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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan you imagine a constant buzzing
Last edited Sun Aug 11, 2013, 03:45 PM - Edit history (1)
overhead, for hours at a time, the source unseen.
And while this buzzing happens, people around you may suddenly be blown to bits. Relatives, neighbors, perhaps you. Some planning to strike at the US, most just trying to eke out a life.
Boom. Poof.
Hours of waiting, waiting.
Boom. Poof.
That's what our drones do to people in faraway places. Because the victims are far away, and because they earn pennies an hour, and they speak different languages and dress differently than we do, and because pleasant looking people who dress sharply and have nice voices say "terror" a lot, most of us are OK with it.
Who are the terrorists?
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Autumn
(48,962 posts)Tod Koppel was on some show this morning and he said that. I wasn't paying too much attention because I was feeding the Great Grandson so I don't know what show it was on but that jumped out at me. I googled it but haven't found anything on it. But it does make sense in some strange way.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)the Boston bombers, and the strong could be seen as the marathon runners.
"Terrorism is a way for the weak to engage the strong"
Autumn
(48,962 posts)he said that. I would like to get more context on it.
live love laugh
(16,383 posts)that terrorists are more of a minority (since they are are often not formally recognized sovereign entities--except in the case of the US) and that they engage a majority who might otherwise dismiss them.
Terrorists are not necessarily weak.
Especially in the example cited, there are far fewer (minority) militia members and weapons attacking a majority--an entire population.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Autumn
(48,962 posts)I'm going to have to buy that book. It looks fascinating.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)less powerful is an old one. i first heard the idea during vietnam but i think the whole trope goes a lot further back, to ancient times.
similar ideas in psychology & sociology, like the idea that passive-aggression is a favored weapon of a weaker partner.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)The battle tactics of war at the time largely involved lining up in straight rows and shooting musket balls at each other across a field. We did not have a giant Imperial army and being the weaker opponent we adopted many native american hide and ambush tactics.
The British generals considered this the height of dishonor because it was so effective for us.
Yes, this is an old concept....
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)when *other* people do it they should be made to pay dearly.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)and no drone.
Autumn
(48,962 posts)it down. 
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)Those drones are actually modified fighter jets, from some photos I've seen. Then there are those who supply the fuel. And the rubber for the tires. Aluminum.
There is a solution. And we're faced with two big problems (world financial meltdown, global warming) right now that if we stay on our current path will force us to do what I'm prescribing. And that is that we cease all military actions, and move over to productive behavior. One example would be fixing our corroded bridges. Another would be setting up the country with photovoltaics and other renewable equipment.
We can't use might to change. But we can give those people who work in the destructive industries (and those related to it) jobs that replace them with nondestructive, and helpful ones.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)overhead, for hours at a time, the source unseen.
And while this buzzing happens, people around you may suddenly be blown to bits. Relatives, neighbors, perhaps you.
Boom. Poof.
Hours of waiting, waiting.
Boom. Poof.
...justifiable is some instances: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022347168#post93
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022347168#post95
Who are the terrorists?
Are you implying that the drone policy is based on discrimination?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Aren't we killing the other side anyway?
The answer to number 2 is yes, in part. I don't think we'd use them to, say, go after Americans. Because they look American.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)(quote from OP)
...justifiable is some instances: (link with no hint as to its content)
It would be helpful to provide an excerpt from the link. It helps keep a clear flow of dialog within a thread. Providing a link without any excerpt makes it hard to follow a thread. I am not objecting to your providing a link; just asking that you give a little more context, so that one can follow the discussion without needing to go outside the thread to do so.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"It would be helpful to provide an excerpt from the link. It helps keep a clear flow of dialog within a thread. Providing a link without any excerpt makes it hard to follow a thread. I am not objecting to your providing a link; just asking that you give a little more context, so that one can follow the discussion without needing to go outside the thread to do so."
Yes, you are, and the "context" was the question. You can click on the link for more information or not. Obfuscation: "without needing to go outside the thread to do so."
People do it all the time when links are provided.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...but the question provided no clue as to the content of the link.
Please, show me where I objected to your providing a link.
We all provide links from time to time, it is normal and can add a lot of information and depth to a discussion. However, it is considerate to provide a short excerpt that indicates the content of the link, for the reasons that I specified.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Maybe someone else will come a long and entertain you.
Enjoy.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...I am trying to communicate that it would be much more helpful to include a short excerpt from the link, both for those who will click the link and for those who are just trying to follow the thread.
It disrupts the flow of a thread, to omit relevant information like that, IMO.
You are free to try and mind read my motives.
Good luck with that.
antigone382
(3,682 posts)Don't you think technology has gotten amazing these days?
SwampG8r
(10,287 posts)to bump up her page views or kick up old self written circular linked threads?
stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)RC
(25,592 posts)Your links referencing WWII, are somehow supposed to justify killing innocent men, women and children, going about their own lives, in their own country, now?
In a war zone, fuzzily described as the Meddle Middle East? Just because we say so?
Maybe you should be asking yourself why we are even over there in the first place? Fighting terrorism? More like making new terrorist, so we can to continue the fight against terrorism.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Your links referencing WWII, are somehow supposed to justify killing innocent men, women and children, going about their own lives, in their own country, now? "
The people killed in Dresden weren't "innocent"?
RC
(25,592 posts)There is no World War going on. Only a war of our own making.
The only war, is our own war on terrorism. A war of our own making and justification.
"There is no World War going on. Only a war of our own making. "
...."justifying murder of innocent people" by bombing?
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)You're full time.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)why: to jump into a discussion where the poster asked a question, and I'm simply applying his line of reasoning.
Try to stay "civil." It may help prevent you from embarrassing yourself.
RC
(25,592 posts)But you apparently think that is OK, the killings that is. Why? Because Obama authorized the drone strikes.
