the crew takes some risk, however minimal that risk might be. UAV's are pretty chicken.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @03:31PM (4 children)
I guess so are body armor, night vision, artillery, missiles, and anything else that isn't an absolutely equal fight then...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
Men in armor die, men with goggles die, artillery men die. Missiles - ehhh. No drone operator is going to die as a result of enemy action.
And, BTW, I didn't call for a "fair fight". There is no such thing as a "fair fight". The fight you win is "fair".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:02PM
Then you seem to be begging your own question.
Personally if I'm guessing where you're coming from, I think I agree with you. Maybe. TMB seems to be getting to the crux of the question.
I'll have to review the arc of Gundam Wing where mobile dolls [wikia.com] were important. I think what Gundam Wing was trying to say was that the human soul was important, so then we got the ZERO system [wikia.com] which allowed Zechs and Heero to battle it out in an AMV [youtube.com] set to a remix of Duel of the Fates from SW:TPM.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:53AM (1 child)
There is at least some element of fair chase when the killers can be killed. Then they come home crippled and fucked up and people start thinking, maybe we shouldn't do this to our own people.
With drones, the pussies are half the world away, snug and safe. The horror never comes home, making it easier to perpetuate horror abroad.
Secondly, you really think drone tech is going to be US only for long? It sets a really ugly precedent especially when an arduino and $50 worth of sensors will get you a fairly well guided anything - quadcopter, glider, whatever. This is going to get out of hand.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:27PM
Yes, I'm sure they said the same thing about strapping a board to your arm back when shields were first invented too. It was an idiotic, Luddite position then and it still is now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @03:45PM (11 children)
> Exactly. So why single out UAVs?
What is exactly is your point?
You seem to be implying that this increase is not worth reporting because of something that was left out of the reporting.
So what exactly should have been reported?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @04:51PM (5 children)
And how exactly are you supposed to go after the terrorists? Massive ground campaign like was done before? Ignore them and hope they don't spread like they've shown they did? So if these drone strikes are so evil, and they get stopped, then what? Compare the unfortunate civilian deaths from drone strikes to the civilian deaths from all your alternatives and tell us what the best option is (make sure to include the horrific atrocities against civilians from doing nothing).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:00PM
That's not an answer to the question.
Feel free to try again.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @05:29PM (3 children)
Oh, that's an easy one!
You go after terrorists by demonstrating the lack of legitimacy of the cause, and fixing the conditions that allow them to fester.
If someone is in the "fuck this shitty life, I'd rather die gloriously" mode, blowing up their associates, a wedding, or some religiously-related asshole halfway across their country isn't about to deter them...
"When I grow up, I want my head to land 107 yards away from the fine cloud of particles gently drifting in the wind away from where my body was" said no child raised in a non-oppressive place, ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:25PM (2 children)
Interesting. What's your 'Plan B'?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:46PM (1 child)
We found the 'murrican!
Seriously. I tell you to stop pissing off people so much that they want to hurt you from half a world away, with only low-tech weapons and suicidal idiots, and your interpretation is that it's not possible to purge the world from "evil"?
With that level of education and thinking, the 100-year war is gonna stop being about them damn brits losing to frogs...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @06:32PM
Gee, I didn't realize that 'murrica was responsible for all the oppression that produces terrorists. Mayhaps terrorists' socio-political system has something to do with it, too?
(Tongue-in-cheek response aside, yes, the USA needs to stop its crimes of meddling with foreign countries. I've ceased supporting the US government financially, and encourage others to consider doing the same since fully 75% of its funds come straight from working-class individuals.)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @05:06PM (4 children)
I'm outright stating that it is not worth reporting specifically any more than the number of rounds fired by soldiers is worth reporting. It's irrelevant trivia. It was only reported because "drone" is a scary word.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @08:56PM (1 child)
Well, soldiers firing their weapons in anger in a foreign country typically do it with the close collaboration of at least one of the local parties, or we have an international incident.
