Leaked report shows high civilian death toll from CIA drone strikes
salon.com
salon.com
I keep slipping back into believing the United States government believes in honesty and transparency, at least relatively more than other governments. In some areas it might, but not on major issues like war.
It's painful to watch a government that instituted the Marshall Plan actively destroy its credibility like this. Or to think of the consequences. Or to see them play out.
Likewise might happen in US. It seems two things has happened already. They stretched propaganda vs reality difference too thin. And the Internet.
It becomes harder to keep a straight face telling others about freedom, privacy, free market, human rights in light of news about torture, drones, spying etc. Also, without an ability to get access to alternative media and if Fox was the only channel available many would still thing this country was God's gift to humanity. It is just the pesky Internets that lets "domestic terrorists" like Occupy organize and share idea. Pesky little extremists forums like /r/news lets people discuss issues outside the mainstream media.
On another note. There was an old joke from back in the 90's. "When Soviet Union fell, we found out everything they told us about Communism was a lie. And everything they told us about America was true".
Good counter-propaganda after all, is often not telling lies just telling the dark truth the other side is trying to hide. In other words I doubt the Marshall Plan America is a good ol America or is it the America that still believed in segregation, raping South American countries for profit, installing brutal dictators in South East Asia and so on.
Why does everyone blame the evil MSM? Fox News was started because the MSM was 'too liberal'.
I mean, I sort of agree with your overall point, but if you want to see what 'domestic terrorists' could do before the Internet then you need not look any further than Weather Underground (70s-80s) or the various radical right-wing organizations that hit their peak in the 90s with the Oklahoma City bombing.
You know what killed Occupy? Occupy! No goal, no purpose, just "we hate the bankers and we hate the gub'mint!". Well, take a number, guys, you can get in line with practically the whole rest of the country.
But don't try to pin that on suppression of alternative media. Alternative media is out there, and it's been out there. The technology used to spread the message has changed, but the message has always been available. It's just that no one actually cares.
I never argued for supporting Occupy. The problems isn't about occupy, the problem is that FBI and their corporate partners thought they are dangerous enough to label them as "domestic terrorists". Think about it. A bunch of people without a goal, disorganized, non-violent, and they bothered to label them as terrorist. Good Lord. What if they were more organized. What would those watching them be doing? Assassinating them with drones.
> The technology used to spread the message has changed, but the message has always been available. It's just that no one actually cares.
It is a mater of degrees. There used to be zines and meetings and what not. Getting a hold of a publisher, printing on dead trees, distributed that is a lot of effort than just posting a blog. So saying alternative media was there and it is there now. Is true. But it was never in the same quantity and availability. The latency was much higher as well. There aren't dark and white colors only. Only radicals vs authoritarians. People are on the continuum and drift across it. Availability of information is that makes that easier. One can become more informed or go further into conspiracy theory fantasy world. But overall it is a very positive development.
> Why does everyone blame the evil MSM? Fox News was started because the MSM was 'too liberal'.
There is nothing to blame there. They are simply following their incentives. Fox News, MSM and all others are large corporations in the business to make money (largely from advertising). They are not in the business of informing the public. They would operate according to basic incentives. This is very well described and researched in Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent work. The work is not new but it is still very valuable to read and very actual.
That's rather a mischaracertization. In the FBI documents about Occupy that were released through the FOIA, the overall peaceful nature of the protests is continually emphasized and the occasional militancy (in places like Oakland) is treated as atypical. Articles that suggest the FBI considered it to be a terrorist movement are not really being honest with their readers.
“These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.”
> http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/fbi-files-ows.html
That was all sort of my point though. The alternative media available to these groups is the best they've ever had it. Why is it that they can't organize anything? Their ancestors organized much more effective movements with much less effective means of communication.
Occupy was subverted from the inside much like the Tea Party. The fact that George Soros was involved is a big clue.
The aim went from something fairly specific, like lets bring Goldman Sachs to justice for starters, the other major investment banks and the Federal Reserve ... to "let's get those one percenters!". Yeah, let's bring the dentists of the world to justice for their role in the housing crisis.
Again, the role the media plays is one of spreading confusion and disorder. You have a large number of low-power people with a shared common interest -- preventing themselves from being "farmed" by a parasitic financial system -- and if they could be coordinated and work together, would suddenly become a powerful mass. The media works to prevent that coordination by spreading confusion as to the aims of the group, or even better getting the masses to fight amongst themselves.
Don't attribute to malice, stupidity. Dissolution of purpose is just what tends to happen when a movement gets popular as a fad for people to join--people who are there just to be cool, and to maybe be told what to do and help a tiny little bit--but with no particular greater goals in mind. You can't get people on-board with a specific purpose they don't care for, but maybe if you tell them some vague agreeable bullshit, they'll join. Guess what? Now all your movement is there for is vague agreeable bullshit.
