The US Is Suspected of Killing a Terrorist In Syria Using Missile With Knife Warhead (businessinsider.com) 227
pgmrdlm shares a report from Business Insider: A suspected terrorist in Syria was reportedly killed with a rare U.S. missile packed with swords, according to multiple reports. The weapon that shredded the car did not explode. While the driver's side was torn apart, the vehicle was actually mostly intact. The deadly precision weapon was, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal in May, designed by the U.S. to reduce civilian casualties. The Journal noted that the R9X has been used covertly, albeit rarely, against targets in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere since 2017.
The important difference (Score:4, Insightful)
And that is what makes us different from the scum, who actively target civilians, and pack their weapons with nails to increase the casualties among bystanders.
Re:The important difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe we should give the scum a better price on our precision weapons
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Like everybody else they will use the cheapest tool for the job. This is business, and you're taking it personally.
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That picture clearly shows that the rockets exploded on impact, and does the Wiki article. So I'm not sure in what sense you think this is a reinvention.
Re: The important difference (Score:2)
How else are you supposed to fight a terrorist war?
You're not. You sound like a rapist saying "well how else am I supposed to force someone to fuck me?"
And they are not just killing ANY people, they do try target enemy combatants, in general.
They try to kill enemy combatants when they can, but the vast majority of the victims they target are civilians, government officials, and law enforcement personnel.
Re:The important difference (Score:4, Insightful)
It's possible to fight an asymmetric war without fighting a terrorist war.
The French resistance managed it. Afghans fighting Russia managed it. The Vietnamese sort of managed it.
Terrorism is a specific decision to seek to instill fear int he civilian populace of your opponent. Stop trying to defend it under the pretence of asymmetry of resources.
Re:The important difference (Score:5, Insightful)
"How else are you supposed to fight a terrorist war?"
But not moving your military into countries not your own.
Where I get your point, the counter to your argument goes like this: "Better engage them there than let them come and attack us here."
IF you assume that their stated goal of attacking you in your homeland are what they actually intend to carry out and that they are capable of attacking your homeland, then this is totally logical. If you don't consider them a serious threat, that they are just so much hot air, then taking the fight to them is stupid.
So the question really isn't about the troops location, but the seriousness of the terrorists' threats. If the threat is credible then what we are doing makes perfect sense, if the threat isn't credible, then what we are doing is stupid.
I ask you, do we have any way to gauge how credible the threats they make are? I think we do. Given that they HAVE attacked us and our allies on our own soil, that the threats are somewhat credible. Which means, it's actually a good idea to engage them where they are located. Meaning that having troops over there has some justification.
Of course, your assessment of the threats may vary and I'd welcome a discussion about that if you like. However, just blasting us for having troops over there or blaming the troops presence for the problem is not logical IMHO.
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Their job, as they see it, is to kill as many people as possible.
Again, that is your claim.
Our job, as we see it, is to kill them. And only them...
Always the comedian...
No, it is not.
Yes, it is. Everybody is paid for their service, usually in greenbacks. This is how your economic system works. *Capitalism Without Borders*®
How many people you kill, and in what circumstance, is purely dependent on what your goal is.
If you're a terror group seeking power... sowing dissension against the government via indiscriminate bombings and maximum slaughter works in your favor - it's in your interests. It seems paradoxical but if the government cannot protect you, what good is the government?
If you however are the government fighting the terrorists, it is in your interest to avoid creating dissension among the masses, and killing terror o
Re: The important difference (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop it. Our unintended casualty rate is something like 80%. Being better than someone horrifically awful doesn't make us 'good'.
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Unintended is the keyword here. We do not want to kill bystanders. Our enemies do.
Re: The important difference (Score:4, Insightful)
We do not want to kill bystanders.
Apparently, the US army does just that. Like marines torturing and killing helpless prisoners (and admitting it under the oath), posing with dead bodies and so on. And all of this fully sanctioned by the highest command.
Re: The important difference (Score:4, Informative)
The actions of the few, do not imply the overall motivations of the whole.
Mistakes are made, people run outside the rules and are dealt with accordingly. Clearly the instances you talk about are NOT standard operating procedure, but aberrations which once exposed have been curtailed. Yes, these things are bad, but war is a messy business, people die, things get broken and bad things happen as a result.