Or do you just get off on the killing of "them", because they are not "US"? Because they dress funny, speak something other than English and their homes look different than yours?
But you apparently think that is OK, the killings that is. Why? Because Obama authorized the drone strikes.
Or do you just get off on the killing of "them", because they are not "US"? Because they dress funny, speak something other than English and their homes look different than yours?
...it appears you're being self-righteous, and making very silly accusations in the process.
RC
(25,592 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)just indiiscrimanantly kill any suspected terrorist and anyone around him, including children.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)...
"Another man who spoke to Hakim related that he and two children “live in constant fear of drone strikes.” And, according to his story, it’s not without good reason.
After he picked up his daughter from school to take her to a doctor’s appointment, Hellfire missiles fired from U.S. drones destroyed the clinic. He grabbed his daughter and ran back to the school to take cover. Before he got there, though, the school was obliterated by a second missile. His daughter was struck in the back of the head by debris and she bled to death in his arms.
“What did my daughter ever do to them?” he cried. “She was eight years old.”"
...
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/16248-u-s-drones-kill-more-than-30-in-yemen-school-targeted-in-one-attack
And here...though it doesn't include those in Afghanistan and Pakistan
(Handy that it's all one paragraph, eh?)
http://droneswatch.org/2013/01/20/list-of-children-killed-by-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-and-yemen/
List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen
Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports
PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male
YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19
SammyWinstonJack
(44,316 posts)
What did my daughter ever do to them? he cried, she was only eight years old.
burnodo
(2,017 posts)But I'm sure the justifiers would say that the bombing isn't as indiscriminate.
Isoldeblue
(1,135 posts)KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Isoldeblue
(1,135 posts)My name is Kitty, too..... 
burnodo
(2,017 posts)I hope they don't turn the drones on us
ryan_cats
(2,061 posts)This is weird.
A couple of weeks ago, I heard what appeared to be a car idling in my next door neighbor's driveway starting before dusk and going on after sundown. I went outside and couldn't hear it and all I could think is WTH? I go back inside and I still hear it.
My wife was watching a friend's house over a mile away and when I told her what I heard the next day, she said she had heard the same thing at the same time.
Haven't heard it since and it was weird as it was audible inside but very quiet outside and I shut off all the fans and the A/C was also off. Unfortunately, my wife didn't go outside to see what it was she heard.
Now that we've reduced killing to moving a joystick and pushing a button, we know it will be used and I don't think we're going to get any announcements about it the next day.
Now when I start seeing people disappearing from photographs, I'll really worry.
29 years after 1984.
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)
- K&R
questionseverything
(11,840 posts)this child was an American citizen
small correction in the verbage on the graphics tho as i have seen a nyt article that said,he was killed by mistake(some other was the "target"
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)By Karen DeYoung,February 01, 2012
Wednesday’s ACLU complaint referred to wide media coverage of the administration’s 2010 decision to place Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen allegedly allied with Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, on “kill lists” compiled by the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command.
Awlaki was killed in September in Yemen by a joint CIA-JSOC drone operation that similarly received wide publicity.
Samir Khan, also a U.S. citizen, was reported killed in the same attack. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, was reportedly killed in a JSOC drone strike two weeks later.
At the time, public statements by Obama confirmed the elder Awlaki’s death. News reports indicated that the operation had been carried out after the administration requested and received an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel saying that targeting and killing U.S. citizens overseas was legal under domestic and international law.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-01/world/35443276_1_al-awlaki-drone-program-samir-khan
ThoughtCriminal
(14,721 posts)wish that was all it was.
Matariki
(18,775 posts)We have such an impoverishment of empathy in this country.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)drive home what we are really dealing with here, in terms of corporate hearts and souls.
They are the types of responses that would have been tombstoned in an instant on the old DU.
It's really chilling, and I think the utter viciousness of the propaganda machine is making Americans realize how creepy and dangerous this government has really become, as much or even more than the spying itself.
The messaging is beyond horrifying in its brazen cruelty, and it is everywhere.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)It's time to gather around the white house folks .. big time.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)
tblue
(16,350 posts)on Japanese civilians in WWII was something you support. If you are able to turn a cold shoulder to the populace in Japan, maybe you can understand how others can do the same to the people we terrorize and murder with drones. My mom was one of the innocents in Japan whose home was destroyed by American bombers. Fortunately her family didn't live in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But she bore no animosity toward Americans. In fact, she married one. I generally agree with you, Manny, and I do on this op. But the capacity to cheer on atrocities against some subset of humanity is in your makeup, so don't be surprised if others do it too. Me, I am horrified by all such brutality. I am never jaded by it. I will never, ever find the good in it or say it's the right thing to do.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Last edited Sun Aug 11, 2013, 08:23 PM - Edit history (1)
I wrote that I would not pass judgement, as 25 million or so people had died in the Pacific Theater alone, tens of thousands each day, so *any* decision would be awful. So I guess I said it *might* have been OK.
But the current GWOT is very different of an infinitesimally-smaller scale.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)
truth2power
(8,219 posts)It's all over the internet, if one cares to look.
But any sources linked would be declared ipso facto not credible, simply because they stray from current orthodoxy.
questionseverything
(11,840 posts)there was a time i strongly supported drone strikes,,,,,years ago,during the bush admin i was reading a news article about the janajanaweed riding from village to village,raping ,burning,plundering in general......i was like wtf,,the first village ok,no one knew it was gonna happen,the second village(by now WE know whats going on) SO WHY NOT DRONE THAT GROUP BEFORE THEY HIT THE THIRD VILLAGE?
//////////////
btw i am not supporting the current policies,i gave the extreme example above in hopes of opening an honest discussion,like could this technology ever be used for good?