The Swamp

Steve of phpBB wrote:

Jerloma wrote:

Beyond that, MSF personnel at the facility “frantically” called U.S. military officials during the strike to advise them that the hospital was being hit and to plead with them to stop, but the strikes continued in a “sustained” manner for 30 more minutes.

Holy shit. This is unbelievable.

Is it really? Think of how many times you read about friendly fire, and how long it takes for the people getting bombed or shelled to get through to the people doing the bombing or shelling?

Well, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt but the rest of that article makes me think that this was almost certainly intentional and if that's the case, I wouldn't expect the people being bombed asking them to stop to make them stop.

Jerloma wrote:

Steve of phpBB wrote:

Jerloma wrote:

Beyond that, MSF personnel at the facility “frantically” called U.S. military officials during the strike to advise them that the hospital was being hit and to plead with them to stop, but the strikes continued in a “sustained” manner for 30 more minutes.

Holy shit. This is unbelievable.

Is it really? Think of how many times you read about friendly fire, and how long it takes for the people getting bombed or shelled to get through to the people doing the bombing or shelling?

Well, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt but the rest of that article makes me think that this was almost certainly intentional and if that's the case, I wouldn't expect the people being bombed asking them to stop to make them stop.

Yeah, based on that article it sounds like the "best-case" scenario from the US military's perspective is that the Afghan government wanted the hospital destroyed and gave the US its coordinates, and the US went ahead and bombed it without doing any diligence and realizing that it was a hospital. The detail in the article about how the hospital was recently raided by Afghan special forces is a damning one. It sure makes it seem like quite the convenient coincidence if this really was "accidental."

Best case is "there's a reason you can't grasp as someone who will never have this level of responsibility", not "we take blind kill orders from another government".

I went back and read this thread from the start, and to slightly threadjack and callback, I'm referencing the Khmer Rouge. In terms of genocide, that one to me is particularly hard to comprehend.

I guess in relative terms, I can understand the reasoning behind the Final Solution: if we're going to use a particular race as the scapegoat of the problems of the German failures and society, let's eradicate them. I can understand the Rwandan genocide: those Tutsi fucks have been oppressing us for decades, let's get our revenge on them. But the Khmer Rouge makes absolutely no sense to me. I can understand (again, in relative terms) slaughtering the rich, but slaughtering the educated too? Just remove all intellectual capital of your nation? Just never got that. And it seems to be a genocide that gets very glossed over. I remember mentioning Cambodia in a college class when a professor mentioned that genocide hadn't happened since the Holocaust, and the majority of the class AND the professor looked at me like I mentioned a genocide in Atlantis.

That reminds me...The Killing Fields is one of those movies that I've always wanted to see but never got around to. I can't imagine any reason why anyone with any sense at all would refer to Pot's regime as anything other than a genocide.

Jerloma wrote:That reminds me...The Killing Fields is one of those movies that I've always wanted to see but never got around to. I can't imagine any reason why anyone with any sense at all would refer to Pot's regime as anything other than a genocide.

It's a solid, depressing movie.

Was the Khmer Rouge trying to eliminate a distinct ethnic group? Or just eliminate anyone who would be a threat to their idea of a socialist paradise, like the Cultural Revolution in China? I don't think it's officially "genocide" unless a particular "geno," or race, is targeted.

Steve of phpBB wrote:

Jerloma wrote:That reminds me...The Killing Fields is one of those movies that I've always wanted to see but never got around to. I can't imagine any reason why anyone with any sense at all would refer to Pot's regime as anything other than a genocide.

It's a solid, depressing movie.

Was the Khmer Rouge trying to eliminate a distinct ethnic group? Or just eliminate anyone who would be a threat to their idea of a socialist paradise, like the Cultural Revolution in China? I don't think it's officially "genocide" unless a particular "geno," or race, is targeted.

Somewhat of a distinction without a difference, but I would say you're right.

Steve of phpBB wrote:

Jerloma wrote:That reminds me...The Killing Fields is one of those movies that I've always wanted to see but never got around to. I can't imagine any reason why anyone with any sense at all would refer to Pot's regime as anything other than a genocide.

It's a solid, depressing movie.

Was the Khmer Rouge trying to eliminate a distinct ethnic group? Or just eliminate anyone who would be a threat to their idea of a socialist paradise, like the Cultural Revolution in China? I don't think it's officially "genocide" unless a particular "geno," or race, is targeted.

Ah, I see. I guess i don't know enough about it. This is why I need to see The Killing Fields. Or God forbid, pick up a book.

So, L-Jam, it looks like you answered your own question.

The Killing Fields is fantastic, but I don't know if I have the stomach to watch it again.

