News Thread 2015: Page 125 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

News Thread 2015

Burnwinter

Be interesting to see how they talk about it and what the reason behind it was. Putin has called a special meeting of the UN Security Council apparently.

jones

http://gawker.com/the-female-isis-suicide-bomber-in-the-bathtub-was-exact-1744267268?sidebar_promotions_icons=testingon&utm_expid=66866090-67.e9PWeE2DSnKObFD7vNEoqg.2&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.ca%2F

And people are wondering why I'm skeptical of anything that comes out of the press ffs. Imagine being in the shoes of that woman, living in Morocco, half naked pictures of you shown everywhere in the nation and to your family and friends because you apparently blew yourself up in Europe.

Kel Varnsen

...and finally, reality hits Sweden as well:

http://www.ft.com/fastft/430471/sweden-tightens-asylum-rules-dramatic-policy-reversal

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/24/us-europe-migrants-sweden-idUSKBN0TD1SC20151124#Y70yEGj6w5vwqmWM.97

Rex

I'd rather live in a country that has tried its utmost to accommodate as many people as possible and come to the realization that it can't help everyone, than in a country which doesn't even bother.

Kel Varnsen

Rex wrote:
I'd rather live in a country that has tried its utmost to accommodate as many people as possible and come to the realization that it can't help everyone, than in a country which doesn't even bother.

You mean they thought they could help everyone? Swedes... 😆

Clrnc

Some reports flooding in from Twitter that serious situation developing in France again, hostages taken in the north.

Jens

Just watched the Eagles of Death Metal VICE interview, pretty fucking heavy stuff. I've followed the band for a long time and it's pretty surreal to see a guy like Jesse "Boots Electric" Hughes who I used to know as an asskicking, hellraising rock'and'roller sit there like a broken man.

The video:

At 10:35 he says the terrorists were indeed screaming "Allahu akbar" over and over while shooting.

Jesus this is a tough watch.

Mirth

I know it's been a difficult few weeks for the news but a moment to consider that this cunt will bring about more pain and hardship to people the events of the past few weeks ever will.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/25/martin-shkreli-hiv-drug-daraprim-turing

jones

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/11/25/us-troops-suspended-kunduz-hospital-attack-top-general-says/76371506/

Campbell said the investigation findings included:

The AC-130 aircraft that fired on the hospital had launched urgently in response to a report of troops under fire. As a result, the crew did not conduct a normal mission brief nor obtain “crucial mission essential related materials" that would include the “no-strike” list identifying the location of the hospital as being off limits.

During the flight, the aircraft’s onboard electronic systems malfunctioned, resulting in a breakdown of some essential command and control capability, such as eliminating the aircraft’s ability to transmit video, and send and receive email.
In the air over Kunduz, the aircraft conducted an evasive maneuver that forced it to move “away from its normal orbit … this degraded the accuracy of certain targeting systems which later contributed to the misidentification of the MSF trauma center,” Campbell said.

When the targeting systems malfunctioned, the AC-130 aircrew “visually located the closest, largest building” and found that it “roughly matched” the physical description of the building that U.S. SOF commanders said was the proper target.

“At night, the aircrew was unable to identify any signs of the hospital's protected status,” Campbell said.
About one minute before the aircraft began firing on the hospital and despite the breakdown in some of the aircraft’s communications systems, the aircrew transmitted to their operational headquarters at Bagram Airfield the coordinates for the MSF trauma center as their target. The headquarters had access to the no-strike list, which included the hospital, but did not realize that the grid coordinates for the target matched a location on the no-strike list or that the aircrew was preparing to fire on the hospital.

The aircrew continued repeated strikes on the hospital target despite telling investigators that they did not observe hostile activity at the MSF trauma center.

During the 29-minute assault on the hospital, the aircraft’s targeting system began functioning correctly and identified the correct target, but “the crew remained fixated on the physical description of the facility” and disregarded the grid coordinates, Campbell said.

Twelve minutes after the assault on the hospital began, U.S. operations forces received a call from MSF saying the hospital was under attack. But that information was not relayed to the aircrew before the AC-130 had completed its strike and departed the area.

Note that this is already the fifth or sixth version of the incident released by the US and NATO. Note also how a "normal mission brief" includes “crucial mission essential related materials like no-strike zones", insinuating that emergency briefs don't - everyone is fair game when we receive an emergency call basically. Note also how despite several chances to coordinate their actions with the no-strike list, which includes way too few buildings anyway, the pilots rather went with visually locating a building that "roughly matched" the description of the target somewhere in the vicinity. Note also that all of the cunts involved in this tragedy will face disciplinary action instead of a fucking tribunal.

How is this any different to what any random terror organisation does, except those usually don't sit in Lockheeds while slaughtering citizens and the doctors who are treating them?

