5 ms·

Which part of "attack enemies" implies they were targeting innocent people?

pseudohadamard 1mo ago
In Afghanistan, and presumably Iran as well, the US military defined all "military-aged males" (12-65 years) as "combatants". This makes children and old men killable. You could drone strike pretty much any guy you wanted and all you were doing was eliminating combatants. An addition, again from Afghanistan, only 2% of drone strikes were against identified targets. The rest were targets of opportunity. So you make most of the male population of a country killable through the use of appropriate language, and then hit 98% of them because you think they might be thinking about doing something bad in the future. I can see why this would mess with people's mental health when what they're doing to random civilians sinks in.
- quietsegfault 1mo ago
  [flagged]
netsharc 1mo ago
Obama's department of defense classified every male between 16-65 hit by drone attacks as enemy combatant until proven otherwise... So the war crimes are bipartisan. And I write this as someone who likes Obama.
- JackFr 1mo ago
  GWB got heat for extralegal extraordinary renditions. Obama solved it by just killing them. I guess we can’t ask the dead guys if they’d prefer to go to Guantanamo.
- sitzkrieg 1mo ago
  obama also drone striked killed us citizens with no due process in the name of the game
  - Sabinus 1mo ago
    Why would they need due process? They weren't the targets and their deaths were accidental collateral damage.
    - thunky 1mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
      - robcohen 1mo ago
        > key organizer for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. Yeah, I don't see a problem here. Due process, slippery slope sure... but this was a cut and dry case. I've got better things to do with my time than be concerned with this.
        thunky 1mo ago
        Great. Just don't get upset when a politician you don't like wipes his butt with the consititution.
        LorenPechtel 1mo ago
        Arrest should always be the first choice. But it's not always viable, and taking up arms against the US makes them a legitimate target.
    - pclmulqdq 1mo ago
      At least one of those American citizens was the intended target of a drone strike.
probably_wrong 1mo ago
Some searching led me to this report from an NGO called "AirWars" [1] which, in connection with The Guardian, reports that "at least 22,679, and potentially as many as 48,308 civilians, have been likely killed by US strikes". You can't bomb an apartment without also hitting the neighbors. And while we know the US has the the technology to hit a car driver without (physically) hurting the passenger, we also know that this is not the type of technology deployed regularly. I don't think a drone operator would be naive enough to believe that they are killing exclusively military targets and no one else. [1] https://airwars.org/tens-of-thousands-of-civilians-likely-killed-by-us-in-forever-wars/ https://airwars.org/tens-of-thousands-of-civilians-likely-ki...
- senderista 1mo ago
  Israel will happily flatten a whole apartment complex to get one guy.
  - throw488426 1mo ago
    Israel actually has the capability of targeting a single apartment in an apartment building, and has done so dozens of times in the current war against Hezbollah.
    - lazyasciiart 1mo ago
      Doesn’t that make it even worse that they also choose to flatten entire buildings?
      - ethbr1 1mo ago
        Destroying civilian infrastructure and killing civilians is the current Israeli government's goal. Military advantage is just a nice window dressing for the Geneva Conventions. Lot easier to steal land if there aren't any people living there (because the infrastructure to support modern life was destroyed).
      - LorenPechtel 1mo ago
hiddencost 1mo ago
US military standard for "did we kill civilians" with drone attacks is "do these appear to be combat aged males, based on satellite photos". It's monstrous.
- quietsegfault 1mo ago
  Do you have a source showing this is actually the U.S. military’s standard, rather than a distorted reference to the Obama era casualty counting controversy?
  - MomsAVoxell 1mo ago
    It’s Bush, not just Obama .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_of_2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...
isr 1mo ago
Let's see. They were part of the US military, right? In just this war alone, they started by triple tapping an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, murdering nearly 200 little children. And on the same day, they attacked a SPORTS STADIUM, completely vapourising a women's volleyball team who were in the midst of a game. And that was just ... DAY ONE. By now, we should be asking - if you're a member of the US military on active duty in an active war - prove that YOU DIDN'T kill a child, mother, handicapped person in a wheelchair, or a grandpa. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
- ethbr1 1mo ago
  To be accurate, the elementary school was: - Built as part of an IRGCN base (that base was closed in 2013) - Within 100 yards of the perimeter of an active IRGCN base at the time of the strike - Targeted as a result of extensive use of Palantir's Maven Smart System and Claude by the US military to pre-identify targets Wikipedia has an extensively cited entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack Given all of that, I think the most accurate takeaway would be that the US military is deficient in their target approval process. (Arguably grossly so, though that's an international law legal question) There's been less investigation into the background behind the Lamerd sports hall attack, but it's fairly certainly an intended US strike, likely for the same reason that the Azadi stadium was hit: assumption that it would be used as a muster point for an Iranian military response. My takeaway from the atrocities is that there need to be substantial updates to international laws of war around (a) automated target approval (even worse excesses by the Israelis in the initial Gaza strikes) and ultimate human responsibility and (b) more strongly defining what constitutes due diligence in intelligence and classification of military targets. Currently, both are far too nebulous and will likely lead to both incidents being classified as war as usual. Whereas there was a plausible route to both being removed as targets with even non-manual open source intelligence scraping (substantial patterns of school activity over years and the volleyball game schedule, respectively).