Perhaps it's my inability to just accept the concept that a human being can be inherently evil, but I just don't see how you can commit these atrocities without being taught to hate. Think about a Khmer Rouge soldier, picking up an infant by the feet and swinging it like a baseball bat smashing its head into a tree. The experiences leading up to that point in his life simply could not have reflected the idea that all humans are the same and of equal value.

Jerloma wrote:Perhaps it's my inability to just accept the concept that a human being can be inherently evil, but I just don't see how you can commit these atrocities without being taught to hate. Think about a Khmer Rouge soldier, picking up an infant by the feet and swinging it like a baseball bat smashing its head into a tree. The experiences leading up to that point in his life simply could not have reflected the idea that all humans are the same and of equal value.

I am afraid that if put into the right (or wrong) kind of situation, most of us could be riled up enough to do evil like that. Too many people from too many nations and ethnic groups have done too many evil things for me to think that it just comes down to being taught the wrong things as a kid.

That is why it is so important to me that we don't even start going down that road. Because once you get started, it is really hard to stop.

Steve of phpBB wrote:

Jerloma wrote:Perhaps it's my inability to just accept the concept that a human being can be inherently evil, but I just don't see how you can commit these atrocities without being taught to hate. Think about a Khmer Rouge soldier, picking up an infant by the feet and swinging it like a baseball bat smashing its head into a tree. The experiences leading up to that point in his life simply could not have reflected the idea that all humans are the same and of equal value.

I am afraid that if put into the right (or wrong) kind of situation, most of us could be riled up enough to do evil like that. Too many people from too many nations and ethnic groups have done too many evil things for me to think that it just comes down to being taught the wrong things as a kid.

That is why it is so important to me that we don't even start going down that road. Because once you get started, it is really hard to stop.

Completely agree.

It's the mob mentality - combined with a fear of consequences that lead people to commit evil acts. And that is why the demagoguery that was once way off to the fringes, but which is now mainstream is so, so dangerous.

Oh I'm not blaming bad parenting. I'm saying that in order to get someone to commit such acts, I think you have to get them to believe that the victims are enemies...something deserving of that fate. Something evil unto itself that is completely divided from you. You guys make it seem like they were just killing people because they enjoyed it.

Jerloma wrote:Oh I'm not blaming bad parenting. I'm saying that in order to get someone to commit such acts, I think you have to get them to believe that the victims are enemies...something deserving of that fate. Something evil unto itself that is completely divided from you. You guys make it seem like they were just killing people because they enjoyed it.

I agree people committing that kind of violence have to be made to believe that the victims are enemies, but I don't think that is so very hard to do. And once they are convinced the evil comes out and they can do all kinds of horrific things.

That's another thing I took from the genocide book - too many people put into power do evil things for me to think that some of these apparently crazy mf-ers today wouldn't do the same thing if given the chance.

brian wrote:

Steve of phpBB wrote:

Jerloma wrote:That reminds me...The Killing Fields is one of those movies that I've always wanted to see but never got around to. I can't imagine any reason why anyone with any sense at all would refer to Pot's regime as anything other than a genocide.

It's a solid, depressing movie.

Was the Khmer Rouge trying to eliminate a distinct ethnic group? Or just eliminate anyone who would be a threat to their idea of a socialist paradise, like the Cultural Revolution in China? I don't think it's officially "genocide" unless a particular "geno," or race, is targeted.

Somewhat of a distinction without a difference, but I would say you're right.

Haaaa, he is right. If it's not a race or religion then it's simply "persecution", which is the same thing but not as bad to say I guess.

Gunpowder wrote:That's another thing I took from the genocide book - too many people put into power do evil things for me to think that some of these apparently crazy mf-ers today wouldn't do the same thing if given the chance.

Some people think there's a genocide happening in North Korea as we speak.

Steve of phpBB wrote:

Jerloma wrote:

Beyond that, MSF personnel at the facility “frantically” called U.S. military officials during the strike to advise them that the hospital was being hit and to plead with them to stop, but the strikes continued in a “sustained” manner for 30 more minutes.

Holy shit. This is unbelievable.

Is it really? Think of how many times you read about friendly fire, and how long it takes for the people getting bombed or shelled to get through to the people doing the bombing or shelling?

Shocking, horrible, but not unbelievable.

Try to not give the US military too much credit in terms of proper planning, purity of motives or being honest with the American public.

In many ways, it is a bureaucracy with weapons, and asking a mid-level bureaucrat to go against orders is a fairly hopeless endeavour.

Boy, I thought Calvin and Hobbes were a bit more popular around here. As well as the rest of the philosophers who viewed man's nature as evil/sinful/violent.

