Kill List

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Vrede too
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Re: Kill List

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billy.pilgrim wrote:... we created the problems in the ME by claiming their oil
. . . and by funding so many bad actors by being so gluttonous and buying it.
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Re: Kill List

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O Really wrote:
Vrede too wrote:Try to not make things worse.
Noble thought, but not an acceptable solution.
You've got some majorly pissed off people who not only are happy to blow up people in public places just to make a point, but are also happy, more or less, to blow themselves up in the process. They probably won't go away if they're ignored. They put no value on the lives of anyone, without regard as to whether the people killed or injured have actually harmed them or maybe even have tried to help. They don't recognize traditional rules of war nor international agreements. That's who they are. Whatcha gonna do?
Try not to make things worse.

That is, recognize that you want LESS terrorists than more. When you massacre 128 people including 13 children trying to kill one man, and injure and maim God knows how many more, you're making more terrorists, not less. When you've bombed at least eight wedding parties since 2001 killing hundreds more, you're making more terrorists, not less. When you send additional drone strikes to kill the first responders trying to rescue the bystanders, you're making more terrorists, not less.

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Re: Kill List

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rstrong wrote:
O Really wrote:
Vrede too wrote:Try to not make things worse.
Noble thought, but not an acceptable solution.
You've got some majorly pissed off people who not only are happy to blow up people in public places just to make a point, but are also happy, more or less, to blow themselves up in the process. They probably won't go away if they're ignored. They put no value on the lives of anyone, without regard as to whether the people killed or injured have actually harmed them or maybe even have tried to help. They don't recognize traditional rules of war nor international agreements. That's who they are. Whatcha gonna do?
Try not to make things worse.

That is, recognize that you want LESS terrorists than more. When you massacre 128 people including 13 children trying to kill one man, and injure and maim God knows how many more, you're making more terrorists, not less. When you've bombed at least eight wedding parties since 2001 killing hundreds more, you're making more terrorists, not less. When you send additional drone strikes to kill the first responders trying to rescue the bystanders, you're making more terrorists, not less.
bingo
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O Really
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Re: Kill List

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So maybe we look at what has worked in the past to keep the hard-core crazies in the bin over the years. Hint: it hasn't been gentlemanly treatment and Queensbury rules. Nor has it been the US itself.

F'rinstance:
"No one would argue that Saddam Hussein was a good guy. He committed dozens of war crimes, used chemical weapons against his own people, tortured prisoners, and tried to exterminate the Kurds, among other atrocities.

But at the same time, his heavy hand was able to keep the country under control. He kept peace between the Sunnis and Shias, all while providing a counterbalance to Iran. He also served as a consistent leader in a region of the world where stability is rare. Under his rule, Iraq was relatively peaceful and safe.

Now, a full decade after he was removed, Iran is an absolute mess; the country’s religious groups are fighting among themselves; its fledgling political system is failing – a dozen candidates for political office have been assassinated in the last ten years. The Islamic State of Iraq, the al Qaeda front there, is still capable of pulling off large-scale attacks."

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Vrede too
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Re: Kill List

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One of the things that hampers Muslims from sorting out their own messes is that our noses are so far into most of them that one side or the other risks being seen as doing our bidding. We are seen as an agent of death, not as a bringer of democracy, stability, human rights, justice or humanitarianism. Our actions have largely been in sync with what AQ and Daesh want us to do in order to radicalize Muslims.

But, you know this:
O Really wrote:Here's one for you, billy.p "This is Why They Hate Us"

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/18/this_is ... _tell_you/
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Re: Kill List

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So do you think if the US got entirely out of the region that ISIS, etc. would no longer threaten the west?

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Re: Kill List

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O Really wrote:He kept peace between the Sunnis and Shias,
Religious peace via two separate genocides.
O Really wrote:He also served as a consistent leader in a region of the world where stability is rare. Under his rule, Iraq was relatively peaceful and safe.
An invasion of Iran that lasted eight years and killed at least 500,000 people.

The Al-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds, widely recognized as genocide, with 50,000 to 100,000 civilians killed.

The invasions of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, another 35,000 killed. Scud missiles launched into Israel, hoping they'd respond, dragging more Muslim countries into the war on the Iraqi side.