It was particularly bad with Occupy because the core members had a weird fetish for allowing the movement to be steered democratically--and so they basically asked what all the people who didn't care all that much wanted to do, took an average, and did nothing.
This... wasn't the goal of the core group going into the "turn Occupy Wall Street into a movement" project, though, which was my point.
It's sort of like setting out, in 0 A.D., to turn Christianity into a movement--but everyone who joins you ends up evangelizing for Scientology (or whatever the equivalent at the time was), because that's what they think you're talking about, and that's easier to sell. So, you've spawned a successful movement... to evangelize Scientology. Not a success.
Also, the word choice was deliberate; every piece of literature you can find on movements throughout history would suggest that there is a strong correlation between success in spreading awareness/change, and having charismatic leadership: a "face" to put to the movement, and a person that could be looked to--either for guidance, or just as a role-model--when one is confused about what the movement should be focusing on. This is important not for any sort of top-down leadership/command role--it's not a 1% hegemon--but rather the "face" exists so that new members have someone to base their understanding on what the movement "is for" off of, instead of just looking at what the people around them are doing (usually nothing.) To know this, and persist in attempting to use a self-defeating "no one is special; we are all of us together" approach, goes past ideology and into role-playing. They weren't trying to accomplish anything; they just wanted to enjoy the feeling of doing something anarchic, even if it wouldn't accomplish anything.
I did not see them being hijacked by anything but the police force. They had a message, they communicated that message, everyone heard the message. That the people were unwilling to support them more vocally, but instead were successfully divided by the media, was not a failure on the part of occupy, but an example that propaganda is very, very effective against the masses.
He said they need a leader to evangelize. You say they didn't need a leader to organize a coherent group.
You might be right, but given that Occupy seemed to me to be a political action movement, and there's been exactly zero substantive political action, we have to consider it as a failure.
And apparently that means we have to consider 'anarchist principles' as a failure, unless there is some better explanation of why they failed in this case to drive political improvement.
No, there really are people acting with malice out there. Pretending it is all just the result of stupidity just runs cover for those people.
Because "too liberal" for Fox just meant "too democrat". Hardly something that absolves MSM from the BS they are.
MSM were the same officially santioned, partisan and corrupted sources, pre and after Fox.
With the exception of some smaller outlets and the rare honest and piercing journalist, but that's not mainstream anymore.
It seems to me most political movements, whether Rush Limbaugh or Occupy Wall St or even Anonymous, are like this.
They find things that aren't working. Great. Like you say, "Get in line."
But a plan? It's either a variation of what we've already got, or a very idealistic "solution" that doesn't account for all the necessary parts of a society.
It's why people like me are so cynical. It's not apathy. It's the opposite. It's heartbreak and as a result, withdrawal in frustration, confusion and self-loathing.
They're essentially giving the public what they want. The public doesn't want to know about dead babies in Pakistan. They're much more at ease hearing news about the latest celebrity baby (royal, or otherwise).
The media could take responsibility for its lack of ethics, the population could decide that it wants those ethics, or things will just stay like they are.
Is it what the public wants, or is it what the public that still regularly watches MSM news wants?
I was a child during the cold war, but I actually could not tell you one thing about any Russian person that I was told during that time, aside from the "evil" leaders hated our way of life and how they desperately wanted to destroy us.
Unfortunately I think that still works - it's still not that unusual to hear about how terrorist hate our freedom, want to take away our freedom, etc. If you have any interesting in understanding why such thing may be true - you have to go out of your way to find news about it.
I still remember Sting's song Russians with the rhetorical lyric, "Do the Russians Love their Children Too?"
Which is kind of the opposite of your point, since it wasn't Big Evil propaganda.
That's very well put.
"I keep slipping back into believing the United States government believes in honesty and transparency..."
The U.S. government never believed in honesty and transparency and you're lying to yourself thinking that they did. Our press has constantly manipulated us. Lies and secrets are just getting easier to expose.
I suggest you read the following:
- A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn
- Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Part 2 is where he examines the myths surrounding the Revolutionary War, and it is very good (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/01/gentle-...)
Crazy time: liberal friends are now defending the NSA's actions... Cats and dogs are living together in peace. WTF?
One is left of centre, the other is right of centre. The both agree on the centre. They have some token issues to ramp up their followers (gay marriage on one side, religion on the other, etc), but no matter who is in power the country works more or less the same for 90% of issues.
Does anyone feel like a huge change is happening in his everyday life and the workings of the country, when the other party comes into power after some time?