In Afghanistan, and presumably Iran as well, the US military defined all "military-aged males" (12-65 years) as "combatants". This makes children and old men killable. You could drone strike pretty much any guy you wanted and all you were doing was eliminating combatants. An addition, again from Afghanistan, only 2% of drone strikes were against identified targets. The rest were targets of opportunity. So you make most of the male population of a country killable through the use of appropriate language, and then hit 98% of them because you think they might be thinking about doing something bad in the future. I can see why this would mess with people's mental health when what they're doing to random civilians sinks in.

quietsegfault 1mo ago
[flagged]

netsharc 1mo ago

Obama's department of defense classified every male between 16-65 hit by drone attacks as enemy combatant until proven otherwise... So the war crimes are bipartisan. And I write this as someone who likes Obama.

JackFr 1mo ago
GWB got heat for extralegal extraordinary renditions. Obama solved it by just killing them. I guess we can’t ask the dead guys if they’d prefer to go to Guantanamo.
sitzkrieg 1mo ago
obama also drone striked killed us citizens with no due process in the name of the game
- Sabinus 1mo ago
  Why would they need due process? They weren't the targets and their deaths were accidental collateral damage.
  - thunky 1mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
    - robcohen 1mo ago
      > key organizer for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. Yeah, I don't see a problem here. Due process, slippery slope sure... but this was a cut and dry case. I've got better things to do with my time than be concerned with this.
      - thunky 1mo ago
        Great. Just don't get upset when a politician you don't like wipes his butt with the consititution.
        LorenPechtel 1mo ago
        Arrest should always be the first choice. But it's not always viable, and taking up arms against the US makes them a legitimate target.
  - pclmulqdq 1mo ago
    At least one of those American citizens was the intended target of a drone strike.

probably_wrong 1mo ago

Some searching led me to this report from an NGO called "AirWars" [1] which, in connection with The Guardian, reports that "at least 22,679, and potentially as many as 48,308 civilians, have been likely killed by US strikes". You can't bomb an apartment without also hitting the neighbors. And while we know the US has the the technology to hit a car driver without (physically) hurting the passenger, we also know that this is not the type of technology deployed regularly. I don't think a drone operator would be naive enough to believe that they are killing exclusively military targets and no one else. [1] https://airwars.org/tens-of-thousands-of-civilians-likely-killed-by-us-in-forever-wars/ https://airwars.org/tens-of-thousands-of-civilians-likely-ki...

senderista 1mo ago
Israel will happily flatten a whole apartment complex to get one guy.
- throw488426 1mo ago
  Israel actually has the capability of targeting a single apartment in an apartment building, and has done so dozens of times in the current war against Hezbollah.
  - lazyasciiart 1mo ago
    Doesn’t that make it even worse that they also choose to flatten entire buildings?
    - ethbr1 1mo ago
      Destroying civilian infrastructure and killing civilians is the current Israeli government's goal. Military advantage is just a nice window dressing for the Geneva Conventions. Lot easier to steal land if there aren't any people living there (because the infrastructure to support modern life was destroyed).
    - LorenPechtel 1mo ago

hiddencost 1mo ago

US military standard for "did we kill civilians" with drone attacks is "do these appear to be combat aged males, based on satellite photos". It's monstrous.

quietsegfault 1mo ago
Do you have a source showing this is actually the U.S. military’s standard, rather than a distorted reference to the Obama era casualty counting controversy?
- MomsAVoxell 1mo ago
  It’s Bush, not just Obama .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_of_2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...

isr 1mo ago

Let's see. They were part of the US military, right? In just this war alone, they started by triple tapping an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, murdering nearly 200 little children. And on the same day, they attacked a SPORTS STADIUM, completely vapourising a women's volleyball team who were in the midst of a game. And that was just ... DAY ONE. By now, we should be asking - if you're a member of the US military on active duty in an active war - prove that YOU DIDN'T kill a child, mother, handicapped person in a wheelchair, or a grandpa. Truth hurts, doesn't it?

ethbr1 1mo ago
To be accurate, the elementary school was: - Built as part of an IRGCN base (that base was closed in 2013) - Within 100 yards of the perimeter of an active IRGCN base at the time of the strike - Targeted as a result of extensive use of Palantir's Maven Smart System and Claude by the US military to pre-identify targets Wikipedia has an extensively cited entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack Given all of that, I think the most accurate takeaway would be that the US military is deficient in their target approval process. (Arguably grossly so, though that's an international law legal question) There's been less investigation into the background behind the Lamerd sports hall attack, but it's fairly certainly an intended US strike, likely for the same reason that the Azadi stadium was hit: assumption that it would be used as a muster point for an Iranian military response. My takeaway from the atrocities is that there need to be substantial updates to international laws of war around (a) automated target approval (even worse excesses by the Israelis in the initial Gaza strikes) and ultimate human responsibility and (b) more strongly defining what constitutes due diligence in intelligence and classification of military targets. Currently, both are far too nebulous and will likely lead to both incidents being classified as war as usual. Whereas there was a plausible route to both being removed as targets with even non-manual open source intelligence scraping (substantial patterns of school activity over years and the volleyball game schedule, respectively).