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Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups [W:165]

Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
No, my reactions are measured. Decades of interventionism hasn't gotten us anywhere good,
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It didn't? The US led the Western world to the highest standard of living that humans have ever experienced. And yes, I say led, because partially because the West was able to flourish because of US military protection. Including intervention. That's not made up. That's a fact.

and thus decades more will bring us to no better place.
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Let's assume you were right (you're not) about intervention "not getting us anywhere good". Past performance guarantees future results? I mean, your sentence didn't make sense even logically. "I tried to buy a car in the past, but it didn't work, I didn't have the money. I can never buy a car in the future."

We did not fight Japan for over a decade and we were in a declared war against a unified people.
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So when does does a war become too long? 4 years and 22 days? 7 years and 4 months?

So obviously corollaries between terrorism, our imperialism, the Middle East and our war with Japan are not accurate. Duh.
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lol, so it was more complex than your extremely simplistic model suggested? You never answered that question before? ARE THINGS MORE COMPLEX THAN YOUR EXTREMELY SIMPLISTIC STATEMENTS MAKE THEM APPEAR?

So if we look at the measured results we see that we've killed more Americans because of our interventionism,
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Yeah, that's what happens when nations use military power to further interests.

spent trillions of dollars we don't have (why do you think the debt ceiling is a problem...are you really not paying attention?),
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You think that's because of interventionism? Do you think gunboat diplomacy wasn't about money and opening up markets? Interventionism makes money too, that's kind of the point of it. But it has maintenance costs.

and bills such as the Patriot Act are passed, domestic spying is enacted, draconian police state agencies such as TSA and HLS act against us, warrentless searches, etc. All in the name of fear because some people cannot rationalize out the repercussions, consequences, and dangers of freedom.
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Did you think any of those things were new? The only thing new is the technology and governments (not just the US) trying to play catch up with it.

If this must be explained, I fear the one who must have it explained is not paying attention to anything.
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Er...that's hilarious. What do you do for a living? What was your major in college?
 
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Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
Well better put, democracy cannot be brought by a foreigner's gun. The environment necessary for long term stabilized democracy is not quite as broadband as some would like to think. Merely going in and saying "we're bringing democracy" is not enough to actually bring democracy. As we have well demonstrated.

There may be isolated instances of foreign occupation leading to a stabilized form of democracy, but those are exceptions which prove the rule. Obviously, the measured state of our current interventionist wars shows the opposite.
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I agree that willpower isn't enough; I don't think we should invade every undemocratic country in the world, because it simply wouldn't work in many instances. Ethnic tensions and potential for rebuilding are also important concerns, and our failure to address these in Iraq and Afghanistan is what's to blame for the mess we see today. However, foreign interventions that are actually designed to establish democracy, or to assist democratic (or even proto-democratic) freedom fighters, tend to be successful in their goal.

It sure hasn't
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Then it's not evidence for your point.
Actions have consequences and it's high time we learn this lesson.
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Inaction is still an action, and it still brings consequences unless we become totally isolationist. I believe that the consequences of inaction over the past few decades are worse than the consequences of action in regards to global peace and human rights as well as our national interests.
 
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Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Perotista said:
the people of any nation must also want democracy for it to succeed. In my view, it is just as wrong to force democracy on a people as it was for the old USSR to force communism.
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1. I've never even heard of a people, as a collective body, rejecting democracy. Have you?

2. Aren't you judging this by a democratic standard? Isn't measuring whether or not people want democracy and then making policy decisions based on that majority opinion in and of itself a form of democracy?
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

MadLib said:
I don't think we should invade every undemocratic country in the world. Ethnic tensions and potential for rebuilding are also important concerns, and our failure to address these in Iraq and Afghanistan is what's to blame for the mess we see today. However, foreign interventions that are actually designed to establish democracy, or to assist democratic (or even proto-democratic) freedom fighters, tend to be successful in their goal.
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Really? When was the last time it worked out? We've been intervening in all sorts of places for a good long while; I'm not sure the statistics bear your conclusion.

MadLib said:
Then it's not evidence for your point.


Inaction is still an action, and it still brings consequences unless we become totally isolationist. I believe that the consequences of inaction over the past few decades are worse than the consequences of action in regards to global peace and human rights as well as our national interests.
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I take all evidence and data as is. Also, I'm not saying "inaction". That's just propaganda by warhawks who cannot comment against the failure of our interventionist policies. Military interventionism, however, has not led to any betterment for either side; particularly the side we keep bombing.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

MadLib said:
1. I've never even heard of a people, as a collective body, rejecting democracy. Have you?
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Oh yeah? Totally withdraw from the ME and let the People of those countries make their own governments. What do you think you'd find?
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
Really? When was the last time it worked out? We've been intervening in all sorts of places for a good long while; I'm not sure the statistics bear your conclusion.
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Japan
Germany
South Korea
Haiti
Iraqi Kurdistan
Panama
Kuwait
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kosovo