Compared to our parties, both are on the right.
And it's a shame that the democratic party, from what I've read, has gotten even more on the right as times move along, even being bullish against the sixties spirit etc.
From this book (which is half light pop culture references and half decent period analysis) I've come to the conclusion that this happened in the eighties:
http://www.amazon.com/Back-Our-Future-Now-Our-Everything/pro...
If Jimmy Carter can't convince them, then they really are lost.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/jimmy-carter-edward...
Hey, care to give some details? This is exactly one point of view I've been trying to understand without much success: why people would be non-progressive for intellectual rather than emotional reasons. I'm sincerely curious what your rationale is.
It is easy to be contemptuous of most liberal opinions (though this is not sufficient to be opposed to Progressive ideals) as they ignore the disconnect between intention and effect. Many progressive programs are righteous in intention, but harmful in effect. An example is the minimum wage.
I sympathize with OP's position. I too voted for Obama and I now have "liberal" friends making increasingly hair-brained excuses for these mad abuses of civil liberties. They love Obama the man more than they care about his rule.
Well, it lied alright and on a huge scale. The establishment dropped a-bombs on civillians with BS pretexes (one can still find them on party line history books, from where lots of people get their official version of wisdom), invaded tons of countries in the name of "democracy" (that is, resources and influence), from Vietnam to Panama, established dictatorships (e.g the toppling of Iran's legitimate government back in the fifties), persecuted people in the McCarthy era, stomped on the blacks and civil rights movement, etc.
The difference with the USSR is that it wasn't totalitarian inside the country. USSR was like 1984, US was like Brave New World.
>It's painful to watch a government that instituted the Marshall Plan actively destroy its credibility like this
Well, the Marshall Plan was (among other stated goals) a way to extract influence upon the broken Europe, pay the right people at the right places, and ascert the top dog position.
Of course it isn't as if gov't isn't in on it, it is -- but not it ways that people think. They're doing it more subtly:
"The major exception here is the Department of Defense, which has an ‘open’ but barely publicized relationship with Tinsel Town, whereby, in exchange for advice, men and invaluable equipment, such as aircraft carriers and helicopters, the Pentagon routinely demands flattering script alterations."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/lights-camera-covert-action-the...
http://original.antiwar.com/sean-a-mcelwee/2013/04/28/propag...
I lament the loss of fact-checking, and it pains me to see errors in professional services that should be picked up be even first-year tertiary students.
The Harper government in Canada recently eliminated Canada's version of this and I shudder what to think will happen 10-20 years down the line.
This has been going on for a long time. The difference now is that it's far easier to discover these issues. What's happening now in government has always been happing. I'm sorry, but the number of civilian drone deaths, as bad as it is, is quite low when you look at the history of the US. This isn't support one way or the other mind you.
However, where you see how far we've fallen, I see how far we've come. It's still not right, but it's far, far better.
The bomblets are visually appealing to children, causing considerable harm to them.
UNICEF works hard in this area.
(http://www.unicef.org/eapro/media_14458.html)
(http://www.unicefusa.org/campaigns/public-policy-advocacy/ke...)
The drone strikes are alleged, in the article, to have killed as many as 400 civilians over 9 years. In comparison, 500-600 civilians were killed in just the few of months of NATO bombings of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war. And the 1990's was a picnic compared to the 1980's or 1970's.
The U.S. has never hesitated to use force abroad to protect American interests. This goes back to the early days of the Republic, when Thomas Jefferson authorized attacks on Tripoli to protect American shipping. People have a visceral reaction to drone strikes, but the fact is that they're a more delicate instrument than the other tools we would otherwise be using.
Really?
Here we go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in...
"It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."
Another story was from a helicopter pilot. They would capture what looked like "enemy combatants", load them into a helicopter for transport, then proceed to interrogate them under a threat of being thrown down on the ground. And then they would get the information and throw them off the helicopter But the issue was that they had to count the casualties. So the policy was to _always_ count when disembarking the helicopter not before. As those two numbers were sometimes quite different.
The REALLY scary part where America goes from being a misguided but well-intentioned brute to a completely evil, opportunistic warmonger is when you think about the data that the US intelligence and military complex has access to. Don't they know that their war is creating more enemy combatants with each and every civilian casualty, and if they know that then why are they steadfastly continuing with their campaign as if it's actually producing positive results.
I do not expect to convince you to change your opinion, but I would like to let you know that this is not an opinion well verified by fact. It's a supposition made by chaps like Noam Chomsky without serious data behind it. It is also counter to what we know is true, which is that serious terrorism comes from religiously-motivated intellectuals, not the down-trodden poor incited to revenge.