For example, when Israel or Russia go around raiding their neighbors, there are formal -if useless- protests.
US drones regularly blow up lots of people based on a US decision and execution, just because fuck-you-i-can, and we're now transitioning from "regularly" to "routinely" (aka Almost Daily).
That's totally worth reporting, analyzing, discussing, and sincerely being worry about.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @09:16PM
The attacks, yes. Singling out a method of attack, like TFA, is the irrelevant bit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @11:02PM (1 child)
> any more than the number of rounds fired by soldiers is worth reporting.
If we quadrupled the number of rounds used that would be worth reporting because it too would indicate a significant change in conditions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @11:20PM
No, it wouldn't. "Soldiers now fire FOUR TIMES as many bullets!" is yawn-inducing for all but the most diehard of nitpickers.
It was pretty much a yawn when the GAO stated that the US military uses a quarter million rounds of ammunition to kill a single "insurgent" [jonathanturley.org], back in 2011.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday March 20 2017, @03:08PM (17 children)
Without ground-side intelligence, what exactly is the US hitting? It's the usual air power-only problem. There's not much point to what you can destroy, if you don't know what you are hitting.
The difficulty ... came from the impossibility of landing any efficient force or, indeed, any force at all from the air-fleet. ... From above they could inflict immense damage; they could reduce any organised Government to a capitulation in the briefest space, but they could not disarm, much less could they occupy, the surrendered areas below.
...
She was the first of the great cities of the Scientific Age to suffer by the enormous powers and grotesque limitations of aerial warfare. ... it was impossible to subdue the city except by largely destroying it. The catastrophe was the logical outcome of the situation, created by the application of science to warfare. It was unavoidable that great cities should be destroyed.
...
And so our Bert Smallways became a participant in one of the most cold-blooded slaughters in the world’s history, in which men who were neither excited nor, except for the remotest chance of a bullet, in any danger, poured death and destruction upon homes and crowds below.
From "The War in the Air", H G Wells, 1907.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:15PM (16 children)
The difference here is that we don't desire to annex land or otherwise work with the population. It wouldn't be possible even with boots on the ground. We just need them dead, so air war is fine.
I guess in theory you could subdue them, but you'd have to run the place like North Korea or worse. You'd have to enforce religious control. Probably atheism won't stick, so you'd need to go Hindu or Buddhist or Protestant or invent something. Scientology would work, but that isn't much of an improvement. You'd need mandatory carefully-enforced rituals, probably involving things like pork. That gives them a choice: believe that your pork-tainted self is going to Hell, or give up on Islam and not feel doomed to Hell.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday March 20 2017, @08:11PM (15 children)
We just need them dead, so air war is fine.
And there was me thinking that the American nation had lost its collective sense of compassion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @11:10PM (13 children)
Compassion comes from the soul of a willing human; it is not extracted at gunpoint by government tax collectors as you seem to believe.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 21 2017, @10:05AM (12 children)
Just out of interest, exactly how do you plan to compassionately murder all the dirty foreigners without a government funded military?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:58PM (11 children)
You apparently posed your question under the false impression that I support either a "government-funded" military or murder.
Firstly, the US government has no funds of its own - it steals fully 75% of its resources directly from working-class individuals via income taxes [usgovernmentrevenue.com] (when honestly including FICA/Social Security and "employer-paid" taxes, as the employee is the person paying the "employer-paid" tax in the form of lower gross pay).
Secondly, assuming you live, work, and pay taxes within the USA, you are personally responsible for the actions of the US military by your willing cooperation and continual funding. As you are presumably just one unremarkable individual, your slice of the responsibility is small when split among the ~100 million others who are also doing what you are, but you remain personally responsible nonetheless.
So, those assumptions made, the question is not why I support murdering dirty foreigners via the US military - it's: why are you paying to have dirty foreigners murdered? (Remember, "just following orders" is no excuse, even if the "orders" came to you from the IRS.)