The question is not about the bad things that happened, but if it was worth it. The military is about killing people and breaking things as accurately, efficiently and quickly as possible. When you use military power you MUST understand that you WILL do harm, innocent people will likely suffer, and that you have determined that this is worth the good that comes from the suffering.
So, the argument you are making is that it's not worth it. But I disagree. Clearly the USA is exercising restraint and dealing with these situations as they happen. No, we are not perfect, but war is a bunt instrument no matter how you wage it. We are clearly trying to be as surgical as we can. For the adversary though, I'm not sure we can make the same claim. They seem to be bent on wanton destruction of innocent bystanders, or at least willing to harbor people within their ranks who are.
So this moral discussion you want to have really is easily shown to favor the USA's approach, regardless of how poorly some of our troops execute their judgment in specific instances. NOBODY in the USA is willingly sending as many civilians to their deaths because we can do it. IN a relative sense, who's on the most shakey moral ground? Those who INTEND harm and actively seek it or those who seek to mitigate the risks of harming innocents? I know my answer.. What's yours?
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We do not want to kill bystanders.
Apparently, the US army does just that. Like marines torturing and killing helpless prisoners (and admitting it under the oath), posing with dead bodies and so on. And all of this fully sanctioned by the highest command.
You know what? Fuck you. Show me even one written order or even one recorded instance of a commander telling his people to take out bystanders. Yes, it has happened, but no it is not fucking sanctioned.
You are the enemy you dumb mother fucker. You have it too good. We should eject you out of civilized society so your stupid fucking hatred can be expressed simply and easily. You are an utterly disgusting example of "so fucked in the head you will work against your own interests". Just go join the fucking sui
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After guessing wrong so many times before, you don't even know it, when you guess right.
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A dishonest representation of the actual facts.
Claims using numbers like that are obtained by merely counting the people killed in an airstrike vs the number of specific individuals targeted by the airstrike.
However, it completely ignores the fact that almost all of the people around these targets are legitimate targets themselves. For example, when an airstrike kills Khaled Ali and his four bodyguards, by your claim "80%" of the casualties were "unintended" - only one dead guy was the target, the other fo
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The other 80% are usually the wedding party... But it doesn't really matter what the exact number is, what matters is that you are killing innocent people.
Imagine if the police blew up your family and told you "sorry but they were stood 30m away from a really bad criminal."
Re: The important difference (Score:2)
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Stop it. Our unintended casualty rate is something like 80%. Being better than someone horrifically awful doesn't make us 'good'.
Citation please?
I know it's popular to bash the USA for the mistakes and collateral damage we cause, but I'd argue that we at least are not intentionally choosing to harm the bystanders. I'd also argue that your statistic is rather inflated, inflamed by the adversaries' PR campaigns (i.e. it's propaganda).
Clearly the USA is exercising restraint. We are NOT out willy nilly destroying stuff and killing bystanders with wanton disregard, but are engaged in a targeted strategic exercise of military power at
Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
War sucks, assassination sucks, it all sucks. There really is nothing to like here.
Weapons like this seem particularly menacing because of their messy impact, and also because the "suddenly, out of nowhere, boom!" makes us all a bit nervous. How safe are we really when such weapons exist? It can incline us to seek to ban such weapons, in hopes that this will make us safer.
But when dealing with the harsh reality of enemies out there, intending to harm us, with the means, motive, and opportunity to do so, it makes sense to have and deploy weapons like these. Eliminating the threat is an obligation that our government owes to us and our loved ones who pay them for protection. Doing it in a way that minimizes civilian causalities is a moral step-up, given that doing so involves greater effort and expense (and, of course, preserves innocent lives).
So I consider weapons like these a necessary evil. I also consider governments (of all forms) to be necessary evils. I have no reason to believe that our leaders are paragons of moral virtue who would never abuse such power, so that makes me less than 100% comfortable with *ANY* kinds of weapons being in their hands. But this evil remains necessary. The correct means of keeping ourselves safe is not to ban the weapons, but to ensure that all government actions remain publicly visible, so that we can hold them perpetually accountable.