"One of those young men was William Grigsby, now an Army staff sergeant who enlisted in early 2002. “The events of 9/11 had everything to do with my decision to enlist,” he said." [1]
"It's clear the events of Sept. 11, 2001 played a role in many peoples' decisions to join the military. The Minnesota National Guard is still benefiting from a boost in recruitment a decade later." [2]
[1] http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=65272
[2] http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/09/05/sept...
"In the media, they said it was all children. They were absolutely wrong. There may have been some collateral damage of some children but they were not children at all, they were all militants doing training inside."
How about working to prevent terrorism by not murdering innocent civilians in other countries and inciting massive hatred towards the US from those affected and their fellow countrymen?
Can you imagine what would happen if another country was carrying out drone strikes in the US, with similar numbers of casualties?
Ron Paul has been speaking about this for many years now, most prominently during the 2008 elections. It might have cost him quite some votes though, the truth hurts.
A good read on the topic is "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson.
http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Second-Edition-Consequences-A...
Economically it's also far less risky to be the bully as long as you can. It would be great to see the US believe more in their productive nerds than in their bullies but at the moment they are playing it safe by somewhat (aside from populist immigration policies - probably not the best for innovation) betting on both of them.
http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/
And that only counts Pakistan. Afganistan, Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Yemen were attacked by drones too
http://www.policymic.com/articles/23708/guess-which-8-countr...
(1) We do not torture people on principle
(2) We use drone strikes that sometimes kill innocent bystanders because the ends justifies the means
In the case of torturing someone, you are inflicting only pain (which is not as bad as death) on someone who is probably guilty of a crime (which is not as bad as inflicting pain on someone who is completely innocent).
In the case of drone strikes that kill innocent bystanders, you are inflicting death (which is worse than pain) on a completely innocent person (which is worse than killing someone who is guilty of a crime).
Now I understand that torture is unreliable and that is a good reason not to do it. But if you do not use torture on principle then to be consistent you must also not use drone strikes on principle.
I'm afraid it's more complicated than that. I get that you're trying to draw a contrast and use "their version of things", but "their version" is completely flawed to the point of misinformation.
Torture can be so bad that it destroys a person psychologically. For some people who were tortured, they might as well be dead.
Likewise - people who are being tortured aren't "probably" guilty of a crime. Actually, they probably aren't. They just happen to know a small bit about somebody who is guilty of a crime[0]. Put differently: You don't torture the hardened criminals, because they are likely prepared for it. You torture people who are (mostly) civilians because they are weak and if they know something, they'll talk. For a civilian, torture means ripping them away from their life, making them long to go back. For a criminal, torture is a likely outcome of what they do anyways.
Torture is just another way in which the gift of collateral damage is brought to innocent people. War, in all of its facets, is waged against civilians.
Finally - torture is only unreliable in certain areas. It is completely unreliable in the contrast you draw - applied on hardened criminals who are high value targets in an armed conflict. But it succeeds beautifully in the two areas that it was designed for: terrorizing civilians and giving military psychos a plaything to destroy.
[0]This is actually the most important argument against "I have nothing to hide".
[1] http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/when_is_it_ethical_to_kill_s...
What incentive could there be? Can? Might? What would we want to exist? How?
Where is the confusion?
Whether or not the combatants killed actually were combatants, or whether or not this should be done morally are for other people to discuss. But assuming that the other option would be say a full blown invasion of Pakistan or Yemen (and I'm NOT saying that it is), looking practically, if a military action had to be conducted (and I'm NOT saying that it must), I'd pick it in the form of drone strikes any day of the month.
Another point is that the Iraq war(s) was used to dump old, less accurate, ordnance -- so that the US is now largely left with much more modern weaponry (Drones or no drones, you still need to paint a target and fire some form of missile/bomb).
But no matter how generous you are, stretching "military" for CIA agents at Langely who kill kids herding goats by day and pick up their kids for soccer practice in the evening is a little too silly for my taste.
The U.S., at least, claims that it wouldn't be. According to the U.S., state-sanctioned terrorism is still terrorism, not legitimate military action, and a violation of international law. Therefore the U.S. maintains a list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism", countries that it alleges engage in such unlawful tactics, either directly or via proxies. For example, it placed Libya on the list after the Lockerbie bombing.
> Calling killing civilians "military action" doesn't make it not killing civilians.
Obviously, but that is true for essentially every war ever. It's one of the reasons war is bad, if it only affected those who volunteered for it it would simply be another sporting event...
"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." Robert E. Lee
Show me a war in which these civilians died. As far as i remember there no war has been declared between USA and Pakistan. So these civilians were killed outside of war zone.