The 1991 uprisings in the north and south, another 150,000 – 230,000 killed, mostly civilians. With the systematic forced relocation of Marsh Arabs and the draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes in the Tigris–Euphrates river system.

Plus countless other massacres, and all the other car bombings and various atrocities the area is common for.

Saddam kept the region stable and relatively peaceful and safe in the same sense that the Islamic State does. I doubt that IS matches Saddam's death toll.

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Re: Kill List

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So you think overturning Saddam was a good thing, then?

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Re: Kill List

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Saddam was contained. The most evil things he did were with our help 15 years before the invasion.
O Really wrote:So do you think if the US got entirely out of the region that ISIS, etc. would no longer threaten the west?
I haven't suggested that, just that militarism not be our prime contribution.
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Re: Kill List

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Vrede too wrote:Saddam was contained. The most evil things he did were with our help 15 years before the invasion.
O Really wrote:So do you think if the US got entirely out of the region that ISIS, etc. would no longer threaten the west?
I haven't suggested that, just that militarism not be our prime contribution.
To paraphrase a certain South Carolina beauty queen, "such as?"

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O Really
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Re: Kill List

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Interesting point of view from a former ISIS captive... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... is-attacks

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Re: Kill List

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Good article.
... The fact is we are trapped: Isis has trapped us. They came to Paris with Kalashnikovs, claiming that they wanted to stop the bombing, but knowing all too well that the attack would force us to keep bombing or even to intensify these counterproductive attacks. That is what is happening....

At the moment there is no political road map and no plan to engage the Arab Sunni community. Isis will collapse, but politics will make that happen. In the meantime there is much we can achieve in the aftermath of this atrocity, and the key is strong hearts and resilience, for that is what they fear. I know them: bombing they expect. What they fear is unity.
Some of the early description sounds so much like our rightwing, not counting the beheadings.

I'll stick with,
Vrede too wrote:Less, less sloppily, fewer civilians killed, within international law constraints, and not in a manner that creates more enemies than they kill.
Along with more nonlethal aid, more politics with friends, more diplomacy with enemies. It's not like we don't have choices, killing hasn't seemed to make things better.
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Re: Kill List

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Vrede too wrote:..., killing hasn't seemed to make things better.
Well, no, but neither does it make things better to believe and treat them like they're westerners just in funny hats and beards.

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Re: Kill List

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Straw man, no one has said that.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: Kill List

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Vrede too wrote:Straw man, no one has said that.
Nobody here, maybe, but that's the way a lot of people in the US, including many in the government, think. They think the same things that appeal to, motivate, and scares westerners apply to middle easterners. Lots of people think they want a US-style country. The cultural gap is vast, yet ignored in general.

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Re: Kill List

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It's funny, you're right that many think that we've got the best politics and culture possible and that we can export it. Nope, societies are different. Otoh, people aren't as different as the haters on either side would like us to believe. I sailed with folks from dozens of countries and have made it to about 35 nations. Any disruptive differences we had were almost always the same interpersonal ones we have here, almost never cultural.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: Kill List

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Vrede too wrote:... Of course the technology can be and is used less self-destructively, but we're discussing the program as it is, not its separate pieces.

If they start disrupting my life, I'm gonna get a ski mask and a wrist rocket.
Or:

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Re: Kill List

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The Army Chaplain Who Quit Over 'Unaccountable Killing' of Obama’s Secretive Drone Program

... In a letter addressed to Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama, Antal wrote, “The executive branch continues to claim the right to kill anyone, anywhere on Earth, at any time, for secret reasons, based on secret evidence, in a secret process, undertaken by unidentified officials. I refuse to support this policy of unaccountable killing.” In doing so, he joined other previous members of the armed forces who have addressed Obama to criticize his drone strike policy, including four former members of the Air Force who penned a letter in November of 2015 warning the president that the strikes “served as a recruitment tool similar to Guantanamo Bay.”

... London’s nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which says it pursues “research, investigations, reporting and analysis which is of public benefit,” estimated that from 2004 to 2014, there were 2,379 casualties from U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Of the 704 people killed who have been identified by the bureau, only 295 were reported to be militants, meaning that about 58 percent were believed to be noncombatants.

