• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    When did Obama order drone strikes against civilians?

    Or is this just more hyperbole over civilian casualties occurring during military operations? Part of ongoing the effort to “both sides” the genocide Hamas committed, maybe?

    • mydude@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/daniel-hale-drones-leaked-documents-b1891826.html

      “With drone warfare, sometimes nine out of 10 people killed are innocent,” Hale said on Tuesday. “You have to kill part of your conscience to do your job.”

      “I am here because I stole something that was never mine to take — precious human life,” Hale said. “I couldn’t keep living in a world in which people pretend that things weren’t happening that were. Please, your honour, forgive me for taking papers instead of human lives.”

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        So you admit one of ten is not innocent and therefore a valid target. Nine civilians died when the non-civilian that was the target was hit.

        Civilians were explicitly not targeted. What was said above was a lie.

        Just more false equivalency between a group that actually does target civilians (Hamas) and everyone else.

        What kind of person puts effort into making “both sides” arguments about actual genocide?

        People are so desperate to make excuses for the genocide that Hamas committed that it’s getting kind of ridiculous, don’t you think?

        • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Civilians were explicitly not targeted.

          By that logic if we drone strike a school shooter, the children who die in the drone strike are not intended targets. It’s actually the fault of the school shooter, not the state, that those children died in a drone strike. And that would be incredibly ridiculous, of course it’s the state at fault for killing those children. They did the drone strike.

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            10 months ago

            What are you talking about? I’m sure analogy sounded good in your head, but it only indicates you understand nothing about a military operation.

            In a civilian context you don’t need to first invade a country so you can have boots on the ground so you can send someone into the school. Invading a country will result in a huge number of civilian casualties before you can send soldiers into that school to take out the target. Is that what you want?

            There is basically no probability that you’re sending soldiers into an ambush, there’s no probability that the school is rigged to explode as soon as the soldier opens the door when it’s a school shooting.

            It’s actually more the opposite. Terrorists have been known to blow up schools do you understand that? So if you have just one opportunity to take out that terrorist and you don’t do it, and next week that same terrorist blows up a school and 50 children die, did you make the right decision?

            These kinds of scenarios are a constant trolley cart problem. No matter what you do, civilians are going to die. You’re just ignorantly calling the guy operating the track switch of genocide triggers the switch and you also accuse him of genocide if he doesn’t trigger the switch, you’re just someone accusing everyone of genocide constantly which means that word doesn’t mean anything anymore. That only benefits the people that actually commit genocide.

            • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              What are you talking about? I’m sure analogy sounded good in your head, but it only indicates you understand nothing about a military operation.

                  • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    It’s pretty wild that we are at a point in which we can say with all seriousness “how many children does that justify the IDF killing?” Like, it’s clear that people who approve of what Israel is doing are okay with some number that is above zero, and we have to ask a question like that to understand where the “too far” line could possibly be. And any refusal to answer that question is an implicit blank check. I think I could’ve forgiven up to maybe a dozen if they had been careful and not signaled clearly that genocide was their intent. We’re way past that though, hoping that the answer to your question is some number less than “all of them” and it’s really fucking sad.

        • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I’ll defer to Israeli leadership on this one…

          Prime Minister Netanyahu

          They (Israel/IDF) are committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world,”

          and

          You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.

          and

          I don’t call them human animals because that would be insulting to animals

          “Defence” minister Galant

          We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly

          Kallner…

          Nakba to the enemy now! This day is our Pearl Harbour. We will still learn the lessons. Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. A Nakba in Gaza and a Nakba for anyone who dares to join!

          Atbaryan…

          erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth. Gaza needs to be wiped out.

          Halevi…

          goals for this victory. One, there is no more Muslim land in the land of Israel. After we make it the land of Israel, Gaza should be left as a monument, like Sodom.”

          Why did Israel fund Hamas’s successful effort to displace the secular moderates?

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            10 months ago

            Uhh… yeah Hamas committed real genocide. You see when it’s actual genocide and not edgy teenage internet keyboard warrior “genocide” people are going to call it evil and completely destroy the evil people responsible. The evil people responsible are Hamas. This war is termed the Israel-Hamas war by the Israelis. Hamas are the evil people that have committed genocide.

            The war is termed things other than the Israel-Hamas war by propaganda channels in an attempt to characterize the war as being against the Palestinian people. But that’s not Israel doing that, it’s propaganda channels that are opposed to Israel that are doing that.

            There are members of Hamas who went into villages and massacred everyone they could find. Men, women, children, babies. Decapitated people. Played around with the severed heads like they were toys. They did these things under orders from their commanders. These specific people that did these horrific acts were referred to as “human animals”.

            The propaganda channels you’re subscribed to probably left out some details on that, didn’t they? That’s all they have to do, just don’t mention a few specifics and people will jump to the conclusion that someone was saying it about an entire ethnicity. But it’s false. Someone referred to the specific people that committed the most horrific acts imaginable as being animals. Personally I prefer to use terms like “psychopath” or on occasion “monster” to describe people capable of doing the things that were done on October 7, but it’s not all that offensive to me to call people like that “animals” since those kinds of acts are inhuman. How do you describe the people that went into villages and massacred men, women, and children? Freedom fighters?

            I don’t have time to go through all of the propaganda you’ve collected via your “internet research”. But I think it should be plain to see that you’ve been misled on a lot of things.

            • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              You didn’t answer why Israel backed Hamas’s rise to power - it’s not like Hamas’s rhetoric has meaningfully since Israel helped them displace the secular moderates - they knew who they were backing, so why did they do it?

              Let’s cut through your nonsense with 2 basic questions:

              1. What is the definition of genocide you’re using?

              2. In what way was October 7th bad in a way Israel hasn’t been worse since?

              Israel have the means to commit a genocide (Israeli officials have even been talking about nuking them) they’ve talked about genociding Palestine for a while now, manufactured the pretext in supporting Hamas, and now they’ve begun their genocide in earnest.

              Hamas are terrorists, would love to genocide those that pushed them to power, but armed with small arms, a handful of rockets and an airforce consisting of a single paraglider, they lack the means to take down a nuclear power with F35s, backed by the US.

              Bonus points: instead of whining vaguely about what you assume is my media diet (when I did nothing but quote officials from the regime you’re defending), where am factually wrong?

              • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                For the curious, this moron has given their definition of genocide in a separate thread. His definition would mean that dropping a nuke on Netanyahu as he sits in Tel Aviv, wiping Israel off the map wouldn’t be a genocide, while a marketing campaign to sell bottled water to African Americans would be a genocide.

                This is the kind of incoherent bullshit tying yourself in knots to deny a genocide leads you to.

            • Nudding@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              How slow of a reader are you that you can’t read 5 quotes but have time to barf out Israeli propaganda all day.

              • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                It disagrees with their nonsense narrative, so it doesn’t count - because… reasons - also, you’re anti-semitic.

                Go check their post history - it’s clear they’re just lying to defend a genocide, and they know it. Their definition of genocide alone is an absolute joke.

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        Before we continue, do I take this to mean you’re cool with killing people who are not citizens of the US? It’s only when it’s a citizen of the US that takes a hellfire missile to the face that you have an issue with? You’re conceding that the other drone strikes are okey dokey because they didn’t involve US citizens?