Firing missiles on civilians, or "combatants" that aren't engaged in any conflict with you is a war crime.
Would you accept this, if the US fired a missile into a Canadian cafe because they thought a terrorist was in there and everyone around him must ALSO be a terrorist (and thus an enemy combatant)?
Otherwise, what legal basis would nations have for taking military action against pirates on the high seas (the other famous example of non-state actors at war with nations)?
[1]http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/07/20137813412615531... [2]http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/15/world/asia/u-n-drone-objection... [3]http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/07/22/get-the-data...
EDIT:
There is also a more detailed article on the "leaked" report on the originating news site. It is a more thorough discussion than the salon article.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/07/22/exclusive-le...
Errr: I think I missed half the article...
But of course, with terrorism it's all so complicated and confusing, why not just wear lampshades and drink a lot instead of bothering to figure out what is what.
"The Algerian War of Independence does provide such similarities in terms of geography and topography, social makeup, as well as military and insurgent forces at play. The French, however, lost Algeria after eight years of bitter fighting and the subject is further obscured by the emotions surrounding the atrocities by both sides, thus making the collation of objective testimonies difficult. Most confusing, though, are the circumstances specific to a troubled France at the time, such as the profound tensions that existed between citizens in the métropole and French immigrants in Algeria proper, the continued effort to resume its former place as a major power in the world, the collapse of the Fourth Republic in 1958,..."[1]
The technology might improve and the tactics might go through a revision or two but what is the possibility of similar outcomes? Is unilateral, and sometimes excessive, force the only possibility?
[1]http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/french-counterinsurgenc...
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War#French_counter-ins...
I think it is much more likely that the people making the decisions just don't give a damn. They see the situation from another perspective, one in which they have this really cool toy and they intend to use it as much as possible because as far as they know it doesn't have any downsides.
The reason they don't realize the downsides is because it is such a new toy that side-effects aren't well documented. It is kind of like the way we used to use x-ray machines for shoe-fittings - it's kind of obvious it would give people foot cancer but it took people actually getting foot cancer before they stopped doing it. People have a tendency to only see what is right in front of them - right now the blowback from indiscriminate drone usage isn't in their face so they can't see it.
I don't think we should place too much faith in these Nobel folks getting it right much of the time.
In Pakistan for example, the government condemns the drone strikes and vows to stop them. Well, they could, instantly. They can just "really" ask the US to stop it, or they could put pressure on the US by closing their borders for Afghan logistics, or they could even shoot them down. But they don't. That makes me think the Pakistani government is in tacit collusion.
The alternative to these drone strikes is not peace eternal. If there is no pressure on the Taliban, they would become a bigger problem and headache for the Pakistanis. They would have to send troops into these areas.
I highly doubt that Pakistani troops "cleaning" or even just policing the tribal areas would yield a significantly lower death toll among civilians...
Yes.
From my readings, it seems that a lot of these group's efforts are a lot less religious motivated and more revenge motivated now of days, hence the increase in extremist groups post 9/11. The US foreign policy since President Truman has set precedent on innocent American life and those of our allies. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist but I think all of this boils down to three words a woman from Brooklyn, NY famously said best in a popular Pop-culture rap song "Money, Power, Respect". In that order as well.
War is money, so keeping an enemy is important. If the US ended its War on Terrorism today, there would be no other organization, faction or nation willing to step up to be Public Enemy #1. Sure we have those that could be considered (Iran and North Korea) but they tremble in a NY minute if chosen to take up the title. A defense budget pumps trillions into the US economy; which creates return for shareholders, jobs, tax revenue (personal income), and enforces the US Foreign Policy of democracy everywhere. More spending, more borrowing; which has been the trend of the US in the past decade.
Power and respect are essential to America's continued dominance as a super-force and leader amongst nations. We take a different stand on power than other rich nations. We concentrate on using our power for evil instead on good by focusing on fear. We attempt to bully with the fear of us stepping into a foreign situation; which has been manipulated over time and thru history to seem that are presence brings a win for us or our allies.
Respect gives others faith to continue to believe in the US; which means continued belief in the US dollar. Any lack of faith in the US dollar means lack of investing; which then turns into countries like China trying to salvaged what money they have left on their US bonds and other securities; which do not allow them to hit maturity. We then pay out what we owe; which will be nothing because that is what we have. The results are a depression because our debt is now our currency to the world and that is deflation.
Just my thoughts, first time I typed them out or shared for anyone to hear other than the audience I gather when talking about tech, startups, student load debt, sports or politics. Sorry about no data or sources, I just got into the zone typing but this comes from my research as an undergrad and somewhat grad student.
