No. 2 Al Qaeda leader dead from drone strike

#51
#51
hog88 said:
I agree, I wish there were no killing.
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If that is the case, what makes American life so valuable to you then?

"We are a rock revolving
Around a golden sun
We are a billion children
Rolled into one"
 
#52
#52
Burhead said:
If that is the case, what makes American life so valuable to you then?

"We are a rock revolving
Around a golden sun
We are a billion children
Rolled into one"
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Have to take sides brother and I've taken our side against all that want to do us harm. I really don't understand why this is such a hard concept to grasp.

I'm sure if I were born and raised somewhere else I'd feel the same way about that place and it's people.
 
#53
#53
vol4eva said:
Shouldn't a country like Pakistan be held accountable for harboring terrorist groups?
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The problem is the area of concern is the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The Pakistani government has very loose control with the real power belonging to the war lords, drug lords and tribal leaders. In 2004, when the Pakistan Army put 70,000 troops in the area, they had to get updated maps from the U.S., theirs were over 50 years old.

The other issue is once a Pashtu gives shelter to someone he is honor bound to protect him. Therefore, he would not report the person to the government agents no matter what was offered or threatened.

The absolute best thing we could do for stability in the region would be to erase the Durand Line and remove this as a source of conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
 
#54
#54
YorkVol said:
Your call, I've seen it first hand. I do agree that what eventually gets released appears questionable. There is a lot more complexity than most want to admit and the truth is often somewhere in between.
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1. On multiple occasions in Iraq, we paid off individuals with CERP money after "accidentally" killing their families; the deaths were all categorized officially as insurgents and combatants. We used CERP money to pay these individuals off because if we used the funds allocated to reparations, we would have to officially note that we killed noncombatants. This was going on all over Iraq when I was there; I imagine it is going on in Afghanistan, as well.

2. I have gone through the official data on civilian casualties that the DoD has and compared that to both documents leaked on WikiLeaks and their reparations payment documents. The data on civilian casualties is severely under-reported by the DoD. Drones are the hot topic right now with everyone concerned with military ethics (both on the philosophy side and the political science side); this summer, I am proofing and editing a 500-page manuscript (about an 800-page book) that will be published by Oxford University Press that deals almost exclusively with civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, and does so by comparing all the different body counts and tallies and their methodologies. At least 50% of the casualties from drone strikes, in 2010 and 2011, are noncombatant civilians. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Do I think that we have reached that much greater precision in the first half of 2012? No.
 
#55
#55
YorkVol said:
The problem is the area of concern is the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The Pakistani government has very loose control with the real power belonging to the war lords, drug lords and tribal leaders. In 2004, when the Pakistan Army put 70,000 troops in the area, they had to get updated maps from the U.S., theirs were over 50 years old.
Click to expand...

Of interest regarding FATA, is the fact that the Pakistani government had never passed a single federal law regarding FATA since its establishment; the only laws that were in any way on the books at the federal level, regarding FATA, were the British Colonial Laws.
 
#56
#56
therealUT said:
1. On multiple occasions in Iraq, we paid off individuals with CERP money after "accidentally" killing their families; the deaths were all categorized officially as insurgents and combatants. We used CERP money to pay these individuals off because if we used the funds allocated to reparations, we would have to officially note that we killed noncombatants. This was going on all over Iraq when I was there; I imagine it is going on in Afghanistan, as well.

2. I have gone through the official data on civilian casualties that the DoD has and compared that to both documents leaked on WikiLeaks and their reparations payment documents. The data on civilian casualties is severely under-reported by the DoD. Drones are the hot topic right now with everyone concerned with military ethics (both on the philosophy side and the political science side); this summer, I am proofing and editing a 500-page manuscript (about an 800-page book) that will be published by Oxford University Press that deals almost exclusively with civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, and does so by comparing all the different body counts and tallies and their methodologies. At least 50% of the casualties from drone strikes, in 2010 and 2011, are noncombatant civilians. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Do I think that we have reached that much greater precision in the first half of 2012? No.
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I'll admit to being jaded after seeing the results of an air strike (not a drone) where we hit the intended target but then filmed (with a drone) AQ and Taliban drag the targeted combatants out of the rubble and replace them with the bodies of women and children from a near-by compound. The dead men, all of them confirmed enemy died from the air strike, the women and children were shot in the head by the AQ shepherd and his Taliban fighters. The story the next day was that we had killed the innocent and no one would believe otherwise. So, like I said, I'm jaded.

That aside, I would be interested to read the book when it comes out. Please keep me informed.
 
#57
#57
therealUT said:
I would not go about killing terrorists. I would build better defenses in America; I would allow, and encourage, Americans to arm themselves.
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If you attack me, I will attack you back (self defense). That's simply human nature. There was no chance we weren't going to go after the perpetrators of 9/11. Could you imagine the public outcry if we hadn't?
 
#58
#58
therealUT said:
Of interest regarding FATA, is the fact that the Pakistani government had never passed a single federal law regarding FATA since its establishment; the only laws that were in any way on the books at the federal level, regarding FATA, were the British Colonial Laws.
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And the Pakistani's never ratified the border, the Durand Line was an agreement between the Afghan and British governments in 1893.
 
#59
#59
therealUT said:
The Pakistanis and Yemenis certainly care, and their interest will manifest itself in hate fueled attacks against the U.S.
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You are full of sh!t. How many billions of dollars have we given pakistan? Pakistan ain't gonna do sh!t. They know that they cannot or will not fight the insurgency waiting on the afghan border. So we must and they have no problem with it. If they do? We take the money away. I thought you were smart on such tactics?
 