Frappe (Score:2)
I can't read the french tweet in the story but I saw the word "Frappe" in it. This is quite awesome. Literally. It will provoke awe and fear.
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Is that like a hot version of a Frappucino?
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Wow, you've heard about one time that they've used a missile that caused less damage to the people around the strike zone compared to the thousands of times that you've heard nothing when they've used much more lethal force. And you're happy that they've told you something. The reason they told you something is that things didn't fubar. They needed some good press to keep the money coming.
Never mind that the drones have done much to drive people against the US. They drive the people crazy because the drones
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It might not make news in the US, but in Europe we hear often enough about an (american?) airstrike in Afghanistan or similar area were they "accidentally" bomb a marriage celebration with 400 guests and 200 dead, because of $REASON.
Usually there is no legitimated target at the place or reported to be there ... and most certainly: not hit. Only kids and women and the broom and a old folk ... or the bride, or both.
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Menacing because of the "messy impact"??
What do you imagine a conventional bomb does, scatter rose petals? Precision weapons reduce civilian casualties.
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I also consider governments (of all forms) to be necessary evils. I have no reason to believe that our leaders are paragons of moral virtue who would never abuse such power, so that makes me less than 100% comfortable with *ANY* kinds of weapons being in their hands.
Are you talking about governments or specific people in them. You weaken the rest of your well formed argument by introducing hyperbole at the end. Governments are necessary, and through their structure and setup many actually attempt to be virtuous precisely by keeping specific evil people's power in check.
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There's a really easy way to tell that these knife wielding missiles aren't all that great, and neither are explosive warheads fired from drones.
If they were good they would use them in the US. No more police shootouts, just launch the knife tipped missile at the guy. The active shooter on campus would have no chance.
Re:The important difference (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is what makes us different from the scum, who actively target civilians
Killing a "suspected" terrorist in a foreign country with no due process just means your not applying the same standards of justice to international citizens that you expect for yourselves.
Whilst it is an improvement on killing everyone else around the "suspected terrorist" it doesn't excuse the fact that murder is murder. You only know what you have been told and I'm certain if any other country in the world did a similar thing to a US citizen on US soil it would be viewed as an act of war.
The deployment of this weapon can also be viewed as realization that when a US "smart bomb" takes out 20 people at a wedding, as has happened in the past, some of the innocent people who suffered the "collateral damage" of having their siblings or parents murdered are going to be pissed off enough to want to seek revenge. Usually in the same faceless, brutal and indiscriminate method that their own families suffered. Thus the cycle of hatred continues unbroken.
That's what happens when you manufacture terrorists instead of negotiating with them so they can let go of their hate. Please, please, please stop killing people in other countries to maintain your economic interests which is less important than the concepts of justice, freedom and democracy that the U.S originally stood for before it became a superpower.
Re:The important difference (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, we were actually trying to detain them initially... But everyone hated that so much, we stopped and — since the early Obama era [theguardian.com] — are just killing such suspects on the spot.
We do apply the same standard to people in countries with the same rule of law as ours. No drone has killed Assange, for example — we've requested and are patiently waiting for the UK to extradite him. But Syria is not such a country, hence different rules.
Ah, yes, yes — we don't have any enemies, do we? Only friends, whose grievances we've failed to accommodate...
Re:The important difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, we were actually trying to detain them initially... But everyone hated that so much, we stopped and — since the early Obama era [theguardian.com] — are just killing such suspects on the spot.
I would have liked to see OBL put on trial, humiliated before the people of the world, evidence of his alleged machinations presented and then locked up for the rest of his life in shame. That demonstrates a nation secure in it's morals and values that can come up with a fate *worse* than death. No rigor of evidence was examined and we're were supplied more lies we're expected to continue believing even after evidence to the contrary has been presented. I wouldn't be surprised if he is still alive having a whiskey with Saddam Hussein. Who knows for sure?
Justice denied.
We do apply the same standard to people in countries with the same rule of law as ours. No drone has killed Assange, for example — we've requested and are patiently waiting for the UK to extradite him. But Syria is not such a country, hence different rules.
Riiiight, so a US drone strike on an Australian citizen in a UK jail is an option in your mind. An act of war against two US allies at the same time is something you've considered worthy posting. This is how you'd treat your friends. That's the police state thinking for you, sow fear.
