In one five month period of Obama's drone war in Afghanistan, 90% of killings were accidental.

Sounds like our military and media are totally incompetent.

 

You say these things because its not your life at stake, its not your family, its not your friends. These people probably don't register as real to you but more so as just numbers of bodies far away.

Killing innocent people is never worth it, these actions are being taken in the first place behind the righteous name of protecting the innocent ... But whats the whole damn point if your killing innocent people in the process? Because these people aren't American, the innocent being murdered means nothing I suppose. A grade off BobbyTheGreat is willing to make.

 

Even if you take out the empathy factor and just focus on utility, this method of blasting terrorists without little regard for non-combatants will just generate more Jihadists.

 

The "innocent" that are killed in the process of crippling the command structure of terrorist groups are important....but ask yourself, if you could kill the 19 hijackers before 9-11, something that would save nearly 3000 people, would you kill 190 "innocents" to do so?

It would be nice if life was black and white and no one ever had to make difficult decisions that aren't 100% ethical by all standards of morality, but if you were too weak to make that decision and it caused the death of nearly 3000 people, would that really be the morally superior action?

 

No, because those 190 'innocents' family members would be prime targets for Jihadist recruitment. How do you know that their family members wont pick up the mantel of what the would be hijackers did not finish in this hypothetical

 

Fantastic idea, stop creating and getting involved in conflicts that dont need to happen

 

NATO's objective is depopulation... if you can hit 2 birds in one bullet...

not nice really .

 

The main issue is people look at collateral damage as a collateral problem. Most agree that it's likely to have adverse effects, but they just don't understand how gigantic the problem is.

The total number of what people refer to as terrorists in the Middle East does not exceed the number of innocent people killed by the American military. Think about that for one second. Seriously, pause here for a second and visualize it in your head. The total number of innocents killed by American military in the Middle East ever.................................. does not exceed the total number of extremists that exist today in the form of Al Qaeda and Isis and all those groups.

As a rough estimate, for each innocent killed there is a terrorist. Is that an unusual rate to anyone? I'm talking about innocent people, and a person in the Middle East typically has a tremendously larger circle of people close to them because Middle Easterners are among the most collectivistic people and Americans the least in the world. I'm considered individualistic in my country, which is considered among the most individualistic countries in the region. If I were to be killed as collateral damage from an attack on my neighbour - who I've never met in my life - I'm sure there are at least a couple of dozen of those people who would become actively hostile towards the US, especially since a huge majority of the Middle East is already verbally disdainful of the American occupation of the region, even if they are barred from saying it by their governments.

Is it irrational to expect one of those people - particularly the most mentally vulnerable - to decide to become hostile towards US government and its allies? Keep in mind, this is an example out of the most advanced, modern Middle Eastern country. Imagine if you were applying that to villages and towns in Aghanistan and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In essence, just the innocents killed in these operations are enough to at least maintain and replenish the existing terrorist groups.

It would be stupid and immoral for anyone to engage or participate in violence, but neither Middle Easterners nor Americans live in a time where EVERYONE is mentally well adjusted, and Middle Easterners can attest to this from the treatment they received from a minority of American citizens and a majority of US government employees post 9/11. You can only imagine how that reaction would be different if 9/11 came from a country that had been pointing nuclear weapons at Americans for decades from military bases established in Toronto. In fact, you can look back into American history to gauge how Americans react to being treated as a colony.

Take this stuff seriously. It's your money and your safety and your children's safety. The purpose of this war thing is supposed to be to make you safer and to make money for Americans. If you were killing these terrorists efficiently, Middle easterners would be thanking you since those people kill more Middle Easterners than they do anyone else. As for the money, most of you have already seen trickle down economics fail and this is another more egregious example of that ideology failing. The money made from this stuff hits American citizens' pockets as much as that citibank bailout is hitting your pockets.

It's incredible that you are not up in arms about this financial scheme that takes trillions out of your pockets, ends up in your billionaires' pockets and sustains the problem in the Middle East.

It's time to go home, and in order to go home you need to figure out a way in which the government's behavior is at least somewhat correlated with what Americans want. Right now, what you want doesn't matter to those who make decisions and that needs to change not only for foreign policy but most importantly the issues that are affecting all of you at home. There's going to be more and more leaks because that's where the empire is in its history right now, if you studied past empires you'll see how this is a predictable phase. Paranoia from the governance structure leading to a surge in domestic spying and then a surge in internal leaks by what we now call whistleblowers. Things like McCarthy's gaffe, Hillary's emails, Obama's "we tortured some folks" are not seen in the greater context right now, but that's also symptomatic of the current phase of empire - when power gets out of touch with accountability and slips up regularly. #letthemeatcake

The one major difference is - and I believe this strongly - Americans are the first citizens of empire who have a chance by themselves to avoid collapse and catastrophe in their future and to manage the eventual power vacuum they'll leave behind in a way that protects them and everyone else. This is why America was born, not be that nascent empire hogwash the founders trumpeted, but to be the place of promise, in breaking the cycle that people of the world are trying to escape. Yes it can be someone else that does it, but it will be a less bloody affair for humanity if it comes from you guys. IMO there's one more step to wake Americans up from this nightmare, and that's becoming connected to the rest of the world and vice versa. That's well on its way now, so I have my fingers crossed.

