90% of drone strikes miss & other drone details leaked

[Thanas]

My point is:

(1) There are at least some limited circumstances, 9/11 being one of them, where it is acceptable to ignore diplomatic solutions in favor of violating national sovereignty (Afghanistan in 2001 being a prime example.)

Diplomatic solutions were not working, so war ensued. That is par the course. Nothing special. Also unrelated to droning.

(2) Al Qaeda is special for only one reason: while they were never really much of a serious threat, are were in fact less harmful than many other terrorist organizations, they managed to have more of a wide-ranging psychological impact on an international scale - than I think we have seen by other organizations. Part of that effect was US propaganda, but another part was merely the fact that they pulled off a spectacular, almost cinematic attack on an iconic target at a time in history when consumer electronics made it easy to produce amateur video footage. Plus, they were so remotely distant in origin from their targets, more so than most terrorist organizations (i.e. PLO, ETA, etc.)

Did they really have such a psychological effect on an international scale? From what I observe it is mostly the US and its poodle, the UK, that are afraid about them that much. Looks more like after half a year after Afghanistan, it was over and nowadays most people don't understand why the USA made a mountain out of a molehill. It's like the USA considers its territory as something sacrosanct, which is naive and childish.

[K. A. Pital]

Indeed, there was no precedent set by going to war; nations did declare war over non-conpliance with their diplomatic demands before. The precedent was in the blurring of lines between war (and war of aggression as opposed to war of defense: thank the US for this, too) and peace. Which is not a healthy precedent, and other nations did not give the US a general, one-size-fits all "world polceman" mandate. Which it nonethless claimed in a rather ugly fashion just two years after 2001 - in 2003.

[Channel72]

My point is:

(1) There are at least some limited circumstances, 9/11 being one of them, where it is acceptable to ignore diplomatic solutions in favor of violating national sovereignty (Afghanistan in 2001 being a prime example.)

Diplomatic solutions were not working, so war ensued. That is par the course. Nothing special. Also unrelated to droning.

But the Taliban itself did not directly attack the US - their "official" forces (mostly former Pakistani ISI soldiers) did not necessarily have any role in coordinating these attacks. A private citizen and his privately-funded militia did so. The Taliban refused to hand over this private citizen (they demanded evidence that he was involved - and later offered to hand him over to a neutral country). How is this really that different from any of the other scenarios involving the harboring of terrorists discussed in this thread, except for the fact that (A) the act of destruction had a high body count and destructive factor, and (B) the Taliban itself wasn't an internationally recognized government for the most part ?

Did they really have such a psychological effect on an international scale?

Yes. It created an international sense of shock and solidarity. I mean, recently even fucking Charlie Hebdo created a similar, smaller scale, phenomenon. I really don't think this is some kind of provincial American sentiment. I was working mostly in the Middle East during the years following 9/11 ... everyone had some kind of opinion about it, and the footage remains one of the most shocking and iconic historical incidents caught on film. But you are right that the good will rapidly evaporated following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

From what I observe it is mostly the US and its poodle, the UK, that are afraid about them that much. Looks more like after half a year after Afghanistan, it was over and nowadays most people don't understand why the USA made a mountain out of a molehill. It's like the USA considers its territory as something sacrosanct, which is naive and childish.

Yes, now that is a common sentiment. I'm just talking about the national (and international) mood following 9/11, and the psychological impact it had. This is the only reason I consider Al Qaeda somewhat special. The other reason, as I said, is that I don't think a similar terrorist organization had ever existed that successfully operated over such large distances. What terrorist organization can claim to have hit major targets in NY (twice), DC, Madrid and London? Most terrorist organizations have much more of a limited spatio-temporal interest and sphere of influence. I mean seriously, before Al Qaeda, only Bond villians did that sort of thing.

I'm not saying any of this to justify the drone war. I'm saying this to establish that violating national sovereignty to extract terrorists isn't in and of itself the major problem here. The problem is that the US has established an extra-judicial system to regularly kill private citizens remotely (which is exacerbated by the fact that the method this system employs also causes mass innocent casualties). If the US used this same system within its own borders, it would still be a major fucking problem. All this talk about national sovereignty and Westphalian concepts is pretty much a distraction from the real problem.