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:26PM (10 children)
Not from the US, thankfully. Not particulary happy about how my government spends my tax money, but other than voting and bitching on the internet, there's not a great deal I can do.
I assumed you were the same AC supporting the genocide of Muslims elsewhere in this thread.
Tax =/= Theft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:17PM (9 children)
Understandable. (#481837 [soylentnews.org] and #482082 [soylentnews.org] are from me.) I should probably start logging in to post...
Slavery, then. This seems to be the actual foundations of most nations on earth, inasmuch as they were all conquered and ruled by force. I do live within the USA, and for a nation which apparently won its independence and established government only upon the delegation of authority from independant and free individuals, taxation can only be exactly equal to theft. If I can't take half my neighbor's production using threats of imprisonment or death, how then can I delegate that same power which I do not have my own self to anyone else?
1. Islam is not a race.
2. When examining the fundamental "perfect" written doctrine of Islam [prophetofdoom.net], it's quite clear that the mass extermination of all self-declared Muslims would be simple self-defense. Motive, opportunity, and ability have all been thoroughly documented in history both past [wikipedia.org] and near-present [wikipedia.org]. (I'd still prefer to talk Muslims out of supporting and following their murderous quest for literal world domination, but I don't really expect success from reason. Yes, this also means the weapons used should be privately-owned, including nukes!)
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:31PM (8 children)
When your best defence against accusations of genocidal intent is to start picking holes in the definition of genocide, then the point is moot - you are a monster either way.
Your wacky UtraRandian economic hyperbole makes you a crazy monster.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:54PM (7 children)
Your opinion, yourself, and I can all live together on earth in peaceful harmony along with my arsenal, as long as no one starts making threats against my life, be they plain old criminal threats or ones taken up out of the ancient claimed writings of a camel-humping child molester. See how easy things can be when dealing with fundamental elements and good ol' personal responsibility?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:11PM (6 children)
Trouble is, I don't trust claims of "personal responsibility" from genocidal lunatics. You've just openly stated that you'd happily exterminate about a billion and a half people you've never met, simply because you perceive them as threatening. THAT IS NOT SANE. What happens when you decide that my demographic is a bit scary? Fuck you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:43PM (2 children)
That's fine - you don't have to. Might I suggest that you take up arms yourself so that if I ever declare that I am going to murder you and/or take your stuff by force, that you have the means to deter or stop me? 'Cause I already have my weapons, and I'm not going to give them up. (What, were you just about to suggest murdering me as an alternative option?)
Lies are not the tools of reasonable people. I explicitly [soylentnews.org] wrote that I'd "prefer to talk Muslims out of supporting and following their murderous quest for literal world domination", quite different from "happily exterminate". The second falsehood might be due to your ignorance on Islamic fundamentals, but "perceive as threatening" is not the correct word to use when "perfect" Islamic doctrine calls for a literal world war until Islam alone left as a socio-political system - and when my country has been under attack by Muslims since shortly after its establishment [wikipedia.org]. If someone calls for my death because I won't put my ass up for their god, has attacked and murdered people like me before for the same reason, and has and continues to expand their possession of the means to actually kill me, my use of force against such a person is deemed "self-defense" in most of the rational world. Muslims are not merely perceived as threatening - they are literally threatening. (I'd gladly welcome "reform Muslims" who turn away from their Islamic mandate for world war and domination... except then such people would have ceased to be Muslims.)
One of us is openly lying and employing emotion-based attacks while at the same time attempting to determine the sanity of another who is attempting to employ reason and critical thinking. A more appropriate word for your use may be "abnormal", and sadly, I would probably then agree with you.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 21 2017, @05:23PM (1 child)
What, were you just about to suggest murdering me as an alternative option?)
Hell no. I'd have local law enforcement arrest you and subject you to a mandatory mental health review, leading to your eventual incarceration. Yay taxes!
