I got as far as them re-litigating Joe Lieberman

  • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death? As a followup, do you believe that drone warfare would have existed in any case?

    As for Snowden, what makes him any different from Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen or many more? Just because you claim the high ground doesn’t mean you own it.

    • balderdash@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      76
      ·
      1 year ago

      The choices are not either drones or American boots on the ground. That’s a false dichotomy. And we ended up leaving anyway. I can only imagine how it must feel to lose a family member as a civilian casualty of a drone strike and then the occupying country just leaves.

      I don’t see how these other example are relevant. Edward Snowden was not a double agent working for a foreign entity. He saw that a government agency was breaking the law and then told the American people. He also worked with a reputable news agency to not release unnecessary classified information. By all means, this should have been lauded by the Obama administration.

      Just because you claim the high ground doesn’t mean you own it.

      When you say shit like this its hard for people to take you seriously.

      • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization. Pretty soon No one wants to be boss anymore. They are the targets. Now you have a choice on how to eliminate those targets, either by combat or by a newish idea drones. But, both are not clean. More than bin Laden died in the house that night. You may argue they shouldn’t be killed in the first place, but I believe it was necessary.

        You don’t know if Snowden wasn’t an agent by the evidence. He stole intelligence and caused it it be published then went running to Russia. I don’t think a Russian intelligence agency could ask for anything more.

        • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          62
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization. Pretty soon No one wants to be boss anymore.

          how long is “pretty soon”? 50+ years?

          also, the US doesn’t so much “fight terrorists” as it trains, arms and finances them to destabilize regions near US geopolitical rivals, and then get real shocked when all that blows back on US civilians. though it does seem to work up little baby brains into shoveling more money, bones, and blood into the military industrial complex. so maybe it’s a win-win?

          • edge [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            43
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            it trains, arms and finances them to destabilize regions near US geopolitical rivals

            Hmm, that sounds familiar ukkkraine

            and then get real shocked when all that blows back on US civilians.

            I’m sure that definitely won’t happen though.

            • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              35
              ·
              1 year ago

              That’s the way al-Qaeda is now. They’re still taking out ISIS leaders every now and then.

              But that isn’t because US strikes, this is the case thanks to the massive efforts of Syria, Iraq and the Kurds. It was them who fought ISIS head-on in the battlegrounds around Tikrit, Mosul, Raqqa, Kobane, Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor. In fact, the Syrian Arab Army has been engaging Al Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s faction in Syria, for a decade now, and if it’s destroyed it’s largely thanks to Syria’s effort, all while at the same time Al Nusra quietly received weapons from a certain someone.

              Your “war on terrorism” is full of shit, brother, there is no such thing as war against ISIS from the US. ISIS, even at it’s largest extent, posed no threat to the United States, if anything their roots can be traced back to US interventions and financing in the region. Their bombings are nothing but a way to continue military occupation in said places, as evidenced in Syria.

        • FemboyStalin [she/her,any]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          45
          ·
          1 year ago

          How do you even argue with someone who just makes up beliefs? Like, you can and do just say whatever you want and it doesn’t matter that reality doesn’t reflect that, you have your ideology that the world must conform to and you just ignore things that make it inconvenient to believe.

          “The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization. Pretty soon No one wants to be boss anymore. They are the targets. Now you have a choice on how to eliminate those targets, either by combat or by a newish idea drones. But, both are not clean. More than bin Laden died in the house that night. You may argue they shouldn’t be killed in the first place, but I believe it was necessary.” Source on this entire paragraph? Proof “pretty soon nobody wants to be boss anymore”?

        • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          42
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization

          Wait, are you telling us the US Senate, White House, Pentagon, Lockheed Martin’s HQ, CIA HQ and Congress were bombed by US drones? Is Joe Biden among the dead?

          Ah, you mean the arab terrorists, okay, you got me hyped up for a second there. I thought that, for once, the US would take the fight against the biggest terrorist organizations but nevermind.

          You may argue they shouldn’t be killed in the first place, but I believe it was necessary.

          Israel moment.

          You see brother your logic makes perfect sense when you think about it: bad terrorist leader = target for our drones. The problem is that bad terrorist leader can be anywhere, and sometimes drone ends up firing a few Hellfire missiles into weddings and orphan hospitals. So what’s up with that? Who answers for these war crimes? Because so far no drone operator has been convicted for war crimes, “mistakes happen” as they say and they get away with it. And this is assuming the US fights this very loose term of “terrorism” at all, because some of these terrorists were previously armed and financed by the US itself to destabilize rival governments, kinda like how the US sent thousands of TOW anti-tank missile launchers to a bunch of sus factions in Syria because Assad bad, then these people turned out to be Al Nusra surprised-pika

        • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          41
          ·
          1 year ago

          The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization. Pretty soon No one wants to be boss anymore

          So you’re just making shit up from video games or tv, because this is the opposite of the truth. This is the tactic the US used in Iraq and Afghanistan, it consistently failed because there’s always someone new who can replace the head of the organization. This isn’t some leftist critique, this is what the US government learned from more than a decade of trying to make that tactic work.

        • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          36
          ·
          1 year ago

          The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization

          That’s why ISIS, Al-Qaeda affiliates, and the Taliban no longer exist…oh wait

          This nonsense “logic” doesn’t even work in video games, it literally ignores the reality of organizations based on physically decentralized but financially centralized cell groups, not even the American War collages believe what you’re peddling

          You may argue they shouldn’t be killed in the first place, but I believe it was necessary.

          Of course you do, you probably get off on it

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization

          No, it’s to have soldiers blast an oblong opening in the head of any Middle-Easterner they get their blood-soaked hands on.

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Okay so that first thing seems to be untrue? I’ve tried to look for some sources to your claim, but I’m coming up empty. Would you mind posting your references?

          That second thing seems to be speculation? I can’t seem to find anyone credible supportimg it

    • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      60
      ·
      1 year ago

      As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?

      Very few people give a shit about dead foreign civilians, a lot of people get angry when the bodies of their own country’s soldiers start piling up. Replace the soldiers with remote control machines and you remove a huge (arguably the main) incentive for people to oppose war.

    • Sasuke [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      46
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?

      yes, personally i’d love to see more dead US soldiers actually

      gigachad-hd

    • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      46
      ·
      1 year ago

      Buddy you have a lot of unexamined assumptions you need to address, first let’s start with the context of these “missions” your beloved soldiers and drones carry out

      Is murdering innocent people for oil execs and military capital something you consider necessary and noble?

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      44
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?

      1. Why are you automatically supporting these “missions” in the first place? They shouldn’t be carried out at all.

      2. Yes I would rather have live soldiers doing it. Dead bodies means less people will support doing these “missions” that shouldn’t be done in first fucking place.

      The US is literally the Empire from Star Wars and this thread is basically you doing “empire did nothing wrong” but unironically.

      You are the bad guy.

    • CarmineCatboy [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      40
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?

      Don’t know what to tell you but people being invaded don’t tend to hold american soldiers’ lives as sacred.

    • WhyEssEff [she/her]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      1 year ago

      As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?

      turnabout is fair play shrug-outta-hecks

    • radiofreeval [any]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death

      If you’re going to be a murderer, don’t be a coward about it. A person with a rifle knows what they did, a drone has plausible denyiblity. Plus it’s harder to convince people to send people to do the killing as opposed to robots.