It's because those assholes didn't have the same thing happen to them, much less frequently.
So they have the luxury to discuss it philosophically.
They also probably feel that the others are less human than their families and friends, being in the third world and all.
I think this is a reasonable assumption. Consider that during the Cold War, US military spending was justified by the Cold War. Then the USSR collapsed, and noboody blinked or even skipped a beat (military spending wise), because hey, the world's still dangerous (not in small part thanks to the weapons sold around like candy during the cold war?), and also Saddam, Somalia, whatever; sarcastically you could call it lots of make-work until the War On Terrorism could begin proper.
Then everybody is more or less instantly told that this "war" may take a long time, many generations, and that these are oh so tough and dangerous times, like setting someone's house on fire and then saying it's gonna get warmer. The huge surplus Bush turned into debt, that money ended up in the coffers defense contractors and whatnot; whoever has it now, it's not like fairies took it away to outer space (which is kind of how you're supposed to think about it: out of sight, out of mind).
"War is a Racket" [1] is such an old book... and no matter how true it might have been back then, it certainy seems true today. A very costly, lethal or profitable racket, depending on your part in it.
You can.
I mean I don't agree with what they're doing, (because I don't think that they're instituting socio-economic changes that will have a long term positive effect,) but this is the old 'Is it better to imprison an innocent man than let a guilty one go free?' conundrum.
When you use force as an instrument of policy, innocent people are always going to get hurt. It even happens domestically with the police. What's the alternative? Become total pacifists - completely eschew force? The world where all good people are total pacifists does not look like somewhere I'd want to live.
So you have to reason: When do police become violent enough that their role is no-longer justified. What's the line, what numbers for what benefit?
It's a horrible, disgusting thing to have to say, I don't like the idea that people will get hurt, but someone's got to:
Even if you were totally self interested, if you were reasoning from behind Rawl's veil of ignorance, then you'd always choose to live in the world where force had been used by the 'good' side and where the numbers had worked out better for more people as a consequence.
You bring up our police forces domestically; which have in the past decade gotten the reputation of being too militarized. This has not resulted into anything positive for police. Violent crimes are still high and innocent people are outraged and always lashing back. It has been more of a win for people like you and me, with the Supreme Court ruling that we have a constitutional right to record; which majority of police despise. There has also been an increase in lawsuits; which results to a decreased budget next fiscal year for the departments. That money comes from the taxpayers in the end but the real lost is clearly on the departments. [1] A lesser budget; which means fewer jobs created and less resources to invest in upgrades and new tools (more stress to do more with less). [2] Continuing to battle public opinion that you're needed and that you're there to do good and not evil. Next time a vote comes up on the ballot for anything that has to do with the police department; which way do you think people are going? [3] Congressional and legislative scrutiny because they have become the safe attack to ensure that they're getting constituents votes in the next election. I'm just pointing out the obvious but I believe this trend to be getting worse. This is a whole other topic though.
If our interest were to have peace in this region, we would approach the situation diplomatically but our interest are economically motivated. We have never approached this situation diplomatically since day 1.
Rebellion didn't happen for the Jews, it didn't really happen for the majority of slaves throughout history, it didn't happen for the African Americans, it didn't happen for those sent to the gulags, it didn't happen for those under Mao, it didn't happen for the thousands that Saddam killed, it hasn't happened for women in the Middle East.
If violence didn't get people what they wanted at all, then even bad people would never use it. Rebellion against powerful and abusive forces is the exception, historically speaking. It has to be so almost by definition, they'd never have got to be large powerful forces if abuse hadn't been working for them.
For better or worse, you can break and abuse people. And if they grow up without any thought of something better, or can be convinced that they still have something left to lose, then you have to push them very hard for them to risk it all against you. It's often after the fact, looking back, that it seems people abused by even absurdly brutal regimes talk about rebellion -
-----
"What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, polkers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur – what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!
If… if… We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure!
We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."
- Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
-----
I'd be the first to agree with you that violence is rarely a good answer.
But then... what about World War 2? The war itself may not have solved the underlying economic inequalities that caused the war, that came later, but do you think that World War 2 could have been resolved favourably without the use of force on the part of the allies?
Or a father (I use the term loosely) who abuses his children? Do you think that can always be resolved without the use of the police to stop him? Certainly it won't solve his mental problems but it solves the problem of the children being beaten and/or raped.
I think the use of violence is like trying to use the accelerator to gain traction in a car. You can use it to get around small, immediate problems, long enough - if you're lucky - to look at the underlying cause of that problem and correct it. However, if the group using violence is going somewhere very bad; if the society, for instance, has an abusive criminal justice system; then that group using more violence seems likely just going to take them somewhere they don't want to go with a great deal less control.