I explicitly wrote that I'd "prefer to talk Muslims out of support
Fine, I accept that only reluctantly would you murder a fifth of the human race to allay your hysterical paranioa.
o use when "perfect" Islamic doctrine calls for a literal world war
Your "perfect islamic doctrine" smacks of "no true scotsman". Of all the numerous diverse peoples calling themselves muslims (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_branches), many of whom disagree amongst themselves about who is truly a muslim, YOU get to decide who is a muslim and who isn't, and you just happen to cherrypick the scariest, most threatening extremist definition you can find, to which only a minority of muslims adhere. You can then use that to lump ALL muslims together into your killzone for convenient, guilt-free genocide.
my country has been under attack by Muslims since shortly after its establishment.
Your link to the barbary pirates is laughable. Piracy is a crime, not a war. By that logic, every violent crime ever committed by a Christian in the US is proof of an ongoing religious war by christianity. Also, your own link tells me that Barbary piracy ended around 1830, leaving a hole of almost two hundred years in your perceived perpetual war.
Here's a suggestion: Get online now, and look up your local mosque. Go and knock on the door. (For fuck's sake leave your guns and nukes at home.) Open with something like "Hi. I've read a lot of bad stuff about Islam online, but I prefer to form my opinions based my own experience. Do you think I could come in and learn about what goes on here?" Start a conversation. Maybe make a friend. Believe me, it will do you a world of good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @06:17PM
You wish to deploy lethal force against me, with the aim of kidnapping and caging me? I'd prefer you change your mind and leave in peace those who aren't threatening others. Otherwise, if you ever find yourself in a position to influence the actions of individual members of US law enforcement while continuing to espouse such threats, you'd make yourself a perfect target for the legitimate use of deadly force in self-defense. You are also showing signs of Stockholm Syndrome, in your cheering of taxes (assuming you actually pay them and aren't subsidized by them, in which case you would merely be a beneficiary of theft/slavery).
Perhaps I should have been more verbose to clarify: I certainly make no claim that Islam is in any way perfect. Islam claims itself to be perfect and unchangeable. As I disagree with claims of "Islamic perfection", I used quotation marks to short-handedly denote "so-called perfect" and my disagreement with the same. Islam is vile and evil; I weep for the souls enslaved by it.
It's a good thing that I'd written "under attack by Muslims" rather than "under attack by Barbary pirates", then, eh? As for piracy being a crime and not a war, well, Thomas Jefferson disagreed with you [wikipedia.org] (and perhaps surprisingly to you, I disagree with Thomas: the merchants should have banded together privately to provide for their own defense in international territory rather than becoming subsidized by governments). As for gaps in attacks after winning the Barbary Wars - of course! The attacking Muslims were defeated, their soldiers killed, and their ships sunk - did you expect them back the next Tuesday? I'm not interested in revenge - what's done is done and I can't change it. However, Muslim attacks have occurred in my own country within my own lifetime, and are continuing against other Western countries, increasing in frequency and severity. I am not a blind fool, and so if the attackers cannot be reasoned with, a reasonable response is to destroy the attackers.
I did that, and I learned that Islam was not a religion of peaceful nomads with a charming culture and glamorized by the harems of the sultans as I'd previously believed, but is instead a socio-political system that mandates a literal world-war of conquest among many, many despicable things, such as effectively treating women as chattel property. There are many sources (in addition to the three Islamic "holy" books themselves: the Quran, Sura, and Hadith) from which to learn about the basics of Islam, and having already made use of several, I would turn your own advice back on you: read Prophet of Doom [prophetofdoom.net] along with a copy of the Quran, and keep your eyes peeled for conflicting claims between the two. If you do this, you will have your own experience, and you will be astounded.