[Thanas]

But the Taliban itself did not directly attack the US - their "official" forces (mostly former Pakistani ISI soldiers) did not necessarily have any role in coordinating these attacks. A private citizen and his privately-funded militia did so. The Taliban refused to hand over this private citizen (they demanded evidence that he was involved - and later offered to hand him over to a neutral country). How is this really that different from any of the other scenarios involving the harboring of terrorists discussed in this thread, except for the fact that (A) the act of destruction had a high body count and destructive factor, and (B) the Taliban itself wasn't an internationally recognized government for the most part ?

It is different in that the whole world legitimized going after the terrorists. Which is a whole lot different than the whole world authorizing it.

It created an international sense of shock and solidarity.

So did the Tsunami. It is by itself nothing special.

This is the only reason I consider Al Qaeda somewhat special.

I don't think it is any special. The reactions are the same (see Lockerbie, Landshut, Munich) whenever it happens. What is special is one nation losing its shit over something which countless other nations have had to live with before.

I'm saying this to establish that violating national sovereignty to extract terrorists isn't in and of itself the major problem here. The problem is that the US has established an extra-judicial system to regularly kill private citizens remotely (which is exacerbated by the fact that the method this system employs also causes mass innocent casualties). If the US used this same system within its own borders, it would still be a major fucking problem. All this talk about national sovereignty and Westphalian concepts is pretty much a distraction from the real problem.

If the USA would mostly drone its own people I don't think many people would care (well, except for democracy). But the fact is that the USA reserves the right to kill anybody they dislike anywhere they please, which is a new thing. This is why the issue of sovereignty is arising. The USA is claiming it deserves some special rights because...why exactly?

To put it even more bluntly - if the US citizens vote in a Government whose stated policy it is to drone them, then that is their problem. But nobody in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq or elsewhere got a vote.

[madd0ct0r]

Indeed, there was no precedent set by going to war; nations did declare war over non-conpliance with their diplomatic demands before. The precedent was in the blurring of lines between war (and war of aggression as opposed to war of defense: thank the US for this, too) and peace. Which is not a healthy precedent, and other nations did not give the US a general, one-size-fits all "world polceman" mandate. Which it nonethless claimed in a rather ugly fashion just two years after 2001 - in 2003.

Precedent? nah bro, they've been doing this since korea

[Purple]

Indeed, there was no precedent set by going to war; nations did declare war over non-conpliance with their diplomatic demands before. The precedent was in the blurring of lines between war (and war of aggression as opposed to war of defense: thank the US for this, too) and peace. Which is not a healthy precedent, and other nations did not give the US a general, one-size-fits all "world polceman" mandate. Which it nonethless claimed in a rather ugly fashion just two years after 2001 - in 2003.

Precedent? nah bro, they've been doing this since korea

Well arguably you could say that the whole pressuring of Japan after they invaded China thing also counts. Although there was no shooting there, only economic actions but still. It's the same motivation.

[Ziggy Stardust]

What is special is one nation losing its shit over something which countless other nations have had to live with before.

I'm not trying to defend the invasion of Iraq or the drones or CIA black sites or any of that other horrid shit, but what the fuck are you trying to imply with this statement? You seem to be saying that 9/11 wasn't that big of a deal, because it's something that "countless other nations have had to live with before." Which is blatantly idiotic, considering it was, by a huge margin, the deadliest and most destructive terrorist attack ever committed (more than the next 5 deadliest attacks combined, going by Wikipedia's list).

Again, I don't think that American actions post-2003ish are justified, but your bizarre attitude that 9/11 is somehow a matter of simple routine is both offensive and massively stupid.

[Thanas]

What is special is one nation losing its shit over something which countless other nations have had to live with before.