The organization reported in 2012 that dozens of civilian rescuers and mourners at victims’ funerals were targeted in drone strikes in Pakistan.

... Strikes in large-scale military operation theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan) are handled by the Pentagon, while the CIA is responsible for strikes elsewhere (for example, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia), according to officials familiar with the drone program. But these officials said there is also some overlap in areas of responsibility.

... Congress has not formally authorized military operations in any of those countries, with the exception of Afghanistan in 2001. Drone strikes are also conducted in Iraq in the fight against ISIS. Congress authorized military actions there in March 2003.

A diverse group of commentators, including representatives from the human rights organization Amnesty International and conservatives such as judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, have speculated publicly that these strikes in Pakistan constitute war crimes because of the numbers of noncombatants killed and questions surrounding the legality of the operations.

... That Obama — who as a candidate promised to run the “most transparent” presidential administration in U.S. history — has been secretive about one of the most central parts of his foreign policy has been a subject of frustration for critics like Antal.

Antal told ABC News that he lacked the expertise to comment on whether the drone strikes under Obama are war crimes but said that his desire as a conscientious objector was to bring targeted drone strikes to “a complete and total halt.”

... When the Stimson Center, a nonprofit nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., released a highly critical report this February titled “Grading Progress on U.S. Drone Policy” — around the same time that the Obama administration announced a $1 trillion revitalization of the U.S. nuclear program — Antal told ABC News that he felt “devastated” and began the process of leaving the Army for good....

(Hillary) has not spoken about drones at any length during her presidential campaign, but she is regarded by many political observers as more hawkish than Obama when it comes to foreign policy.

Bernie Sanders told ABC News in August that he would “not end” the U.S. drone program, but he has been more critical of it than Trump and Clinton.

In an interview with The New York Daily News editorial board in April, Sanders said that when “bombing wedding parties of innocent people and killing dozens of them,” the drone program is “not effective” and “enormously counterproductive.”

Antal told ABC News that he believes the lack of public debate about drones in an election year was “partly philosophical and partly psychological,” adding that the unmanned approach of “drone assassinations” enables the U.S. to wage war with fewer American casualties. And without American casualties, he said, the public can “ignore” violence abroad.

He said he “hopes to see greater empathy” among Americans for the victims of the U.S. drone program and is “deeply saddened by the numbing of our culture” to U.S.-led violence abroad.

“It’s becoming very easy for Americans to just go shopping and forget that this violence is happening,” Antal said.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: Kill List

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.

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Re: Kill List

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Now that official rules for drones are in place...

NPR: FAA Expects 600,000 Commercial Drones In The Air Within A Year

All lower than 400 feet in the air.

Imagine what it'll be like in TEN years.

Now realize that we live in a world where a 15 years ago a legally blind guy built a drone and flew it across the Atlantic. And that's without today's high-energy density batteries, smartphones as guidance and target recognition computers etc. Tin-pot dictatorships and terrorist organizations can build a drone and fly it into a target after launching from dozens, hundreds or thousands of miles away. And the US has paved the way for this to be perfectly acceptable.

Since 1945, America has bombed China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, The Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, Grenada, Libya, Lebanon, El Salvador, Panama, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Yemen and Syria.* Some in multiple conflicts. I'm probably forgetting a few. For the most part they were unable to respond against American territory. But drones are an equalizer, and America had made their offensive use acceptable.

So imagine what it'll be like in ten years when drones are common just overhead, and suddenly there's a scare about the latest military target responding with drones. Gonna be a lot of drones blasted out of the sky. A lot of ammo coming down blocks away with still-lethal force. A lot of Amazon customers wondering "Where's the Impeach Ted Nugent shirt I ordered?"

In the past week we've seen two major airport panic evacuations over loud noises. Imagine what happens during a "foreign drone scare" when a camera or Amazon drone overflies a crowded football stadium.

* And the lunar south pole, wherever the Ranger probes hit, and comet Tempel 1. But those don't count officially because America didn't return a decade later to make a movie about how bombing those places made their soldiers feel sad.

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