Your "logic" is faulty, because the written doctrine of Christianity does not call for its adherents to wage a literal worldwide war of conquest. (That said, I am increasingly suspicious of Christianity to the point of being quite certain that the author of most of the so-called New Testament, Paul, was a liar [questioningpaul.com]. A false religion used to wage war (Inquisition, etc.) sure does seem like something a government would like to use to its advantage...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:48PM (2 children)
Oops, I forgot to also respond to:
What happens if you possess the means, opportunity, and espouse a motive for murdering me? Well then if I can't reason you out of it, I'll try to kill you before you can kill me. What a conundrum!
Might I suggest that you not threaten to attack and kill me? If I likewise don't threaten to strike you first in an attempt to kill you, then we should get along just fine even if we completely ignore each other.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 21 2017, @05:34PM (1 child)
You are full of shite. You can't spout this live and let live crap after openly threatening to attack and kill about a billion people who have made no threat against you.
YES there are some crazy muslims out there who would like to see your head on a spike. But they are the MINORITY. There are countless more of them who just want to get on with their own lives, but YOU want them dead. YOU are the one making the threats. YOU are the one who wants to obliterate entire demographics that have done you no harm. YOU ARE THE THREAT HERE. Don't give me that "we'll all get along just fine" bullshit when you have already made it abundanty clear that you will kill anyone whose second cousin looks at you funny.
Tell me, when all the Muslims are dead and Breitbart needs a new bogeyman, how long do you think it will be before they make up some reason to convince you to fear people like me and pre-emptively destroy me?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @06:25PM
Perhaps we could discuss this matter further after a visit to your optometrist [soylentnews.org] and/or a person who can change your mind about using lies as a means to persuade others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @11:12PM
Compassion comez from the soul of a willing human being; it is not extracted at gunpoint by government tax collectors as you seem to believe.
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Monday March 20 2017, @03:59PM (1 child)
We let Obama get away with playing with drones. Now, Trump can take that to the next level.
This is what someone called "Turn-Key Tyranny"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:25AM
Just sayin, it didn't start on Obama's watch, but any power given to the military, or president, or congress, or any other government body *WILL* be abused, it is only a matter of time unless examples are made when the public feels these groups are getting out of hand.
Sadly the public no longer has sufficient outrage to curb these abuses, so they will only grow larger until either the internal or external collapse of the US.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @02:51PM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382011/Bin-Ladens-great-escape-How-worlds-wanted-man-fools-elite-troops-whod-trapped-mountain-lair.html [dailymail.co.uk]
After he had escaped, Bin Laden crowed about how the U.S. had let him go. ‘The Americans exhausted all efforts to blow up and annihilate this tiny spot — wiping it out altogether. Despite all this, we blocked their daily attacks, sending them back defeated, bearing their dead and wounded.
‘And not once did American forces dare storm our position: what clearer proof of their cowardice, fear and lies concerning the myth of their alleged power is there?’
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @03:32PM (1 child)
Don't complain when they bite back at you! Or do you think that eventualy won't?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @03:33PM
Please... That's any weapon ever.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @03:53PM
Because UAVs defeat the the whole point of modern warfare being your poor people killing and getting killed by their poor people.
Why, UAVs are almost as bad as terrorists targeting rich stock brokers in their ivory towered work places.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:37PM (1 child)
Why exactly are attacks by UAVs worth mentioning as opposed to attacks via other means?
They are worth mentioning because they happen a lot more now. Bombing the shit out of unstable regions isn't going to help anyone but morally bankrupt defense contractors.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @09:18PM
So, before it would have been worth mentioning how many rifle attacks happened per day? No? Quit deliberately misunderstanding me then.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @02:33PM (5 children)
332 or 432? Much confused.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @03:15PM (4 children)
The article says 432%. The URL for the article says 432. You get 432 by dividing 5.4 by 1.25.
The editor seems to have taken it upon himself to say (5.4 - 1.25)/1.25 = 332% and is insisting that "increase of" is pedantically correct; then he went and changed the article submission title.
I think that is quite the editorial overreach going on there.