...
If it's a cohesive group. That's the kicker in all this I think - what makes pacifism not make sense as an absolute:
You don't pay the above cost - unless someone imposes it on you from outside - if you don't share a destiny with the group you're thinking of attacking.
When you can meaningfully call it Us against Them, then violence seems like it would be far easier to justify as a tool to solve your immediate problem because you've relatively little invested in the long-term relationships.
No matter what happens, terror has won. We as a nation are fucking terrorists.
When you have a stock of air to ground missiles, everything looks like a tank?
Then again the entire drone command system strikes me as laughably badly designed, I dare say that's responsible for a hell of a lot of unnecessary deaths from bad situational awareness.
And yet, I still trust this data more than the CIA's.
Say the US were to find evidence that a Canadian terrorist group was planning an attack on the Joe Louis Arena. We would inform the Canadian government who would then go, arrest the terrorists and put them on trial. This seems to be what drone critics think should happen in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. There are some pretty obvious problems with that position.
Countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia all have weak, corrupt, ineffective governments. Naturally, they also have weak, corrupt, ineffective police forces. Normally, the US government doesn't care. The US government is responsible for US citizens, and Pakistan's problems are the responsibility of the Pakistani people's government. However, the US now perceives some groups within those countries as threats. We could give the Pakistani government all the info we like, but unlike Canada, we can't realistically expect that to result in the arrests of the terrorists. Even if we tried to give lots of support to their police forces, it is almost certain that the terrorists would be informed about any and all police movements (e.g. Bin Laden lived down the street from a Pakistani military academy.)
So what should we do?
Ignoring the threat is too great a political risk. If Pakistani terrorists executed so much as a single attack on US soil, you better believe the headlines would read: "Politicians knew of terrorist threat, failed to act."
No US law enforcement agency is effectively equipped to police Pakistan. We can't ask NYPD to go police the Pakistanis, that's stupid. The FBI is the best candidate, but their responsibilities are primarily investigative; the actual subduing of the terrorists is outside their purview.
The only other real option is some form of military action. Technically this violates Pakistan's sovereignty, but who cares? Pakistan is a weak government, it can't even police its own country. It's politicians may object, but it is not going to start a war with the US. Moreover, Pakistani terrorists not only kill lots of Pakistani civilians, but also are incredibly costly[1]. Therefore, many politicians will actually support the US's intervention, even if they have to publicly distance themselves. Obviously military intervention carries the risk of civilian casualties, but remember that the US government's responsibilities are towards US citizens. It is the Pakistani government's responsibility to protect Pakistanis, and it is a failing of the Pakistanis if they have not created a government capable of protecting them.
What sort of military intervention should we use? We could send in soldiers to try and arrest the terrorists, but that is slow, risky, and expensive (we need holding facilities, transportation, etc.) Drones are the obvious alternative. Not only are they cheap, they are pose about zero risk to US personnel. People mention that drones may create terrorists, but if we assume that Pakistani public opinion is proportional to the number of deaths, then terrorism (which has killed far more innocent Pakistanis than drones [2]) ought to be significantly less popular.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Pakistan
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_...
So what you're saying is that the lives of US personnel are more valuable than that of innocent Pakistani civilians, including the 94 children cited in the report?
Yeah, let's just go for the cheap & easy option. Maybe a few kids get killed in the process, but who cares. At least the US can save a bit of money on expensive military installations and have their soldiers sitting comfortably in offices using a remote control terminal for drones, then go back to eat with their (still alive) family in the evening.
I think the point is that the best option is the one that you would predict results in the fewest amount of deaths. Do you think the option of sending in soldiers would definitely result in fewer deaths?
Now, I'm much more inclined to agree with the idea that we should end the war on terror in general. But I'm not so convinced that, in the meantime, drones shouldn't be used.
I'm far from an expert on these matters. But I imagine there'd be other options (working with local authorities, with coercion at the government level if necessary) that would be better than either of the above two.
heh, none of us are.
> But I imagine there'd be other options (working with local authorities, with coercion at the government level if necessary) that would be better than either of the above two.
I don't really have any more to say about that than what bloaf said above.
The US government is not in charge of keeping Pakistanis safe, it is in charge of keeping US citizens safe. If the Pakistanis don't like this arrangement, they should deal with the terrorists themselves.
But my reply is in regard to this -->>"People mention that drones may create terrorists, but if we assume that Pakistani public opinion is proportional to the number of deaths, then terrorism (which has killed far more innocent Pakistanis than drones [2]) ought to be significantly less popular."
