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So I read the entire TFA, where do you see “quotes [from] those in the know who believe this should have been eliminated as a target”? I saw no such quotes abou

by Denzel 6mo ago

So I read the entire TFA, where do you see “quotes [from] those in the know who believe this should have been eliminated as a target”? I saw no such quotes about the school in TFA. Maybe I missed it. > there was precisely one mis-strike in 1000s of sorties How did you verify this? Because I’ll remind you, the U.S. administration denied responsibility for some time before owning up to this due to public pressure. Absent public pressure, I guess we would’ve had zero mis-strikes. > so this already is a low error rate As a father of similarly aged daughters, I can’t express enough how grotesque and disturbing the term “error rate” is here. We targeted and killed young children. Plain and simple. > However, you have made a very, very strong assumption that these targets were not carefully evaluated. Let’s take the opposing assumption that this target was carefully evaluated then. Please reason through the implications now?

jvanderbot 6mo ago
I will try to respond to all these independent threads, but we can't continue all of them at once. > . “These aren’t just nameless, faceless targets,” he said later. “This is a place where people are going to feel ramifications for a long time.” The targeting cycle had been fast enough to hit 50 buildings and too fast to discover it was hitting the wrong ones. > The air force’s own targeting guide, in effect during the Iraq war, said this was never supposed to happen. Published in 1998, it described the six functions of targeting as “intertwined”, with the targeteer moving “back” to refine objectives and “forward” to assess feasibility. “The best analysis,” the manual stated, “is reasoned thought with facts and conclusions, not a checklist.” > A former senior government official asked the obvious question: “The building was on a target list for years. Yet this was missed, and the question is how.” --- > Please reason through the implications now? It was a mistake. My girls are about to enter this level of school, as well (cool parent card). A mistake/error/tragedy can all accurately be used to describe this. It's horrible it happened. All I'm saying is that no process is perfect. It is not excusable, but it is unfortunately understandable how it happened in this situation. > 1000s 1000s is fairly easily understood. 1/1000 is inferred b/c as you say, "public pressure" sprang up immediately after this one bombing. Iran regularly posts pictures and videos online, and human rights orgs are clamoring to find evidence. Either we are really good at suppressing the world except for this one case or there aren't that many schools being bombed. We cannot be simultaneously horrible at picking targets and suppressing evidence and also great at it in every other case. Planet labs themselves provided the pictures - they are freely available. Yes maybe the machine lumbers on, stomping on kids, or maybe we've learned our lesson and are now perfect, but this seems like the kind of mistake that can happen, and it seems likely that the analysts involved here are now benched and I wouldn't be surprised if some corrections are happening internally. These are human beings, despite what the article would have you believe, that are doing the best they can. > we targeted and killed young children We killed young kids, but not on purpose. We targeted a building and intent matters. I refuse to believe anyone in the decision chain would move forward if they believed kids were going to be killed. If you do - how can you? Why would they? We're going to quickly get into hypotheticals here. There's a lot of open threads, and believe me I hate with the fullest extent of the word violence against children. We can leave it at that.
- burkaman 6mo ago
  > If you do - how can you? Why would they? I can't answer why they would do it, but I don't think it's unusual for these people to knowingly strike civilian targets that they believe will have children present. In the famous Pete Hegseth leaked Signal chat, they were discussing bombing a residential apartment building in the middle of the night because they thought a single target was there visiting his girlfriend. Obviously that carries a high risk of killing children, and in that particular case the Secretary of Defense and Vice President were intimately involved and celebrated after learning that the building had collapsed. If those at the very top are willing to move forward with bombing civilians asleep in a residential building, I have to believe that everyone below them in the chain of command is expected to follow their lead.
  - stickfigure 6mo ago
    No evidence has shown up suggesting there was some sort of compelling target in the school. As foul as Trump and Hegseth may be, they aren't cartoon character villains. The Occam's razor explanation is that this was an intelligence failure and a tragic mistake.
    - worik 6mo ago
      It is possible that two things are true 1. this was an intelligence failure and a tragic mistake. 2. Trump and Hegseth are (like) cartoon character villains.
      - pegasus 6mo ago
        There are no cartoon villains in general, that's the point GP is making by using the word "cartoon". Let's use some common sense, it's not like Trump and Hegseth got together and sneaked in the school on the list of targets just because they liked the idea of children being killed. It's naive to suggest this is a possibility worth considering.
        tastyface 6mo ago
dylan604 6mo ago
> So I read the entire TFA, where do you see “quotes [from] those in the know who believe this should have been eliminated as a target”? I saw no such quotes about the school in TFA. Maybe I missed it. TFA is from The Guardian while GP you responded to specifically called out the NYT analysis. These are different things. Maybe reading the GP's suggested source would leave you with a different set of questions?
- Denzel 6mo ago
  Friend, TFA commonly refers to the effing article that’s posted for discussion. EDIT: The irony that GP then goes on the quote TFA and not NYT.