(Score: 2, Informative) by charon on Monday March 20 2017, @05:29PM (3 children)
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday March 20 2017, @08:23PM
While I have no problem with the edit, I think it's still a poor way to discuss the data. As the summary notes, Obama ordered over 500 drone strikes. Trump so far has ordered 45. Claiming that "U.S. drone strikes have gone up 332%" still doesn't make much sense.
The assumption is that drone strikes will be uniformly distributed over an entire presidency. Even a cursory glance at the available data [thebureauinvestigates.com] shows huge variability from month-to-month and year-to-year in number and frequency of strikes, along with obvious variability depending on theatre of operations.
For example, the highest year of drone strikes just in Pakistan according to the data had ~43 times as many strikes as the year with the lowest number of strikes in Pakistan during Obama's presidency (128 in 2010 compared to 3 in 2016). Some countries have markedly increased drone strikes over the course of Obama's presidency, others peak and decline, etc.
So, it's certainly possible that 36 strikes in 45 days is as bad (or even worse) as during the most active period of strikes for Obama, though it's tough to discern without crunching the data more. But a 45-day window is just too small to make a proper statistical comparison to a 2900+ day window when there's this much variability.
(BTW - I have issues with excessive drone strikes too, and I certainly have issues with Trump. But I also have issues with inappropriate presentation of data.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @11:15PM (1 child)
I agree. A number of years back I wrote a retrospective on the anniversary of the publication of Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451, but I had to keep referring to it has Fahrenheit 480, except when I quoted other people referring to it because there I had to write Fahrenheit 451 (sic). You see, Bradbury got the autoignition temperature of paper incorrect! I felt like such a tool, but I had to do it.
(Score: 1) by charon on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:05AM
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 20 2017, @02:41PM
It may well be a "stock-take sale".
The old stock must go, the numbers for "last quarter sales" need to be there to justify the increased budget for the next financial year.
(grin - a cynical one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday March 20 2017, @03:33PM (10 children)
It's early days yet in the Trump administration - I'm as interested as anyone in seeing what direction he will take. However, precisely because it is early days, it is too early to see any changes in policy - these may well be underway, but they will not yet have trickled down to daily operations. Indeed, the opposite may be true: commanders in the field may be making the most of their increased freedom, before the new administration can get its policies in place.
And as former military, I can attest: if every individual drone strike is being approved by REMFs, that would be the absolute stupidest policy of them all. Imagine: you are a commander in the field, you desperately need air support. You radio in your request, and are told: "The Pentagon can let you know sometime next week, or maybe next month". That's how MacArthur ran lots of the Vietnam war, and we all know how well that turned out. I sincerely, sincerely hope that this is not how the military is currently operating...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday March 20 2017, @03:36PM
Not MacArthur, dammit. I meant SecDef McNamara.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by https on Monday March 20 2017, @04:24PM (8 children)
In the last couple of months President Bannon has made it very clear what direction this is going. Inflame hostility against Muslims, dismantle all government programs that aid poor people (making enlisting seem a rational choice), start a war with a predominantly Muslim country by dint of a false-flag attack, send poor people off to kill the innocent. Seems the only question is what the magnitude of the false-flag attack will be.
The only change I see from Bush is that Bush was mostly trying to make his cronies in the MIC rich while Bannon earnestly wants Muslims dead and who cares about the money.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:04PM (6 children)
I mostly voted to avoid a corrupt felon and to resist a future with my grandchildren under rapefugee-induced sharia. I thought Trump wouldn't be much into drone strikes.
It turns out he's good at that too! Sweet. He really is the best president.
Obama may have gotten a peace prize, but he didn't deserve it. Trump doesn't deserve one either... yet. Peace will only be possible (still unlikely though) when all Muslims are dead. This is about 160 million per year for the next 8 years, or half a million each week day for the next 8 years.
