• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

US drone strikes may break international law: UN

And 8 years later...how far have we come? How much longer you want to go at this? How many more American lives do we need to throw at a mishandled and misguided war? How many more civilians in all sectors must perish, be destroyed, have their lives uprooted till we are satiated? We've killed well more than 3,000 civilians in the area, are we even yet?
Since when are wars about being even?
Wars are fought between two sides and end when one of the sides is defeated.
 
Wait wait wait...

I'm still on this whole thing about them appointing Osama Bin Laden as Afghanistan's Commander in Chief...
I'm not sure they even have a commander in chief. :confused:
 
Since when are wars about being even?
Wars are fought between two sides and end when one of the sides is defeated.

Declared war, sure. That ends in treaty. Undeclared, occupational, ideological warfare....not sure when that one ends...if it ends. That's one of the problems with what we are doing.
 
I'll be as snarky as I want, I have the intellect to back it up. You've mischaracterized what I had written. The point was to address the real problems in the area and make some attempt at getting to a root cause.

Right.

So we should outlaw using RPV's and use F-18's to kill the terrorists.

Better, yet, let's pretend their just criminals, not terrorists, and send the Messiah's Keystone Kopps in to slap the cuffs on them.

It's amazing how the Left, who know nothing about war, feels confident in their silly solutions to real world problems.

I see the thread got off track. The issue is RPF vs some other means of killing. Not the fact of killing itself.

What is losing the war in Afghanistan?

More importantly, why hasn't your Messiah defined "victory" in that theatre and outlined a course expected to achieve it?


What are reasonable goals? It's not laid out.

No, because your Messiah is incompetent and has done nothing right yet for anything.

What is the cost of "failure"?

Dead Americans without victory.

What does "failure" look like?

Dead Americans.

People keep saying these things, but no one (so it seems) has thought about any of this.

I have.

Do we even have legitimate power to go into Pakistan and bomb civilian areas claiming there are terrorists there?

Power IS, it has no such thing as "legitimacy". The word you're seeking is "authority".

And the answer is an unequivocable "yes".

For ****'s sake, when the hell did the US become God?

1776, if you want to pretend it's God.

If we're not going to think about the root causes of any of this, we're not going to get to a solution.

Hmmmm...the "root" cause....well, we helped Afghanistan defeat the Soviets, then we followed their wishes and left them alone.

Then they attacked us for no reason.
 
And 8 years later...how far have we come?

Not very far. You people insist on electing liberal president after liberal president after liberal president, then can't figure out why your president is an ass.

Yes, I'm talking about Bush, Clinton, Bush, and the Messiah. They've all been "progressively" worse, if you catch the pun.

And frankly, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we have to figure out our next step, and take it.

Not that this has anything at all to do with imaginary distinctions between killing people with RPV's vs Aircraft with pilots on board.
 
Ikari said:
If we're not going to think about the root causes of any of this, we're not going to get to a solution.


According to you throughout this thread the "root cause" seems to be America itself.


j-mac
 
Since you're full of facts, was Osama appointed democratically?
 
Right.

So we should outlaw using RPV's and use F-18's to kill the terrorists.

Better, yet, let's pretend their just criminals, not terrorists, and send the Messiah's Keystone Kopps in to slap the cuffs on them.

It's amazing how the Left, who know nothing about war, feels confident in their silly solutions to real world problems.

I see the thread got off track. The issue is RPF vs some other means of killing. Not the fact of killing itself.

Can you stay on target for more than 3 seconds? That's not up for debate. Sure, the firebombing of Tokyo was an atrocity, a true black mark on the history of humanity. But it has nothing to do with the current situation. Nor does the fact that we have other machines of war. Bringing up deflection does nothing. Pay attention, for the love of all that is holy please just pay attention.

More importantly, why hasn't your Messiah defined "victory" in that theatre and outlined a course expected to achieve it?

This is nothing but horrible, partisan crap. If you want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to use a bit more logic and rationale. Not knee jerk responses trying to label me as something I'm not or insinuating I voted or feel a way in which I did not/do not. A little honesty here is all I'm looking for.


No, because your Messiah is incompetent and has done nothing right yet for anything.

So no to the honesty then huh? Too bad.

Dead Americans without victory.

So it looks like the past 8 years then. We've lost, what 4K more Americans in a quagmire of wars without end? Nice.

Dead Americans.

So the same as the current situation. Failure, in essence, is what we're currently doing. Awesome.


I haven't seen it demonstrated on your behalf.

Power IS, it has no such thing as "legitimacy". The word you're seeking is "authority".

And the answer is an unequivocable "yes".

So we don't have to respect sovereignty of other nations, yet demand they respect ours. We can engage in wars against innocent life with no regard for that life by justifying some assbackwards logic loop about "dead Americans" (Americans die every day, in well more numbers than terrorism could ever get us...we don't freak out about that). The government was not granted this authority.

1776, if you want to pretend it's God.

No, back then they understood the natural limits to government and its powers.

Hmmmm...the "root" cause....well, we helped Afghanistan defeat the Soviets, then we followed their wishes and left them alone.