Assange has defended democracy by pointing out corruption that threatens to collapse our democracy. That kind of sacrifice for Western culture makes Assange a hero and US attempts to extradite and silence simply highlight the depths of the corruption and how important his work is. Your background is from the USSR IIRC mi which provides many lessons on how corruption can destroy a society. As a unapologetic and staunch defender of freedom of speech and democratic issues for most of my western life, I'd like us to learn the lessons of that failure so I question if your off-topic and inflammatory comment is helpful achieving that goal.
Ah, yes, yes — we don't have any enemies, do we? Only friends, whose grievances we've failed to accommodate...
Currently the US is occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia from memory and I don't really understand why you're still there? You're on a war footing with China and Iran and just taken out some guy in Syria. Perhaps by looking at things like this and you have an answer to the question "Why do they hate us?". It's not something you've always done so I think if the US would simply stop invading and occupying countries you would have a lot *less* enemies.
Re:The important difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The important difference (Score:4, Interesting)
I would have liked to see OBL put on trial, humiliated before the people of the world, evidence of his alleged machinations presented and then locked up for the rest of his life in shame
Unfortunately, that requires OBL to cooperate with his capture, and Pakistan to not provide him a safe haven. He didn't, and they did.
Assange has defended democracy by pointing out corruption that threatens to collapse our democracy.
Assange has fantastic marketing. That's about it.
He's received volumes of information leaked from Russia that he has not released. That would be rather inconsistent if he actually believed in the openness he claims.
His most famous leaks, from Manning and Snowden, did not contain what he and his fans claim it did. For example, almost everything Snowden leaked was capabilities, and Assange and Co have just asserted who those capabilities are being used against. The very few documents from the Snowden dump that actually included targeting had extensive steps to ensure the targeting complied with the law.
Which brings us to how you're actually harming democracy with statements like this. By asserting things like "the NSA is operating outside the law", you remove all pressure to change the laws that makes the NSA's actions legal. It would be really good to revisit the 1979 SCOTUS decision that made the NSA phone records program legal. By claiming it isn't legal, you remove the pressure to change the law.
Currently the US is occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia from memory and I don't really understand why you're still there
Their governments have requested our continued presence. Whether or not those governments are "legitimate" is another debate.
You're on a war footing with China and Iran
We're being belligerent to those countries. We are not mobilizing any troops to invade. So no, not a "war footing".
Perhaps by looking at things like this and you have an answer to the question "Why do they hate us?"
They hate us because of our freedoms!!! (/snark)
We know they hate us because of our history of interventions and dumb moves in the region like re-installing the Shah. Unfortunately, we can't reverse that without a time machine, and have to deal with the situation that we are in today. And that requires doing nasty shit to nasty people, thus generating more nasty people angry at what we just did.
Which is why a very large faction of us would really like programs like the "New Green Deal". The sooner we can not give a damn about Middle Eastern oil, the better. Unfortunately we're locked in a cold civil war with another faction that believes their birthright is to conquer the world for money and their caricature of Jesus...and money. About the only positive news I can give on that front is the conquer-the-world faction is slowly shrinking due to old age.
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> why a very large faction of us would really like programs like the "New Green Deal". The sooner we can not give a damn about Middle Eastern oil,
US is a net exporter of oil. Much of the interest for the Middle East is for European interests and by extension a US interest because allies.
Much of the hubub around Syria and Ukraine is gas for Europe.
Basically, if you want the US out of the Middle East you need Europe to defend their own interests.
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Ah, yes, yes — we don't have any enemies, do we? Only friends, whose grievances we've failed to accommodate...
Indeed. People aren't born with enemies. The GP did not say the US must accommodate. The GP also did not say they aren't enemies. The GP merely said how these enemies come to be enemies of the USA, and for the most part it's due to the actions of the USA itself.
You would do well to study history and understand why terrorists are even interested in attacking western nations in the first place, especially given their goal as an organised group is usually 100% related to domestic politics.
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"People aren't born with enemies." Except racists, sexists, and such.
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That's actually a philosophical argument I've mulled over for the past 30 years. Do you treat others by the standards you expect of yourself? Or do you treat them by the standards that they expect of themselves? I honestly don't know the right answer to it, although I'm leaning towards the latter.