I'm not trying to defend the invasion of Iraq or the drones or CIA black sites or any of that other horrid shit, but what the fuck are you trying to imply with this statement? You seem to be saying that 9/11 wasn't that big of a deal, because it's something that "countless other nations have had to live with before." Which is blatantly idiotic, considering it was, by a huge margin, the deadliest and most destructive terrorist attack ever committed (more than the next 5 deadliest attacks combined, going by Wikipedia's list).

Again, I don't think that American actions post-2003ish are justified, but your bizarre attitude that 9/11 is somehow a matter of simple routine is both offensive and massively stupid.

It is not a matter of simple routine, no disaster or attack is. What I am saying is that every nation has to deal with terrorist attacks and they do not warrant losing your shit over like the USA did (and does). There is no sense of scale to the sheer destruction the USA unleashed in response to it.

[K. A. Pital]

Indeed. The Berlin bomb caused a bombing raid that killed ~50, maybe at most under a hundred people in Libya.

The 2001 attack was undeniably huge, but the response was not a bombing raid that killed thousands or even tens of thousands; an intercontinental war which claimed hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives, exactly as Usama Bin Laden wanted.

Many nations also lost thousands of lives in the history of international insurgencies or terror movements (depending on how you see it), like the PFLP - and if not in one bombing, then in several violent incidents over the years, e.g. Italian years of lead or Chechen bombings and airplane hijackings in Russia.

But none responded with such insane world-shaking blind rage and a wave of military aggression as the US. And I think few people realize how bad it was and still is; we were very close to a war with Iran at some point, something that could have added another 1-2 million casualties to the current bloodbath.

[Adam Reynolds]

Many nations also lost thousands of lives in the history of international insurgencies or terror movements (depending on how you see it), like the PFLP - and if not in one bombing, then in several violent incidents over the years, e.g. Italian years of lead or Chechen bombings and airplane hijackings in Russia.

I'm not trying to justify the US response to 9/11, but the Russians did launch the Second Chechen War in response to this. That killed tens of thousands. If we scale the apartment bombing up to 9/11, it is actually quite proportional.

Though the US obviously did do exactly what Bin Laden wanted. ISIS is in a sense an evolution of one of his major goals(creating a new Islamic state). That would have never occurred if not for America's involvement in Iraq. It is sad that immediately after 9/11 Iran of all places held candlelight vigils for America. They even fully supported America's attacks in Afghanistan and allowed the US to overfly Iran in certain cases. That went away thanks to the wonderful strategic intelligence of the idiot monkey king that was the American president.

[K. A. Pital]

Actually, the Chechen plane hijackings happened after the Second Chechen War.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Ru ... t_bombings
And the onset of the war was connected to Khattab's invasion of Dagestan much more than to these later acts of terror, or even the apartment bombings:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagestan_War

But what also differentiates the situations is that Chechnya was a part of Russia at the time. Knowing that wealthy jihadists who sponsored Chechen islamist movements are hiding in the Gulf states, Russia did not attack them directly. I think the biggest retaliatory action undertaken was the assassination of Zelemkhan Yandarbiev:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelimkh ... iyev#Death

Despite the total number of victims of islamist attacks in Russia approaching two thousand people:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... russia.png

I think that if Russia behaved in the same fashion as the US, it should have wiped Qatar off the face of the map or something.

[Channel72]

I think that if Russia behaved in the same fashion as the US, it should have wiped Qatar off the face of the map or something.

That's an ironic thing to say, because if the USA had any sense of causality, it would have also wiped Qatar off the map after 9/11. The forces that ultimately led to 9/11 were a direct result of fund-raising on the part of Bin Laden and other Pakistani ISI elements, who received much of their funding from Gulf country sources like Qatar.

Of course, most Gulf countries are protected from US aggression via the hilariously schizophrenic relationship we have with the Saudis. It also helps that Qatar Petroleum is like one of the largest oil companies in the world. Alas, the poor Taliban had no such protection...

[K. A. Pital]

I've deleted the double post. But yeah, the US doesn't really care about the Gulf countries' shenanigans precisely because of the strange, um... "key ally" relationship with the House of Saud, and I guess because a lot of the fatcats have their money invested in Saudi and Qatari assets.