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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
The Mod with the Migraine
You guys already decided the presidents of my nation at least thrice!
I demand the right to call the shots now!
I THINK IT'S TIME EVERYONE MARCHED BEHIND ME! YOUR NEW GLORIOUS LEADER!
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesSpeaking of Carter, he has said now that given Trump or Cruz to choose from, he would pick Trump.
“The reason is, Trump has proven already he’s completely malleable,” Carter said. “I don’t think he has any fixed (positions) he’d go the White House and fight for. On the other hand, Ted Cruz is not malleable. He has far right-wing policies he’d pursue if he became president.”
Carter added that he had a “feeling” that Trump's chances for the presidency would “fade away.”
“When people actually get ready to put on a ballot, ‘This is the person I want to lead me for the next four or eight years, I think they’ll have a little different opinion,’” Carter said.
edited 4th Feb '16 1:13:46 PM by Bense
There's valid reason to be critical of the drone program, primarily its combat parameters. A person is considered a valid target if they're a male between the ages of 18 and 40 or so if I recall right. Also, they're considered "acceptable collateral" if they're in range of the primary target at the time of the strike
.
I understand the mentality behind the Drone program - protect our forces while demoralizing theirs by removing the Taking You with Me aspect of a firefight, but it's still pretty dark-grey.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"As to why, it appears to be a combination of:
- He's basically been pro LGBT rights since 1972 in one form another, plus-minus evolving on sections, which is a growing youth issue, as more young people come out of the closet.
- A lot of younger people are heavily affected by student debt policies of colleges/universities and the Government which is seen as crushing them out of buying homes, cars, starting a family.
- He's basically saying torch Wall Street, and it's very possible for the Millenial generation, the 2007-2099 financial crisis was basically the moment that will crystalize in their minds. And there are likely a large number of Millenials and younger adults who basically saw jobs get lost, homes get foreclosed, health insurance dropped, and retirement and bank accounts get obliterated.
Basically, young people want to see heads roll with regards to the banks, and it's only recently Clinton pivoted on gay rights, so she seems like a faker.
vandro is making a reference to this paragraph on the jacobin article linked above
Which is basically demonstrating the investigative powers of a headless chicken.
P.S: Both Dems and Reps have real bad foreign policies cuz' the solution from both has been guns guns and more guns :P
edited 4th Feb '16 2:20:46 PM by Aszur
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesI've actually read those documents they're talking about that supposedly reveal 90% of those killed "weren't the intended targets". They're for Operation Haymaker, in eastern Afghanistan from January 2012 to February 2013. What the documents actually say is that, in the course of 56 strikes, 219 of the kills were EKIA (enemy killed in action) while 35 were JP- jackpots, i.e. high valued targets. The last slide lists 14 civilian casualties, but it doesn't say if those casualties were inflicted by the drones or something else, since that last slide includes the effects of all missions conducted by TF 3-10. Regardless, assuming that everyone in that last slide was killed by a drone, that'd mean 13% of the killed are the intended targets, 82% were other militants, and 5% were civilians. Even those journalists in that article you posted estimate 476 civilians killed out of 3,852 people, a civilian casualty rate of 12% (which is way higher than what the Pakistani government or the US military's classified docs say, but eh). Much less than in pretty much any other type of operation.
The individual who leaked these documents to the media argued that there is insufficient evidence to be sure all those labeled EKIA were actually the enemy. It was his fear that the procedure for labeling other individuals killed in those strikes as EKIA was too loose, and conducted with too little verification, relying on little more than they be military aged males in close proximity to the intended target, and that the number of civilian casualties must actually be much higher. He offered absolutely no proof of this, but who needs proof? Of course the military lies on their own classified internal documents.
Given how worked up Karzai was getting about civilian casualties from airstrikes in 2012 there's no way the drone operators could've afforded to just blow away every male between 16 and 50 and label them as EKIA (which is also ludicrously inefficient given the amount of pre-planning and intelligence work that goes into picking a strike; btw why are these terrorist leaders seemingly never surrounded by civilian children or women?). Karzai would've shut down the operation immediately if that was the case, which is blowback that the US doesn't need.
The drone strikes are the best idea that the NATO forces in Afghanistan ever had. They've killed hundreds of important terrorist leaders in their supposed safe havens in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and basically have denied them the ability to safely hide there. That's far more important to defeating an insurgency than just killing more mooks. All with a negligible amount of civilian casualties, and no losses for your own soldiers. Do you have a better idea of what they should be doing?
edited 4th Feb '16 3:25:12 PM by Nihlus1
I have to agree with Nihlus1 here. Drones are a vastly more precise and efficient way of conducting asymmetric warfare than manned aircraft.
The CIA really just couldn't give less of a fuck about the rules of engagement and civilian casualties. Almost all civilian casualties are from CIA controlled strikes.
When the drones are in the hands of the actual Air Force you'll find civilian casualties are few and far between. Not to mention that they tend to do a better job at destroying important targets in the first place.
Oh really when?The CIA operates the drones in Yemen and Somalia, yes? Civilian casualties there are still very low,
especially when you remember that the civilian casualty numbers given by these journalists are still about three or four times higher than the numbers given by classified military documents and the Pakistani government.
Yemen:
- Confirmed drone strikes: 108-128
- Total killed: 496-729
- Civilians killed: 65-101
[~10-15% civilian casualties]
- Possible extra drone strikes: 80-96
- Total killed: 334-486
- Civilians killed: 26-61
[~6-10% civilian casualties]
Somalia:
- Drone strikes: 18-22
- Total killed: 38-126
- Civilians killed: 0-7
[~0-5% civilian casualties]
Contrast the manned aircraft and cruise missile strikes:
Somalia:
- Other covert operations: 8-11
- Total killed: 40-141
- Civilians killed: 7-47
Yemen
- Other covert operations: 15-72
- Total killed: 156-365
- Civilians killed: 68-99
edited 4th Feb '16 4:05:46 PM by Nihlus1
No. Prior to the civil war, there was reporting of large civillian casualties in Yemen from drone strikes. We don't hear more extensive coverage because even before the civil war, Yemen was just too dangerous for journalists. Somalia even more so, though to your point, there isn't much anecdotal reporting about drones in Somalia and civillian deaths, so its possible things are okay there.
EDIT-
On the statistics of manned aircraft, I'll need the dates and the nationalities of the aircraft for Yemen for obvious reasons. But I'd not consider those numbers gospel anyway due to aforementioned factors.
edited 4th Feb '16 4:05:23 PM by FFShinra
For one things, the banks would put up way more of a fight. Doctors and nurses will still get paid with national healthcare. Even the different medical companies would still sell their drugs and other supplies.
Nationalized banking? The banks are GONE. They'll fight tooth and nail against that.
I'm baaaaaaack