The former would
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It didn't take me anywhere close to 30 years to come to a conclusion. That individual humans have great value is itself a human construct. I cannot imagine why I should place more value on a person than he places on himself or others. Violent people place less value on others, and I'm not going to value them any more than they value those they would harm.
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Do you treat others by the standards you expect of yourself? Or do you treat them by the standards that they expect of themselves? I honestly don't know the right answer to it, although I'm leaning towards the latter.
You treat them the way it brings most advantage to yourself.
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There is only one answer you can be sure of. Treat people by the standards you expect of yourself. But don't trust that they would adhere to those standards.
How would you know (for sure) what standards they expect of themselves? So if you guess about what their standards are you might get
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That's actually a philosophical argument I've mulled over for the past 30 years. Do you treat others by the standards you expect of yourself? Or do you treat them by the standards that they expect of themselves? I honestly don't know the right answer to it, although I'm leaning towards the latter.
If your standards of morality are so malleable that you can abandon them then you don't have any standards for morality. Instead what you can do is stick to your standards of morality, judge an aggressors actions by them and react accordingly.
The former would seem to be the more noble philosophy. But it creates a logical loophole exploitable by evil people.
Morality, not logic, is the guiding principle. With the latter an evil actor can project their view of the others standards onto the other to justify their conduct of evil acts. That is a form of moral relativism and when it is combined with...
then evil people know they can hide among innocent people to gain an advantage. If that advantage is sufficient to achieve a military victory, you are literally letting the innocent people be occupied/killed by the evil people because you yourself refuse to accidentally do harm to them. (The conjugate to "destroy the village to save it".- you allow the village to be destroyed because you refuse on philosophical grounds to do what's necessary to save it.)
...moral absolutism it
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"Please, please, please stop killing people in other countries to maintain your economic interests which is less important than the concepts of justice, freedom and democracy that the U.S originally stood for before it became a superpower."
LOL
-Native Americans
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That's what happens when you manufacture terrorists instead of negotiating with them so they can let go of their hate.
Can the dog negotiate with the tick? Can the antelope negotiate with the lion? Can I negotiate with you?
Absolutely not. You are going to do what you are going to do and you don't give the slightest care in the world to what I might want. You will take what you want from me because I have no importance to you. It is the exact same with those people. Their interests clash with the interests of the United States as a whole and there is no possible resolution other than death. In the case of you and I, there is
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Killing a "suspected" terrorist in a foreign country with no due process just means your not applying the same standards of justice to international citizens that you expect for yourselves.
We're talking about the death of an enemy leader in a war zone. Contrary to what you seem to be suggesting, there is an applicable standard of justice, it does apply equally to all parties, and it's dictated by international accord (e.g. Geneva convention). Nowhere do those accords require that we build a battlefield courtroom and reach a guilty verdict for each and every enemy combatant before our soldiers are permitted to put a bullet in that enemy's head. To put it simply, your opinion that due process m
Re:The important difference (Score:5, Informative)
They are driven by a code of "convert or kill".
Oh please! Just stop! [businessinsider.com]
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Because an article written by the same people who tried to explain away the fact they were a bunch of rich white people being opposed by a bunch of minorities with the claim that their critics are "multiracial white supremacists" is totally trustworthy.
Re:The important difference (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. It's like young football fans who are attracted to different football clubs that they love. Clubs they love, support, and cheer. In this country, there are two sides, you are either al-Shabab or government supporter. There's nothing in between. [bbc.com]
And when the government is corrupt, impotent, and murderous, and the other option is semi-competent, armed, and present, how do you choose the government? If both will punish you for supporting the other, how do you choose?
Around here, MS-13 might consist of maybe a dozen people, probably less. If they come to my house and demand my loyalty, I'll say sure, and as soon as they're gone I'll call on the government to come deal with them. Hell, I could run out and yell and we could rally a lot more people than they have just in my neighborhood.