 

Drones, missiles, etc are business. It's Obama's job that these things are purchased with contracts. It keeps the war industry going and providing jobs in the sector.

 

Did you just cream in your pants or what bigotexxx?

 

Your "kill ratio" arguments are so absurd I'm going to assume they don't really represent you. You're a killer, huh?

 

Did you not follow along? Your comment makes it seem like you failed to follow along. Maybe try re-reading the whole thread and see if you can work out a better comment.

 

I'll let others judge the value of what you wrote there.

OK, claiming, as you do, that a 99% kill ratio is acceptable in some cases is something that I doubt you are qualified to talk about. If you are, I apologize.

Would you actually do this yourself, kill a high number of innocent people?

Or are you saying that you don't want to kill innocent people yourself, but you have no problem paying soldiers or contractors--with flying robots, of all the indignities!--to kill innocent people?

It's a meaningless intellectual point you are clinging to, like "Sometimes it's worth it!" You're saying it's OK for the United States to kill a certain number of innocent people. And as the US assassination targets get more important, the greater the number of innocent people we are allowed to kill.

I just don't see the value in promoting this idea of killing innocent people. Yeah, sorry, but I'm gonna go with the "killing innocent people is deplorable" side of the debate.

Maybe in military circles they talk about this stuff. But what's your stake in the killing-innocent-people debate? Are you a vet who has lived the life--this is your experience--or are you just a guy talking loosely about how we kill real innocent people, and a lot of them.

 

As long as those 190 included you and the other 189 people you cared most for, then yes, let's do it!

Glad you are such a "martyr"

 

Apology accepted. Now back on topic, yes a 90% (or 99% as you increased it to) would be acceptable under certain scenarios such as the one I laid out among many others.

Killing 181 allegedly innocent, possibly innocent people would be well worth it if doing so saved a much greater number of people such as the nearly 3000 that died on 9-11.

If need be, sure, I'd do it myself. It would be a scenario where you'd be killing the few to save the many. The preferred method would be to use a drone so that you aren't risking the lives of military personnel but if I was still in the Army and I was asked to I'd do it myself.

It's not meaningless, now I'm sure no one would ever ask you to make the call as to if you kill the few to save the many, so you're off the hook but people in positions of power and responsibility get asked that question in real life.

As to saying it's "okay" I'm not just saying it's okay to kill a certain number of innocent people to save many more, I'm saying there it is a moral responsibility to kill the few to save the many.

Yes, I am a vet, but I think it's a topic everyone should consider. I know it would be better to never have to kill anyone, but that's not the world we live in.

I think it truly sucks for people that get caught up being around terrorists when drone strikes happen....I understand the anger of people who lose family members that way, but just because there are unfortunate side effects of the action, that doesn't make the action the wrong thing to do. You have to weigh the good with the bad and sometimes taking out one really awful person is worth risking the lives of everyone around him. In a perfect world there wouldn't be collateral damage, but we don't live in a perfect world.

At one point you at least made ultimately futile efforts to come across as intelligent, sad to see you give up hope like this and embrace your shortcomings.

 

How many people did you kill?

 

Not really cool to ask someone who served in the military that question.

I rarely agree with Bobbythegreat, and disagree with him on this issue again, but it still isn't cool to ask someone that.

 

Killing innocent people is way less cool.

You think he's squeamish talking about killing people? He's talking abut killing multiple people at once, saying it can be a good thing. Nothing to be ashamed about. . . .

No, I don't buy this "It's OK to kill innocents, but it's uncool to talk about it after you did it."

To hell with any armchair killers in this thread.

 

No one argues that killing people is "cool" just that it can be the right thing to do at times. Look, if this conversation is over your head, it's okay. I really do understand. Not everyone is able to discuss scenarios where the "right" thing to do isn't a Disney thing to do. I won't think less of you so long as your personal shortcomings don't cause you to be an ass.

Now if you want to simply disagree with me, fine. Make a valid, logical argument for why you think it is morally superior to allow thousands of innocents to be killed just so you don't have to act and potentially kill a few innocents. If you remember, that's the discussion we're having.