I take all evidence and data as is.
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Even if it's entirely irrelevant to the point you're trying to make?
Also, I'm not saying "inaction". That's just propaganda by warhawks who cannot comment against the failure of our interventionist policies.
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:lol: What are you advocating, then? And does it not also have consequences?
Military interventionism, however, has not led to any betterment for either side; particularly the side we keep bombing.
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Our goal is not to better the side we keep bombing, since they're the common enemies of humanity. If you're referring to the civilians who we accidentally kill, they aren't the "side" we are bombing.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
Oh yeah? Totally withdraw from the ME and let the People of those countries make their own governments. What do you think you'd find?
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It's pretty obvious that the people won't have any say in the process, warlords and imams will fairly quickly take control irrelevant of the will of the people they tyrannize :lol:
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

MadLib said:
It's pretty obvious that the people won't have any say in the process, warlords and imams will fairly quickly take control irrelevant of the will of the people they tyrannize :lol:
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Pretty obvious? Or enough People of the region cannot unify together to hold together a democracy?
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

MadLib said:
Japan
Germany
South Korea
Haiti
Iraqi Kurdistan
Panama
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A lot of those places are terrible.The modern countries in there, Germany and Japan, are outliers. Also, that was our last declared war. South Korea didn't really benefit and that war mostly was their own work and we did little. Haiti...really? You do realize the state of affairs there, yeah?

Meanwhile the entirety of the ME still in choas and we didn't bring anything good. All our intervention in Central and South America over the many decades hasn't produced anything either. All in all, few conflicts have been brought to true fruition through force; particularly through imperial interventionism. And if anything it has led to huge increases in our own government so we as a People net out less for it as well.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
Pretty obvious? Or enough People of the region cannot unify together to hold together a democracy?
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What the people want won't matter when they're up against automatic weapons and tanks.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

MadLib said:
What the people want won't matter when they're up against automatic weapons and tanks.
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So they cannot hold together a democracy, that's what I thought. Our guns will not make that so either because if we are to leave the natural order will take over. So only through continued interventionism could we even hope to have a chance, and we're f'n that up now so we don't have that chance. Superb. That's worth over a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives. (Psssst, that was sarcasm).
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

MadLib said:
1. I've never even heard of a people, as a collective body, rejecting democracy. Have you?

2. Aren't you judging this by a democratic standard? Isn't measuring whether or not people want democracy and then making policy decisions based on that majority opinion in and of itself a form of democracy?
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In Afghanistan, the people wanted to go back to the centuries old way or type of government and to their old portion of Afghanistan, call it tribal government. Remember we at one time had 14 of the 18 tribes of Afghanistan on our side (The Northern Alliance) against the Taliban and the 3 tribes loyal to them. What the tribes wanted was local rule by tribal chieftains/elders like they had before the Taliban decide to united the country under their control. Before than each tribe pretty much govern it own people in what ever section of Afghanistan they lived with a series of shifting alliances with other tribes when needed.

What we did as part of nation building was basically force democracy on a people who wanted tribal rule. As time has gone by, tribes which were friendly to us, our allies to begin with has turn against us and against Karzi which most of our original friendly 14 tribe Northern Alliance members now see as an enemy much in the line of the Taliban. In this case what the people and the majority of tribes wanted, tribal rule of their own, we denied. Bottom line is we are not looked upon very fondly over there anymore.

To go into this any deeper would take a book, but this should give you an idea.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

OldWorldOrder said:
hahahahahah
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It didn't. It was divided up after Japan was defeated in WW II. our interventionism didn't improve anything, it had merely maintained the status quo. History for the win. I suggest you perhaps learn it.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
A lot of those places are terrible.The modern countries in there, Germany and Japan, are outliers. Also, that was our last declared war. South Korea didn't really benefit and that war mostly was their own work and we did little. Haiti...really? You do realize the state of affairs there, yeah?

Meanwhile the entirety of the ME still in choas and we didn't bring anything good. All our intervention in Central and South America over the many decades hasn't produced anything either. All in all, few conflicts have been brought to true fruition through force; particularly through imperial interventionism. And if anything it has led to huge increases in our own government so we as a People net out less for it as well.
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All this really demonstrates is that you have little knowledge of the impact of our foreign intervention on democracy and human rights. All the countries or regions I listed, while not necessarily utopias of prosperity and liberty, are or were better off than if we had not intervened.

But can you possibly believe, even for one second, as a rational human, that South Korea didn't benefit from our intervention?
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
So they cannot hold together a democracy, that's what I thought.
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But it has nothing to do with willpower. The fact that there isn't democracy doesn't prove that the people don't want it.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

MadLib said:
All this really demonstrates is that you have little knowledge of the impact of our foreign intervention on democracy and human rights. All the countries or regions I listed, while not necessarily utopias of prosperity and liberty, are or were better off than if we had not intervened.