One of my favorite strips was this one:

It's obviously not black and white but for every Hitler there's a Schindler. For every Oppenheimer, a Salk. For Every Mother Theresa, a Madame Curie. We're doing pretty damn good for a race whose evil outweighs it's empathy.

Yeah, more and more info dribbles out.

APNewsBreak: US analysts knew Afghan site was hospital

Seemed evident.

What does it take before the US Government admits that the war in Afghanistan has accomplished nothing?

Is the TAliban weaker? Has democracy taken hold? Are human rights in better shape?

A whole lot of nothing and it only cost 2,000 or so American lives (and 20,000 seriously wounded Americans and a trillion dollars.

We eliminated Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Also, we must fight al-Qaeda in their stronghold. At the same time we are arming them in Syria. American foreign policy, yo.

A more cynical and thus more likely take on Afghanistan is that the Obama administration seeks to extend the time between when America is seen to have 'pulled out' and when the corrupt and inept puppet administration that is left behind in nominal 'control' of the country totally collapses and some combination of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and various tribal rulers (aka 'warlords') control 100% of the country.

The more time that passes, the more plausible it can be made to seem by the pliable American media to the naive American public that Its Not Our Fault. We gave the local people who favored western-style values (e.g., not enslaving women) and democracy (e.g., fake elections) every chance to succeed in running Afghanistan, at great cost to our country. But they just didn't have what it takes to make it on their own.

Despite their failure, we will continue to be a bright city shining on a hill, blessed above all others by God. Sadly, the dark-skinned foreigners repeatedly fail to follow our splendid example. Even when we take over their countries by military force and then spend many years and vast sums to buy the loyalty of those who hate us and to kill the ones that won't take our money and are thus more evil than the rest.

This is just one of life's little mysteries.

howard wrote:Boy, I thought Calvin and Hobbes were a bit more popular around here. As well as the rest of the philosophers who viewed man's nature as evil/sinful/violent.

I studied political science -- including a bit of Calvin and a lot of Hobbes -- with Bill as a freshman. He wasn't even close to close to being among those few who deeply questioned the status of any quo or harbored dark thoughts about human nature. But we were certainly in the post-Vietnam penumbra, with the Cold War still going strong and nuclear MAD still in the intellectual air we all breathed.

I always figured Watterson chose those names because of their work, and that lurking deep within the comic strips was a dark view of human nature.

Until you came along, and disabused me of any assumption of deep philosophical thought on the part of Bill. Guess he just liked the names.

I always liked the strip. But I was never a cultist. Perhaps because of what I knew of Bill. The Bill I knew was a quiet, gawky teenager. As was I. He did cartooning back then, but I remember thinking it was nothing special.

People grow and change. Ten years after, he may not have resembled the kid I knew. I sure didn't. He certainly developed a voice and a style of humor that connected with many in our generation, and even subsequent ones.

A relevant tangent here. The political science department of our college was highly regarded. But this wasn't the liberal enclave that is so often assumed in liberal arts colleges. Several of the leading lights were quite conservative. I recall a night at a professor's house, watching the Carter-Ford election results with several students. I bet on Carter, he bet on Ford.

I see a name from those days now and then in the news. Most often, it is one of the students I knew back then who later took a job with a conservative politician, the Cato Institute, or wrote a paper some neocon is citing. Apparently there was a professional pipeline from the professors to the policy players. I'd say that it's quite likely that Bill Watterson's implicit social and political views grew up in opposition to the ones he was imbibing when he was first learning about Calvin and Hobbes.

Slate: The Doctors Without Borders Bombing Is Looking More and More Like a War Crime

On NBC Nightly News on Thursday, Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported that, based on the accounts of Defense Department sources, cockpit recordings from the AC-130 gunship involved in the incident “reveal that the crew actually questioned whether the airstrike was legal.” He also quoted a U.S. defense official suggesting that the attack “may in fact amount to a war crime.” The video and audio cockpit recordings of the incident, which feature conversations between the plane’s crew and U.S. troops on the ground, are at the center of the military’s investigation into the incident, as the Daily Beast’s Nancy Youssef reported last week. The recordings have not been released publicly or even to the members of Congress who received a classified briefing on the incident.

AC-130 gunships routinely record gunsight video, as well as cockpit audio. I'm guessing the crew was told, 'just shut up and shoot.'

Air Force "leadership." It's faaaaaantastic!

We have satellites and targeteers and more Intel than we know what to do with. Someone knew what that building was and wanted it destroyed.

Can stuff like this be accidental? Sure. But this just doesn't scream accident. And if the crew was even like "is this legal?" then you know something is up.

Oh man...this just gets worse and worse.

Pruitt wrote:What does it take before the US Government admits that the war in Afghanistan has accomplished nothing?