We're dealing with a mind virus that exploits western society's freedoms, ultimately killing the host. Winning won't be easy, particularly because a 5th-column of liberals likes to assist the invaders. (they think "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" but will be first getting stoned, tossed off buildings, beheaded, crucified, and burned -- LGBT and women don't fare so well under sharia) We're probably doomed, but we must try.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Monday March 20 2017, @05:37PM (2 children)
It is sad, you don't even realize Islam isn't the real problem. That religion is being used as a distraction, an easy target for people to hate. The "mind virus" isn't Islam, it is the collective fascist policies being pushed by corporate interests. Advocating genocide? Do you ever stop and think about what you are saying?
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @07:05PM
We're human. Genocide is in our past and in our future. We wouldn't be human without genocide. Genocide features in ancient history, and we can reasonably assume it to be part of pre-history. Genocide doesn't even need religion; Rwanda and Cambodia have shown that in the not-to-distant past. Genocide is especially normal with Islam; it is called for in the Koran.
So it's going to happen. The only question: do we want to be the winners or the losers?
There is something to be said for a preemptive strike. Why let the enemy get their forces in place?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @09:17PM
It's not genocide in the sense as people would make normal use of that word, as Islam is not a genetic production. Islam is a socio-political system that has cultivated a horrific culture that not only is terrible to live within (not the USA's business) but also literally seeks to wage war against the world until they take over (definitely the USA's business).
A culture that cuts out little girls' clitorises and perpetuates the anal rape of little boys is repugnant. There are definitely inferior cultures, and those which are demonstrably inferior and warlike need to be wiped out just as all the rest have been throughout human history.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @05:45PM
You lost me.
Are you still on the need to sterilize blacks and idiots, or did you switch to the Irish invading with their Catholicism?
I don't think you'd still be on those evil Jews drinking blood, so I must have drifted off while you were complaining about the Latinos crossing the border and/or having too many babies.
Or was it your recollection of the WWII Japs needing to be rounded up? I kinda gave up on existential-threat-of-the-day after them Ruskies decided not to nuke my favorite Indian reservation...
21st century, really...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driven on Monday March 20 2017, @06:54PM (1 child)
Are you sure that painting all Muslims with the same brush isn't the mind virus? Give that some solid thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @09:20PM
Pretty sure. The problem with Islam is not the people, but its fundamental "perfect" written documents (Quran, Hadith, Sura) which are the source of the vile evil found in Islam, the culture it breeds, and the vile actions encouraged by the words which some Muslims are motivated by.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:34PM
those programs don't aid the poor. they are political tools to further enslave people and to garner votes by catering to people's ignorance. Furthermore a high percentage of what the feral government does it out of scope and should be eliminated. People are so brainwashed they think that things have do be done at the federal level or poor people will suffer. bullshit! if you aren't involved sufficiently to have influence at the county/city level what makes you think the feral gov gives a rat's ass about you or your needs/opinions? mindless slaves begging for bigger, more authoritarian government.
(Score: 2) by sjwt on Monday March 20 2017, @03:36PM (8 children)
Wow, Im sure I could find a few days here or there that Obama's strike rate is much higher and Trumps is much lower..
First off, is this Trump acting on advice, or just his own off the cuff call..
What is the comparison rate of "Request for a strike" VS "approval"
What has prompted such an increase, has there been a change in policy or something else that has lead to drone strikes being a preferred option.
So little information, no reporting seems to have been done on real facts and information.. its sad what passes for news these days..
""Since first using drones they have become part of the preferred strategy to keep personal out of picture and not risk american lives" is what this sounds more like..
(Score: 5, Touché) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday March 20 2017, @04:07PM (6 children)
First off, is this Trump acting on advice, or just his own off the cuff call..
I'm sure he has taken the time to seek out as much pertinent information as possible, carefully carried out a detailled review of the results of past policies and actions before seeking out advice from wise and experienced people who are experts in the relevant field and, after much deliberation upon the potential consequences of each possible course of action, arriving at a broad and rational view of the situation by which he might set policy in a dignified and carefully worded press release.