But can you possibly believe, even for one second, as a rational human, that South Korea didn't benefit from our intervention?
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Haiti is F'd up. Japan wasn't some brutal dictatorship before us, as all countries growing up it had certainly times of it, but it wasn't what you'd call a despot nation during WW II. Germany was, but Germany historically also had democracy and wasn't opposed to it. So those are out. SK is about the most prosperous of the bunch you listed, so you have 1 country in the history of war where it turned out well. And even that was less to do with us "delivering freedom" to them and less about imperial occupation than our current wars.

So you got an exception that proves the rule and nothing more.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

MadLib said:
But it has nothing to do with willpower. The fact that there isn't democracy doesn't prove that the people don't want it.
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It has everything to do with the willpower and determination of the People. If the People do not have what it takes to win freedom, they do not have what it takes to keep freedom. The fact that there isn't democracy proves they are incapable of achieving it. They are too fractured and too emotional for it at this point.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
It didn't. It was divided up after Japan was defeated in WW II. our interventionism didn't improve anything, it had merely maintained the status quo. History for the win. I suggest you perhaps learn it.
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20131104_203832.jpg
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

rjay said:
One solution might be following the law.

US drone strikes condemned in rights reports - Americas - Al Jazeera English

HRW’s 97-page report, Between a Drone and al-Qaeda': The Civilian Cost of US Targeted Killings in Yemen, examined six US targeted killings in the country - one from 2009, and the rest between 2012 and 2013.

The strikes killed 82 people, at least 57 of them civilians.

None met US policy guidelines for targeted killings set out in US President Barack Obama's speech in May, said the New York-based rights group.

"Two of the attacks killed civilians indiscriminately in clear violation of the laws of war; the others may have targeted people who were not legitimate military objectives or caused disproportionate civilian deaths," said HRW.

A witness quoted in the report described the aftermath of one strike targeting an alleged al-Qaeda leader, but instead struck a passenger van killing 12 civilians.

"The bodies were charred like coal - I could not recognise the faces," Ahmad al-Sabooli, a 23 year-old Yemeni farmer, said.

International law prohibits arbitrary killings and limits intentional lethal force to exceptional situations wherein in an armed conflict, only combatants and those participating in hostilities may be targeted.

Intentional lethal force is lawful only when there is, with certainty, an imminent threat to life.
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82 causalities. 57 civilians means 25 militants. I'm willing to put money that those 25 militants would kill more then 57 people. Heck one militant could kill 57 people alone. I don't like it any more then you do, but if the net effect is saving lives there really aren't many other options. I know countries like Pakistan actually feed us the intel that is used to conduct drone strikes there. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the rule rather then the exception.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
Yay you have a book. Doesn't prove anything other than you have a book, but good job! Oh wait....it wasn't a good job.
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The implication would be that I've learned so much of the history that your attempts to try to teach me basically anything about international relations is doomed to failure. Like...you're ****ed, dude. I can't imagine what you're gonna know that's going to come as some revelation. I've read Zinn. I've read Walt/Waltz. I've read Chomsky, I've read Jervis.

You might just have to make an argument that doesn't presume that the other person just "doesn't know" what actually happened (because that's basically all you've been doing). Can you do that? Let's see.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

OldWorldOrder said:
The implication would be that I've learned so much of the history that your attempts to try to teach me basically anything about international relations is doomed to failure. Like...you're ****ed, dude. I can't imagine what you're gonna know that's going to come as some revelation. I've read Zinn. I've read Walt/Waltz. I've read Chomsky, I've read Jervis.

You might just have to make an argument that doesn't presume that the other person just "doesn't know" what actually happened (because that's basically all you've been doing). Can you do that? Let's see.
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I don't presume, I merely go off the offered data. I don't care what books you claim you've read, if you are informed on the matter it will come out in your arguments. And your arguments have not yet reflected that knowledge. So quit talking about books and start getting to the point, else one will have no other choice than to believe that all this "I've read X and Y" is just deflection nonsense and you have no real input or argument. That's all.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
informed on the matter it will come out in your arguments
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Informed enough to say that South Korea didn't benefit from the Korean War, or that Japan and Germany are the only modern democracies that were established by military intervention?
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Ikari said:
I don't presume, I merely go off the offered data. I don't care what books you claim you've read, if you are informed on the matter it will come out in your arguments. And your arguments have not yet reflected that knowledge. So quit talking about books and start getting to the point, else one will have no other choice than to believe that all this "I've read X and Y" is just deflection nonsense and you have no real input or argument. That's all.
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What? I've given you plenty of knowledge. You're just not listening. So go read a ****ing book, because apparently you don't even know about the Korean War, but you're here blabbering about intervention.

Aren't you the guy that thought a 35P in the military wouldn't intimate detail about the NSA?
 
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