In places where there is minimal government, it's not hard for a terrorist organization to be more dangerous, wield more influence, and even be a better government than the actual government. If MS-13 had 50k members around here, and came around with garbage trucks 2x a week, plowed any time there was more than 1" of snow, ran extra school buses, offered free after school programs, fixed the pot holes, and paid hospital co-pays, I'd be ok with being shaken down for $20 every month. A lot of us would. That's a stupid example, because it would take a massive amount of money and effort to offset our functional government. But in a third-world country? Just keeping bandits off the major roads means you're better than the government.
The problem is that third-world heroes can definitely be first-world terrorists. You need money to be a terrorist, and to get money you can either rape and pillage the local people or tax them and improve the economy to make more tax money. If you're the only effective government, you can go either way. Regardless, us killing the people who are pretty much forced to accept their government is bullshit. If the terrorist government rules by threat of death, they are fucked either way. If the terrorist government rules by virtue of being more functional than the regular government, how do we justify killing people picking the better of two options?
I didn't vote for any of the wars in the last 20 years. In fact, I was against them all. If the government I'm subjected to does things I don't get to vote on, how do you justify killing me for that? If I support the government because most of what they do makes my life and the life of those around me better, how do you justify killing me for that?
In third world countries, what we call terrorists are often the better option for the people who live there. How do we fairly judge them for choosing what they either have to choose or what is very logically the better option? Just murdering them for that choice makes us the bad guys.
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Tell me something, (1)who pays them to fight and (2)why?
1) Usually the US.
2) Because they used them to fight a regime, they did not like. ISIS is an offspring of the Taliban, both US founded and funded organizations.
Re:The important difference (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what happens when you manufacture terrorists instead of negotiating with them so they can let go of their hate.
We've tried that many times. There is no negotiating with terrorists because terrorists cannot "let go of their hate" until they are dead.
My dear fellow blindseer, it seems you are suggesting they are born with hate in their hearts. Terrorists aren't born, they're made. Someone has to put the hate there.
They are driven by a code of "convert or kill". To convert to their thinking means we must also "convert or kill", a philosophy that means we must become murderers like them or be killed by them.
Perhaps they're thinking "I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed." Maybe they think that because they have a weapon they are justified in using it because someone told them they need to be armed to be free?
If the foot soldier cannot be convinced to change their murderous ways then at least we can convince them to leave America alone by having them see the remains of their leaders picked up off the street by a mop.
So how does that justify the use of Depleted Uranium weapons that remains to create birth deformations [duckduckgo.com] to unborn babies for generations to come? Did you learn nothing from Agent Orange [wikipedia.org]? How have these unborn terrorists been killing US citizens?
I've read some history books, and I've seen what happens in these negotiations.
Now we've seen what happens without them and it seems to be a lot worse.
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Re:The important difference (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no negotiating with terrorists because terrorists cannot "let go of their hate" until they are dead.
That's bullshit and demonstrably wrong. See, for example the Good Friday Agreement.
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Citation needed.
If they agreed to every demand there wouldn't be a problem, or a war. America could withdraw it's troops and go home. What seems to be missing from your one sided "history" book(s) or more accurately, "propaganda pamphlet" is the American demands to replace the current government with their own puppet government, allow Amer
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No, the important difference is that as it descends, our missile goes HII-YAHH!
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There's pretty decent evidence that when a terrorist organization actually starts killing people in large numbers they've jumped the shark.
Terror organizations require money, most of which they get from donations. When they start killing people, especially indiscriminately, the donations dry up. It happened to Al Qaeda after 911.
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And that is what makes us different from the scum, who actively target civilians, and pack their weapons with nails to increase the casualties among bystanders.
Did you fail physics in high school?
Impact velocity of a Hellfire Missile: 400m/s
Impact weight of a Hellfire Missile: 50kg
Impact energy of a Hellfire Missile: 8MJ
Impact TNT equivalent of a Hellfire Missile: 2KG of TNT.
Quantity of TNT in a hand grenade: 80g.
There is nothing more to say here besides the fact that media continuously underestimates what kinetic energy means and how does it look if something flying at high speed whack a target. This is not the first time or the last time: https://www.fa [fagain.co.uk]
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The CIA drugging thousands of civilians in secret, carpeting vast areas with Agent Orange causing widespread deaths and permanent health issues, flattening cities with Firebombings and Nuclear weapons during WWII... If being willing to use dubious weapons makes someone scum then the US has a pretty atrocious record.