by Denzel 6mo ago

jvanderbot 6mo ago

I will try to respond to all these independent threads, but we can't continue all of them at once. > . “These aren’t just nameless, faceless targets,” he said later. “This is a place where people are going to feel ramifications for a long time.” The targeting cycle had been fast enough to hit 50 buildings and too fast to discover it was hitting the wrong ones. > The air force’s own targeting guide, in effect during the Iraq war, said this was never supposed to happen. Published in 1998, it described the six functions of targeting as “intertwined”, with the targeteer moving “back” to refine objectives and “forward” to assess feasibility. “The best analysis,” the manual stated, “is reasoned thought with facts and conclusions, not a checklist.” > A former senior government official asked the obvious question: “The building was on a target list for years. Yet this was missed, and the question is how.” --- > Please reason through the implications now? It was a mistake. My girls are about to enter this level of school, as well (cool parent card). A mistake/error/tragedy can all accurately be used to describe this. It's horrible it happened. All I'm saying is that no process is perfect. It is not excusable, but it is unfortunately understandable how it happened in this situation. > 1000s 1000s is fairly easily understood. 1/1000 is inferred b/c as you say, "public pressure" sprang up immediately after this one bombing. Iran regularly posts pictures and videos online, and human rights orgs are clamoring to find evidence. Either we are really good at suppressing the world except for this one case or there aren't that many schools being bombed. We cannot be simultaneously horrible at picking targets and suppressing evidence and also great at it in every other case. Planet labs themselves provided the pictures - they are freely available. Yes maybe the machine lumbers on, stomping on kids, or maybe we've learned our lesson and are now perfect, but this seems like the kind of mistake that can happen, and it seems likely that the analysts involved here are now benched and I wouldn't be surprised if some corrections are happening internally. These are human beings, despite what the article would have you believe, that are doing the best they can. > we targeted and killed young children We killed young kids, but not on purpose. We targeted a building and intent matters. I refuse to believe anyone in the decision chain would move forward if they believed kids were going to be killed. If you do - how can you? Why would they? We're going to quickly get into hypotheticals here. There's a lot of open threads, and believe me I hate with the fullest extent of the word violence against children. We can leave it at that.

burkaman 6mo ago
> If you do - how can you? Why would they? I can't answer why they would do it, but I don't think it's unusual for these people to knowingly strike civilian targets that they believe will have children present. In the famous Pete Hegseth leaked Signal chat, they were discussing bombing a residential apartment building in the middle of the night because they thought a single target was there visiting his girlfriend. Obviously that carries a high risk of killing children, and in that particular case the Secretary of Defense and Vice President were intimately involved and celebrated after learning that the building had collapsed. If those at the very top are willing to move forward with bombing civilians asleep in a residential building, I have to believe that everyone below them in the chain of command is expected to follow their lead.
- stickfigure 6mo ago
  No evidence has shown up suggesting there was some sort of compelling target in the school. As foul as Trump and Hegseth may be, they aren't cartoon character villains. The Occam's razor explanation is that this was an intelligence failure and a tragic mistake.
  - worik 6mo ago
    It is possible that two things are true 1. this was an intelligence failure and a tragic mistake. 2. Trump and Hegseth are (like) cartoon character villains.
    - pegasus 6mo ago
      There are no cartoon villains in general, that's the point GP is making by using the word "cartoon". Let's use some common sense, it's not like Trump and Hegseth got together and sneaked in the school on the list of targets just because they liked the idea of children being killed. It's naive to suggest this is a possibility worth considering.
      - tastyface 6mo ago

dylan604 6mo ago

> So I read the entire TFA, where do you see “quotes [from] those in the know who believe this should have been eliminated as a target”? I saw no such quotes about the school in TFA. Maybe I missed it. TFA is from The Guardian while GP you responded to specifically called out the NYT analysis. These are different things. Maybe reading the GP's suggested source would leave you with a different set of questions?

Denzel 6mo ago
Friend, TFA commonly refers to the effing article that’s posted for discussion. EDIT: The irony that GP then goes on the quote TFA and not NYT.