Then they attacked us for no reason.

Terrorists attacked us for no reason 8 years ago. 8 years ago we started a war against Afghanistan. 8 years later all we have to show for it is more dead Americans, and unprecedented debt. I think your method is clearly stupid and will lead us nowhere. Obviously, it's time to try something else.

Also, we should probably not train terrorists anymore.
 
Wait...using unmanned planes to kill a bunch of civilians is against international law! Absurd.

No actually it's not when an unlawful combatant hides amongst civilians, in fact that is the war crime, using human shields does not make one immune from counterattack I suggest you brush up on your international law:

Both Protocal 1 and article 28 of the Geneva Convention (IV) make clear that "the deliberate intermingling of civilians and combatants designed to create a situation in which any attack against combatants would necessarily entail an excessive number of casualties is a flagrant breach of the Law of International Armed Conflict," according to international law scholar Yoram Dinstein (see his The Conduct of International Armed Conflict, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 129-130).

Article 51 (7) of Protocal 1 states: "The presence or movements of the civilian population shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular attempts to sheild military objectives from attacks or to sheild, favour, or impede military operations." And the Geneva Convention (IV) holds that "the presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points of areas immune from military operations." (Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 1949, Laws of Armed Conflict, 495, 511."

Moreover, the Rome Statute is clear that "utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points, areas, or military forces immune operations is recognized as a war crime by Article (2) (b) (xxiii)". (Dinstein, p. 130)
 
Yes, facts do tend to pass you by.

I'll take my points for this:

You are a ****ing retard and if brains were gun powder, you wouldn't have enough to blow your goddamned nose, jackass.

I want some documentation of your absurd claim that Afghanistan appointed Bin Laden as CiC or whatever other absurd nonsense you were spewing.

****ing moron.
 
According to you throughout this thread the "root cause" seems to be America itself.


j-mac

Nope. But nice misrepresentation. The root cause isn't America, it's the perception of America by the resident people. We've done some mean things which haven't helped our cause at all. But America isn't inherently evil or anything. What's wrong is that we've done some bad things, and those things have had direct impact of the people of the land. Those people haven't seen our good things, or what we can positively do for them. You loop in some good ol' state propaganda, close off information, and you set yourself up a cycle which encourages irrational hatred against America.

One thing we must do is to change that. You have to affect the hearts and minds of the people there to hope to have some form of positive change.
 
So now it is the fault of the UN, that a treaty written decades ago, decades before the technology was made available, suddenly is at fault when the treaty does not meet the realities of the world today?

Not to mention this..

Can you please explain how in any way, shape, or form, using precision weapons during a defensive war against unlawful combatants is tantamount to extrajudicial killings?
 
I'll take my points for this:

You are a ****ing retard and if brains were gun powder, you wouldn't have enough to blow your goddamned nose, jackass.

I want some documentation of your absurd claim that Afghanistan appointed Bin Laden as CiC or whatever other absurd nonsense you were spewing.

****ing moron.

Done with him too, J? :rofl
 
Should all US soldiers aroundnthe world just set aside their weapons?? It sounds like suicide to me...

Our you trying to make some sort of slippery slope argument that they will make it illegal to shoot back.
 
No actually it's not when an unlawful combatant hides amongst civilians, in fact that is the war crime, using human shields does not make one immune from counterattack I suggest you brush up on your international law:

So, according to you. If we claim there are unlawful combatants somewhere. We can go into any sovereign nation and bomb civilian areas. Nice.

You know, part of the contention brought by Pakistan is that there weren't unlawful combatants at some of those places and that we are killing WAY more innocents than we are getting in "unlawful combatants".
 
One thing we must do is to change that. You have to affect the hearts and minds of the people there to hope to have some form of positive change.

That in 1984 as well?

Tell me, the moniker I use, Charles Martel, among your library of reading material, have you read about his exploits, even know who he was?

I wonder if he concerned himself for the hearts and minds.

Education, it's a wonderful thing.
 
That in 1984 as well?

Tell me, the moniker I use, Charles Martel, among your library of reading material, have you read about his exploits, even know who he was?

I wonder if he concerned himself for the hearts and minds.

Education, it's a wonderful thing.

Is Charles your idea of a 'war winner' or something?
 
I'll take my points for this:

You are a ****ing retard and if brains were gun powder, you wouldn't have enough to blow your goddamned nose, jackass.

I want some documentation of your absurd claim that Afghanistan appointed Bin Laden as CiC or whatever other absurd nonsense you were spewing.

****ing moron.

Um AQ was part and parcel to the Taliban government led by Mullah Omar, they had a seat on the Taliban's ministry of defense, there was a special branch of the Taliban military known as the 055 brigade which was made up exclusively of AQ fighters, and the Taliban granted them a safe haven in which to train and from which to launch attacks.

I don't know if this was your point but when people claim that the Taliban didn't attack us it's like saying that if the CIA decided to bomb a building in; say, Saudi Arabia, that it wasn't the U.S. government attacking them. The Taliban was a co-conspirator in the 9-11 attacks and are thus just as guilty as AQ proper.
 
Back
Top Bottom