Is the TAliban weaker? Has democracy taken hold? Are human rights in better shape?

A whole lot of nothing and it only cost 2,000 or so American lives (and 20,000 seriously wounded Americans and a trillion dollars.

How many Taliban attacks took place on US soil? Did you see any "mushroom cloud smoking guns?" We fought them there, so we wouldn't have to fight them here! Mission Accomplished. USA-USA!

Of course the Taliban would never have the ability to take the fight to us, and Saddam never had WMDs, but why look behind the meaningless surface stats that prove the point?

ETA: erased my rant on all of the failed NeoCon predictions and justifications for Iraq. No need to get off topic on your Afghanistan question. Can we just let the Russians go in this time and sit back and watch them waste boatloads of money and force to accomplish nothing?

Jerloma wrote:Oh man...this just gets worse and worse.

This sickens me to no end.

How many hundreds of billions of dollars spent and there's not a single intelligence officer as brave as a volunteer physician? No one willing to be on the ground? Instead, THIS happens. Volunteer physicians massacred, a populace given no reason to see the US as anything other than monsters - a better equipped Taliban.

Doctors Without Borders: U.S. asked if Taliban was 'holed up' at hospital before attacking

And this is exactly why they did it:

An internal review by MSF confirmed that wounded Taliban fighters were among the patients treated at the facility, including two whom staff members concluded were of a higher rank. But the medical group’s leaders maintain that was not a reason to bomb a fully functioning hospital with 105 patients and surgeries ongoing, the only one of its kind in northern Afghanistan.

This is what our nation has become. Not only a military that does this kind of mass murder, but a populace who tolerate, ignore, deny or justify it. What a country!

howard wrote:Doctors Without Borders: U.S. asked if Taliban was 'holed up' at hospital before attacking

And this is exactly why they did it:

An internal review by MSF confirmed that wounded Taliban fighters were among the patients treated at the facility, including two whom staff members concluded were of a higher rank. But the medical group’s leaders maintain that was not a reason to bomb a fully functioning hospital with 105 patients and surgeries ongoing, the only one of its kind in northern Afghanistan.

This is what our nation has become. Not only a military that does this kind of mass murder, but a populace who tolerate, ignore, deny or justify it. What a country!

Shepard Smith went off on an ex-CIA operative (though Fox's last former CIA contributor is going to prison, because he was never in the CIA).

Looking for this clip now, mostly Right Wing sites came up, and man are they going after Shep. Apparently it is unpatriotic to question the decision to intentionally bomb the hospital. They seem to think DWB set up shop with solely to treat Taliban fighters, so that might be the disconnect. They also think it is treason to give aid to the enemy. I don't think they can comprehend that some people live in other countries, some of which aren't actively fighting against the Taliban.





Sidenote: I've been seeing a major uptick in FoxNews being called out as part of the Liberal media, not "Fair and Balanced" because they only push Murdoch's Progressive Leftist Agenda, and more of their "talent" are being labelled as Liberals. Crazy how far Right the wignuts are going.

As a benefit of being old-assed, I can easily contrast the way our nation reacted to the news of My Lai and other Vietnam atrocities, with today. The contrast is stark.

howard wrote:As a benefit of being old-assed, I can easily contrast the way our nation reacted to the news of My Lai and other Vietnam atrocities, with today. The contrast is stark.

I wonder if opinions have changed, or we have easy access to the inner thoughts of extremists, who have the ability to live in an echo chamber of repeated misinformation to embiggen their beliefs.

I have little doubt opinions have changed. Additional to the reactions of individuals, the responses by the media, and by the societal institutions are starkly different. Like courtmartials, convictions and prison terms.

Now, we condemn, convict and imprison the whistleblowers.

howard wrote:As a benefit of being old-assed, I can easily contrast the way our nation reacted to the news of My Lai and other Vietnam atrocities, with today. The contrast is stark.

Good for Shepard Smith.

I'm with you Howard, we are in an age where ignorance is valued as much as knowledge, where partisan statements, no matter how idiotic or offensive are considered valid by huge portions of the populace just because these statements have at their core the sentiment that "my enemy is alway wrong."

If My Lai had happened just a decade ago, William Calley would now be a pundit and a spokesman on military affairs for Fox.

The Sybian wrote:

howard wrote:As a benefit of being old-assed, I can easily contrast the way our nation reacted to the news of My Lai and other Vietnam atrocities, with today. The contrast is stark.

I wonder if opinions have changed, or we have easy access to the inner thoughts of extremists, who have the ability to live in an echo chamber of repeated misinformation to embiggen their beliefs.

"Demagoguery" used to be considered a dirty word.