Rex

Intent is a big difference I'd say.

jones

We're not exactly talking about a car crash here. Intent matters little to the dead.

Burnwinter

At the time I assumed that attack was intentional anyway. They came back for repeated runs - a solid half hour of bombing while being constantly informed they were attacking a hospital. Hard to credit that being accidental in 2015.

There is a big difference between the US and "random terror organisations" when they commit acts of violence, however. US armed forces have such legitimacy as is conferred by representing the interests of a state that provides for its own people and submits itself to reason and law internationally, to some extent.

The US is also a major funder of international organisations like the UN and the ICC.

For better or worse the USA is a peer on the international stage whereas "random terror organisations" are outlaws.

Bryant

Mirth wrote:
I know it's been a difficult few weeks for the news but a moment to consider that this cunt will bring about more pain and hardship to people the events of the past few weeks ever will.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/25/martin-shkreli-hiv-drug-daraprim-turing

Don't worry, his drug company won't last long. Companies are making an alternative:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/10/23/imprimis-pharmaceuticals-turing-pharmaceuticals-daraprim/74452030/

Qwiss

Burnwinter wrote:
At the time I assumed that attack was intentional anyway. They came back for repeated runs - a solid half hour of bombing while being constantly informed they were attacking a hospital. Hard to credit that being accidental in 2015.

There is a big difference between the US and "random terror organisations" when they commit acts of violence, however. US armed forces have such legitimacy as is conferred by representing the interests of a state that provides for its own people and submits itself to reason and law internationally, to some extent.

The US is also a major funder of international organisations like the UN and the ICC.

For better or worse the USA is a peer on the international stage whereas "random terror organisations" are outlaws.

Its kind of like being shot by a cop instead of a drug dealer then.

Burnwinter

Yeah. Same physics, very different politics in both cases.

jones

Thanks for the explanation Burns but I know of the US' "legitimacy" when they do it, it was a rhetorical question. Although I doubt the extent to which they submit themselves to law and reason as you put it.

Qwiss! wrote:
Its kind of like being shot by a cop instead of a drug dealer then.

Good comparison.

yuv

There are many things wrong with how they operated, and some should probably be severely treated. However I don't know about the comparison with terrorist attacks, I don't even think BW's somewhat cynical justifications do it justice.

The claim that the victims don't know the difference is obviously true, but it is rather trivial in this case. Intent does make a big difference, some would say a crucial difference, and that would put the raiding team's crime somewhere in the spectrum between "undesired consequences - accident - negligence - criminal negligence", but that is still quite a way off intentionally targeting the innocent. Different war ethics approaches do recognize the above (a degree of legitimacy, or lesser severity, to instances of innocent casualties - "the Doctrine of Double Effect", etc.). But also, if we're not being intentionally cynical about it, I think common sense also does.

What gives this kind of comparison seeming credibility is, IMO, the questionable moral status of the US in general, in many places in Europe and beyond. While one would find it hard to defend the US against some of the other charges, I'm not sure the do enough to prove they are (as) guilty in the specific case (they could be, I don't know all the details, but from the little I read I don't see it as the same type of thing at all). The described actions, though horrifying, put a big professional question mark over the executing team, and indeed on how satisfying their performance was ethically - but, unless we know further details (such as: "civilian/innocent lives didn't count for much in the operating unit's ethical code", or their application of it through education and practice) it cannot tell us enough about the actual ethical code.

Do we need to know much about terrorists ethical code? are there many missing details? I'm not sure about that.

Meatwad

what a time to be alive.

I was already happy with my free prime sunday delivery and same day delivery for orders completed before noon, now 30 mins is on the horizon. :drool: i already average an order every 2 days and that's been dropping closer to an order a day in the last couple of months since same day delivery became available.

Burnwinter

@[deleted] Did you actually read the statements made by MSF at the time? That was what led me to believe the attack was an intentional one aimed at destroying a hospital.

http://www.msf.org/topics/kunduz-hospital-airstrike

We had informed all fighting parties of hospital GPS coordinates.

All parties to the conflict, including in Kabul and Washington, were clearly informed of the precise location (GPS Coordinates) of the MSF facilities – hospital, guest-house, office and an outreach stabilization unit in Chardara (to the north-west of Kunduz). As MSF does in all conflict contexts, these precise locations were communicated to all parties on multiple occasions over the past months, including most recently on 29 September.

The bombing continued for more than 30 minutes after American and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington were first informed. MSF urgently seeks clarity on exactly what took place and how this terrible event could have happened.

jones

From a cynical standpoint it even makes sense for the US to destroy that hospital, Afghani military forces were long complaining about the MSF treating every injured person regardless of affiliation, meaning Taliban and other paramilitaries were patched up there as well.

I wanted to type a lengthier response to yuv's post originally but I'll leave that for another time.

« Previous Page Next Page »