It's ridiculously naive to judge a massively outgunned force for not following the same standards as their opposition, unless you know the oppo
Re: The important difference (Score:2)
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If they are found out, they are prosecuted [theguardian.com] — not rewarded [dailysignal.com].
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Wrong again [reuters.com]
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The link you posted does not contradict anything I said. Stop with your pearl-clutching already. American really is superior to most, if not all, of today's civilizations.
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Hiroshima was a military command center, military harbor, and weapons manufacturing center; not a civilian suburb.
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So that whole Trump pardoning two officers, First Lieutenant Clint Lorance and Major Mathew Golsteyn, of murdering Afghan civilians didn't happen then? And he didn't pardon Edward Gallagher who was convicted of posing with the corpse of a detainee, a detainee who had been wounded but Gallagher had stabbed to death.
It's a wonderful system at work there.
Knife Missile? (Score:2)
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I'll tell you what he would be appalled by: the killing of "suspected" (not even convicted) civilians in a foreign country without any form of due process.
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I'll tell you what he would be appalled by: the killing of "suspected" (not even convicted) civilians in a foreign country without any form of due process.
I get the feeling that you haven't read many of the Culture books.
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I've read them all. Here's the thing: the Culture is fictional and acts mostly out of benevolence - even SC. The US on the other hand is real and does not.
I believe IMB was a good man, and he knew the difference between fictional and real violence.
Re: (Score:2)
He clearly didn't know the difference between fiction and reality given he was an ardent socialist and supported genocidal terrorist organizations just because of his blind kneejerk need to support whatever had the surface appearance of an anti-west underdog.
Or maybe he did and, like every single socialist state in the history of the world, he just supported totalitarian genocidal regimes.
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Or maybe he did and, like every single socialist state in the history of the world, he just supported totalitarian genocidal regimes.
Would you care to number those socialist states?
Or perhaps we have different definitions of "socialist state"?
Is it socialist if it is in the name of the state? "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" has no "socialist" in the name btw. and did never do a genocide or similar atrocities.
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I'll tell you what he would be appalled by: the killing of "suspected" (not even convicted) civilians in a foreign country without any form of due process.
I get the feeling that you haven't read many of the Culture books.
And I suspect he has indeed read Culture novels... and that you yourself don't know a lot about Banks' real-life beliefs.
Re:Knife Missile? (Score:5, Informative)
He was a combatant.
According to HTS WhatsApp groups, the person killed is Abu Ahmad al-Muhajir, a foreign trainer of the elite force of the HTS, "The Red Bands" [google.com]
Live by the sword die by the sword. In this case, literally.
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking the same :D
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EABOD, butthurt "patriot".
So, a shotgun? (Score:2)
Granted, I'm not in the business of putting a bunch of explosives behind a bunch of knives. But I suspect I'd get much more bang for the buck using the shotgun approach.
They don't detach (Score:2)
The pop-out blades remain attached, it appears.
It seems to be designed to make sure the missile doesn't miss by 18 inches. At the same time, it's designed to leave someone standing four feet away unharmed, though in need of fresh underwear.
the video is pretty grisly (Score:3)
https://twitter.com/N_Waters89... [twitter.com]
Viewer discretion is advised. Looks like they already removed the deceased (possibly using a bucket and a spatula)
Instead of anti-tank crowbars from orbit (Score:2)
There are more dangerous possibilities. There was a proposal to take out armor on the ground by dropping very stupid kinetic weapons from very high altitudes, basically orbiting crowbars, for destroying armor on the ground. Let us be very glad _these_ were not used. They will pierce armor, they will pierce shallow bunkers, in theory they could be dropped en masse, they're less expensive than one might expect, and they'd ideally be dropped in a shef to wipe out a neighborhood. They're basically small, solid
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I may be wrong but, when the cost of putting this type of weapon into orbit in the first place is taken into account, I think it would be cheaper just to use a good old fashioned anti-tank missile against armor :P
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As I understand the costs, "it depends". When you factor in the personnel or vehicles troops to get anti-tank weapons in ground range, the space crowbars are surprisingly cost effective. They require almost no support in orbit, merely a homebase capable of planning their trajectory and triggering their launch, and they could strike nearly anywhere in the world that is even roughly close to their orbit. They're also a direct violation of various treaties, so I'm not personally aware of any actually being pu
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They may not make sense now. But when asteroid mining finally happens (assuming we don't kill ourselves first) it will be cheap.