HAHHAHHhaAHAHAhahahaHHHaaaaaaHAHAHHAAHAH!!!!HAHHAHHHAHHAHAHAaaaaaaHAHAH! BBWWWWAAAAAAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
[pant] [pant] [wipe tear from eye]
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHaHAHHAHAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAaaAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!AhhahahahahhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
(Score: 1) by StarryEyed on Monday March 20 2017, @04:57PM
What's scary is this is like the "Enemy of the State" film, except the guy in charge of all that technology is the crazy crook who runs a restaurant.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday March 20 2017, @08:36PM (4 children)
A tip of the hat to you!
I don't think I could have typed that past the first comma, before I exploded in laughter.
That had to be more distracting than shitting your pants and typing.
Maybe in a few more months with the Orange Clown-in-Chief still in charge, I'll find out for myself.
*fingers, toes, eyes, and even testicles crossed....hoping for impeachment*
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday March 20 2017, @09:44PM (3 children)
hoping for impeachment
The thing I'm looking forward to more than anything else is the look on his face when, convicted, he is confronted by an indisputably record-breakingly huge number of people lining the National Mall chanting "LOCK HIM UP, LOCK HIM UP"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @10:06PM (2 children)
Convicted of what, exactly? "Lock him up" for what, exactly? (And YOU better be paying for his room and board while incarcerated, 'cause that sort of stupidity is caveman-level bad versus restitution/execution.)
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 21 2017, @09:59AM (1 child)
convicted of what?
I suspect that if and when the necessary documents are finally uncovered, he could be prosecuted for any of the following:
- Colluding with the Russians to influence the election
- Accepting a 19% share of the newly privatised Russian Gazprom shortly after taking office [opposingviews.com] in exchange for lifting sanctions.
- fiddling his taxes for decades.
- Abusing his presidential power to further his own personal business interests (scrapping the "alternative minimum tax" [theguardian.com], excluding Saudi and Egypt from the travel ban [nydailynews.com])
- Carrying out confidential presidential duties in the middle of a fucking restaurant [theguardian.com] surrounded by people without security clearance
- Using his status as president to increase the profits of his restaurant / club. (Apparently paying members can get a selfie with the guy who carries the nuclear suitcase)
- His historical involvement with drug traffickers and mobsters [thedailybeast.com]
- Oh, and it would be nice to see some justice for all the women he's groped over the years as well. (Not to mention the allegations of far, far worse).
There's probably a lot more, but that's a decent start just off the top of my head.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @01:04PM
*snrk*
Okay then - we'll revisit this later after the "convictions" start rolling in.
Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm ecstatic when the US "justice" system actually ends the career of a bonafide criminal. The problem with your post is that fully half the "crimes" you refer to are either not crimes at all, or are (currently) ephemeral delusions of what I can only describe as the alt-left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @10:59PM
No, actually many people who actually follow the news know that in the Obama administration there were many (most) cases where drone strike authorization must come directly from an NSC member level or higher. Drone strikes had to be approved even if a high value target was confirmed. Whether Trump acts, "off the cuff..." well, he can't keep his fucking mouth shut, so that's probably a good guess and exactly why civilian assassination tools like this should never have been allowed to exist.
High. Again, follow prior news about drone strikes and you learn that most are ultimately approved.
And drone strikes have always been a preferred way to go about it.
Finally, it's pretty damn hard to get real facts and information when the government does its damndest to obfuscate. And I agree with you: It's sad what passes for government these days.
And keeping personnel out of harm's way is one thing. (By the way, whatever happened to the notion that our armed forces exist TO be put in harm's way?) But really, "A way to show we're DOING stuff, whether it actually HELPS the problem or not," is what this sounds more like. And it's on the GOVERNMENT to prove otherwise, not the press.