I would argue against your rationale here. There is a parallel if not similar problem in the US and in just about every place in the world that is stifled with problems. Just because nothing seems like there is any being done, doesn't mean nothing is being done nor that the people approve or disapprove of it.
The US is not allowed to assassinate any US citizen it wants. If a criminal were hiding in Canada (or any other country with a reliable police force) we would just have that person arrested and extradited. Pakistan is not such a country. We therefore have a trial not to determine the criminal's guilt or innocence, but to determine if they pose enough of an active threat to warrant military action.
If they're planning to attack the US, and you already know who and where they are, how about simply tracking them until they hop on a plane, and then arrest them, and give them a trial based on your evidence? It's not like they can magically do damage by giving the US the stinky eye from half across the globe.
If Pakistani terrorists executed so much as a single attack on US soil, you better believe the headlines would read: "Politicians knew of terrorist threat, failed to act."
On the other hand, if you murder as much as one person without a trial and a good reason, you're a nation with a slight, but unmissable scent. Unless you only care about headlines, or that "others do it too", you should care about this... and by that I don't mean "wait for your politicians to care", because that won't happen until you make them.
Technically this violates Pakistan's sovereignty, but who cares?
Uhmmm... yeah, who indeed... non-Nazis maybe?! Obama was your chance to get back from that crap, and he made it worse.
If the US citizens can't keep its government in check, by your own logic: who cares about collateral damage? The only non-risky way for anyone to attack the US would be to poison all the water of everyone, for example. Would that make it okay? I mean, you can't get at Random Pakistani Terrorist Who Talked Shit About The US without murdering a bunch of kids with robots, well.. the rest of the world can't get at your Pentagon without killing a whole lot of Americans, kinda like killing Iraqis to dethrone Saddam. Fair enough?
You see, that's kind of Nazi logic and leads to nowhere good, and that's much easier to notice when the shoe is on the other foot.
remember that the US government's responsibilities are towards US citizens
Bullshit. It's also responsible for not violating human rights. This may be hard to understand, but it has the responsibility towards its own citizens to not do certain things to ANYONE.
terrorism (which has killed far more innocent Pakistanis than drones [2])
Yeah, terrorism done in Pakistan to Pakistanis. As in, not the kind of terrorism you are using as argument, which would be the kind directed at the US. Or did I miss something and the drones are actually there to help out the Pakistanis against their terrorists? Huh!
[1] edit: I didn't mean to imply you're stupid, but simply that the whole point of making a strawman is to make it really weak, e.g. make it something stupid that can be knocked over easily.
That sort of approach gets tried from time to time (e.g. the ATF's "Fast and Furious" program) but it has problems of its own. What if they never get on a plane? There are US facilities they could bomb without ever going airborne. What if you lose sight of them? The political risks are nearly the same as ignoring the problem. If they were able to kill US citizens, the headlines would invariably read "Government had killer terrorists in sights, didn't pull trigger."
>International pressure
Sure, the US has to weigh the impact of its strikes on global opinion. That's a big reason why we care about collateral damage at all. You bring up trials, but still haven't provided a reliable avenue for terrorists to be arrested.
>Might makes right
You're not doing a very good job of looking at this from a Pakistani perspective. As a Pakistani, my life would be threatened by drone strikes and Pakistani terrorists. You seem to think that it should somehow be my right to try and attack the US government to stop the drone strikes. That is childish reasoning, military conflict is not some sporting event where the rules try to create a level playing field. The US has the means to target terrorists, but I would lack the means to target the US drone program. I could try, but any damage I could do to the US would inherently be indiscriminate. At best, I would end up killing some innocent Americans and their government hunts me down, at worst I just get my family killed in a drone strike. What are my other options? The most obvious one is to personally organize my friends and try to root out the terrorists that live near me. Then there will be no terrorists to bomb me, and the US will have no reason to send in drone strikes.
Remember, the only reason that the US is resorting to military action is because there is no organization within Pakistan that can be counted on to eliminate the terrorist threat.
>Human rights
Prove the civilian deaths were malicious and not simply collateral damage. I don't think anyone can. If it were possible to demonstrate that a specific drone strike deliberately targeted civilians, I have no reason to doubt that the person behind that particular strike would be held accountable.
There is also the issue of terrorists using human shields. If terrorists knew that the US was averse to any collateral damage, they would immediately become nearly invincible by strapping babies to their chests or otherwise surrounding themselves with innocent people.
>Pakistani v. Pakistani violence.
I didn't know terrorist organizations had to choose between domestic or international terrorism when they write up their charter.
And that's just the ones they are "declaring" as "innocent", while the administration unilaterally decided who's guilty and deserves to be assassinated with a drone, as an "enemy combatant".