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Project Thor was never more than a concept because it's not cheap, it's ridiculously expensive. Tungsten (and it has to be tungsten) telephone poles are expensive, and especially so when they're in orbit. High explosive is cheap, and doesn't have to be in orbit. The cost of most missile systems is guidance, which you also need on rods from god.
It has only two advantages: you can drop one anywhere you want with a few minutes notice, and it's very hard to defend against.
The US did deploy actual cheap kinetic
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The point of orbital kinetic weapons was as a replacement for nuclear weapons. You drop a tungsten telephone pole from orbit and it's going to have the force of a small nuke with no fallout and a lot less warning.
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to.write that the energy released could be nowhere close to a nuclear blast, but you are right.
Apparently, a 10 ton tungsten pole from low-earth orbit will have about 10 kton of kinetic energy at impact. A Falcon Heavy can launch six of those for 100 M$.
I doubt that you could aim for a specific building or even specific city with an unguided telephone pole, since it would probably need to circle the earth to slow down enough to reach sea level. And guidance is difficult because "the weapon's sen
Obligatory (Score:3)
Flechettes (Score:5, Interesting)
sooooo (Score:2)
Is it better to drop a massive ordinance weapon and cause collateral damage? I actually started envying the people that come up with this stuff when someone told me about the "RPG machine gun" or a few others the air force was testing near my town. It made me wonder if a piranha gun or sharks with lasers was really a gag or something more.
Firefly (Score:2)
Guy Killed Me With A Sword, Mal. How Weird Is That?
Interestingly (Score:2)
The Terminator in âzDark Fateâoe is called a âzRev9âoe, IIRC. Thereâ(TM)s been a flick of truth and sometimes pre-shadowing in Hollywood movies that is a bit unsettling at times.
RPC M1B (Score:2)
I guess someone at DARPA actually decided to go forward with the Rocket Propelled Chainsaw schematics circulated on the internet about a decade ago.
So are they at war, or was it just murder? (Score:2, Insightful)
Cause I don't see a judge here determining the claim that he actually was a terrorist is true. (Also, what jurisdiction would that be?)
And in that case, they just told the world "It is morally perfectly acceptable to us, to murder people halfway around the world without a legal trial, if you just accuse them of $something by your own moral standards.". ... Wanna be friends in spirit? :)"
To which every terrorist of course goes: "Allright! Cool! That's precisely what we to do!
If you wanna be the judge, you at
Re: (Score:2)
Cause I don't see a judge here determining the claim that he actually was a terrorist is true. (Also, what jurisdiction would that be?)
The people firing the weapon are in US jurisdiction. Under that jurisdiction, the attack is legal - he is not a US person and is an enemy combatant.
And in that case, they just told the world "It is morally perfectly acceptable to us, to murder people halfway around the world without a legal trial, if you just accuse them of $something by your own moral standards.".
It's more that there is no way to actually bring the person to trial. They can't be arrested because they're not under the jurisdiction of a functional government.
Also, this particular person disclosed what they were doing on ISIS's social media sites - he was in charge of training ISIS's "elite" troops. So it's not just an accusation by the US government.
If you wanna be the judge, you at the very least have to adhere to your own rules.
We
The ginsu-bot 5000 is pissed they stole his bit. (Score:2)
Did they at least call it "Death by 1000 cuts"?
Re: (Score:2)
It really should be noted that this is bit of a myth.
Pork products are considered unclean, but muslims are allowed to consume them if they are starving and there is no alternative. Likewise just being inadvertedly exposed to it isnt some talisman that prevents entry to heaven. The only real purpose for the pigs blood is to offend.
Its an old antisemetic myth that used to go around about jews thats been repackaged to be about muslims for the modern age.
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Re: (Score:3)
Since Leviticus is part of the Christian bible the same injunction against eating pork is part of their heritage. They get out of the no-bacon rule because Jesus did a takeback:
"Psych dudes, since you're just going to shit it out again, you can eat whatever you want!" - Mark 7:18-19
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