#60
#60
Unless they're blowing up crowded marketplaces and big apartment buildings then those around the targets are more than likely part of his entourage. Those aren't innocent civilians. There's no doubt that some IC's have been killed but lets not make it look like everyone around the targets are innocent.
 
#61
#61
vol4eva said:
If you attack me, I will attack you back (self defense). That's simply human nature.
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If I walk away after attacking you and then you attack me, that is vengeance, not self-defense. Self-defense is resorting to the use of force in order to defend and preserve your own life.

vol4eva said:
There was no chance we weren't going to go after the perpetrators of 9/11. Could you imagine the public outcry if we hadn't?
Click to expand...

Could you imagine the public outcry if they had known that the Taliban offered bin Laden up to any international third party (not the U.S.) after the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. flatly rejected the offer? Maybe the Taliban was bluffing; we will never know because we did not even allow them the chance. Were we going to miss a window of opportunity to invade that **** hole of a country? They certainly were not going to turn into a fortified juggernaut overnight.

Then, we invade Afghanistan because al Qaeda, not the Taliban (even though those guys are *******s, too), killed 3,000 Americans and over the course of the next eleven years we sink billions of dollars and 1,800 soldiers and counting (plus countless others that have been critically wounded) for what?

We could have easily spent billions of dollars on defense measures in America; we could have saved 1,800 lives; we could have told Americans not to sit idly by while someone hijacks your plane with a box-cutter...

Would the electorate be pissed that we did not immediately resort to war? Probably. Would they have been pissed if they had realized that the war in Afghanistan was going to take over eleven years? Probably.
 
#62
#62
7thgroupvolfan said:
You are full of sh!t. How many billions of dollars have we given pakistan? Pakistan ain't gonna do sh!t. They know that they cannot or will not fight the insurgency waiting on the afghan border. So we must and they have no problem with it. If they do? We take the money away. I thought you were smart on such tactics?
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I am speaking of Pakistani civilians, not their government. I am speaking of the individuals that may have been indifferent to terrorism and now have an ax to grind.
 
#63
#63
therealUT said:
1. On multiple occasions in Iraq, we paid off individuals with CERP money after "accidentally" killing their families; the deaths were all categorized officially as insurgents and combatants. We used CERP money to pay these individuals off because if we used the funds allocated to reparations, we would have to officially note that we killed noncombatants. This was going on all over Iraq when I was there; I imagine it is going on in Afghanistan, as well.

2. I have gone through the official data on civilian casualties that the DoD has and compared that to both documents leaked on WikiLeaks and their reparations payment documents. The data on civilian casualties is severely under-reported by the DoD. Drones are the hot topic right now with everyone concerned with military ethics (both on the philosophy side and the political science side); this summer, I am proofing and editing a 500-page manuscript (about an 800-page book) that will be published by Oxford University Press that deals almost exclusively with civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, and does so by comparing all the different body counts and tallies and their methodologies. At least 50% of the casualties from drone strikes, in 2010 and 2011, are noncombatant civilians. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Do I think that we have reached that much greater precision in the first half of 2012? No.
Click to expand...

I bet you didn't do sh!t. You know the process but you didn't pay anybody off cause you sir are a chicken sh!t who's never seen combat.

Please, make up some combat story real quick while we wait.
What do you say now?
 
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#64
#64
7thgroupvolfan said:
I bet you didn't do sh!t. You know the process but you didn't pay anybody off cause you sir are a chicken sh!t who's never seen combat.

Please, make up some combat story real quick while we wait.
What do you say now?
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Nice response. I have seen combat. Thanks for playing.
 
#67
#67
7thgroupvolfan said:
I bet you didn't do sh!t. You know the process but you didn't pay anybody off cause you sir are a chicken sh!t who's never seen combat.

Please, make up some combat story real quick while we wait.
What do you say now?
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Unless he's been an alter for the last 6 years I'm pretty sure TrUT has seen combat
 
#68
#68
volinbham said:
Unless he's been an alter for the last 6 years I'm pretty sure TrUT has seen combat
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He's been deployed, but that has nothing to do with combat. Watching your brothers die.....no way he would be defending these acts to save American lives. That's what happens when you kill the big dogs. That's the goal
 
#69
#69
7thgroupvolfan said:
He's been deployed, but that has nothing to do with combat. Watching your brothers die.....no way he would be defending these acts to save American lives. That's what happens when you kill the big dogs. That's the goal
Click to expand...

I believe he's seen combat.
 
#70
#70
7thgroupvolfan said:
He's been deployed, but that has nothing to do with combat. Watching your brothers die.....no way he would be defending these acts to save American lives. That's what happens when you kill the big dogs. That's the goal
Click to expand...

These actions are not defending American lives; they are definitely destroying life, though. And, I do not place a higher value on the life of an American than I do on the life of an Iraqi, an Indian, a Pakistani, etc.
 
#74
#74
therealUT said:
These actions are not defending American lives; they are definitely destroying life, though. And, I do not place a higher value on the life of an American than I do on the life of an Iraqi, an Indian, a Pakistani, etc.
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So we should just set back and let the enemy organize his forces and bring the fight to us? Or do we strike him when he's weak and prevent such attacks?

If you've seen any combat then you know the answer to this question. Your position on it from a former military stand point is a disgrace.
 
#75
#75
I do not agree with TRUT on several issues but I do think he has been in combat.

There are men that have been in combat that do have different opinions.
 
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