While the media talks about the Jordanian pilot, the US burns a 13-year-old to death - Polidicks

[url]https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/10/u-s-media-13-year-old-yemeni-boy-killed-u-s-drone/[/url] [QUOTE] On January 26, [I]the New York Times[/I] [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/world/middleeast/cia-drone-yemen-qaeda.html?_r=0"]claimed[/URL] that “a CIA drone strike in Yemen. . . . killed three suspected Qaeda fighters on Monday.” How did they know the identity of the dead? As usual, it was in part because “American officials said.” There was not a whiff of skepticism about this claim despite the fact that “a senior American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, declined to confirm the names of the victims” and “a C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment.” That [I]NYT[/I] article did cite what it called “a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP), who provided the names of the three victims, one of whom was “Mohammed Toiman al-Jahmi, a Yemeni teenager [B]whose father and brother were previously killed in American drone strikes.”[/B] The article added that “the Qaeda member did not know Mr. Jahmi’s age but said he was a member of the terrorist group.” In fact, as [I]the Guardian [/I][URL="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/drones-dream-yemeni-teenager-mohammed-tuaiman-death-cia-strike?CMP=share_btn_tw"]reported today[/URL], [B]“Mr. Jahmi’s age” was 13 on the day the American drone ended his life. [/B]Just months earlier, the Yemeni teenager told that paper that “he lived in constant fear of the ‘death machines’ in the sky that had already killed his father and brother.” It was 2011 when “an unmanned combat drone killed his father and teenage brother as they were out herding the family’s camels.” In the strike two weeks ago, Mohammed was killed along with his brother-in-law and a third man. Mohammed’s older brother Maqded said he “saw all the bodies completely burned, like charcoal” – undoubtedly quite similar to the way the Jordanian combat pilot looked after he was burned alive last month by ISIS. That’s not an accident: the weapons the U.S. military uses are [URL="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/04/burning-victims-death-still-common-practice/"]deliberately designed to incinerate people to death[/URL]. The missiles shot by their drones are named “Hellfire.” Of his younger, now-deceased 13-year-old brother, Maqded told [I]the Guardian[/I]: [B]“He wasn’t a member of al-Qaida. He was a kid.”[/B] [/QUOTE] Greenwald makes a viciously good point about this whole shitty episode: [QUOTE] If it were American teenagers rather than Yemeni ones regularly being burned to death – on American soil rather than Yemeni soil – does it take any effort to understand why there’d be widespread calls for violence against the perpetrators in response? Consider how much American rage and violence was unleashed by a single-day attack on American soil 13 years ago. In 2009, the U.S. [URL="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/7806882/US-cluster-bombs-killed-35-women-and-children.html"]got caught using cluster bombs[/URL] in Yemen in an attack that slaughtered 35 women and children. Obama then [URL="http://www.thenation.com/article/166757/why-president-obama-keeping-journalist-prison-yemen"]successfully demanded[/URL] that the Yemeni journalist who proved that the attack was from the U.S., Abdulelah Haider Shaye, be imprisoned for years. In December, 2013, a U.S. drone strike [URL="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/yemenis-seek-justice-wedding-drone-strike-201418135352298935.html"]killed 12 people[/URL] as they traveled to a wedding. What’s confounding and irrational and inscrutable isn’t that people react by turning to “radicalism” and violence. It’s that many journalists and officials in western nations seem to think that they can go around for decades invading, occupying, imprisoning without charges and dropping bombs on multiple other countries around the world, regularly killing innocents, including children, and then act shocked and surprised when people in those countries, or who identify with them, want to bring violence back in return. [I]That[/I] is a sentiment grounded in deep irrationality, blind nationalism, and primitive tribalism. [/QUOTE] While we're all raging and carrying on about ISIS dousing a dude with gas and setting him on fire, maybe stop to remember that the US does this all the time to people that [B]aren't[/B] dropping bombs on us. We've done it for years, and inflicted an equally horrific death on about 2,400 people over that time. 1,100 people died for the sake of targeting about 40 people for assassination. We use thermobaric incendiary warheads. We do double-tap strikes to kill first responders and mourners. We drop cluster weapons banned by international treaty. We used napalm in Iraq. Nobody (here, anyway) is demanding that all Americans condemn their government for burning children to death, but we seem fine with screaming "HOW DO YOU ANSWER FOR THIS!?" at Muslims when ISIS does it. I'd even say we're more guilty. Muslims didn't vote for those people. Every two years we go to the polls and tacitly consent to killing more innocent people.

Yeah because calculating collateral damage and preventing it is so easy from a drone. Quit acting like the US deliberately killed the kid. It was an unfortunate mistake that can happen when we use drones.

honestly 9/10 people in the US don't know about the "secret" wars in pakistan and yemin and africa where our drones are being deployed on counless sorties, and because these missions fall under the CIA, theres virtually no transparency yet obama has passed rules for the next president to obey regarding future transparency

[QUOTE=the article]THE U.S. MEDIA AND THE 13-YEAR-OLD YEMENI BOY BURNED TO DEATH LAST MONTH BY A U.S. DRONE[/QUOTE] I wasn't aware that the Predator/Reaper is armed with a flamethrower. :rolleyes:

We are the burning fire of democracy. USA USA USA

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123852]Yeah because calculating collateral damage and preventing it is so easy from a drone. Quit acting like the US deliberately killed the kid. It was an unfortunate mistake that can happen when we use drones.[/QUOTE] "Mistake" makes it okay, then? Like, seriously, try to have a tiny shred of empathy for one second and try to imagine what it would feel like for your entire family to be killed horribly by a country on the other side of the world that justifies it by saying "Whoops", then continues inflicting the exact same thing to countless other people. Also, it's not "war". Nothing about this is "war". There is no declared war in Yemen or the half dozen other countries we're killing people in. Nobody in Yemen seems to be shooting at us. We're just murdering people who are politically inconvenient to our interests in the region. You need a certain degree of parity to call it a "war". When one side is just slaughtering the other with impunity, it's not a war anymore. It's just genocide of anyone that meets the arbitrary "You must be this tall to ride the Drone Strike" degree of radical-ness. [editline]11th February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Apache249;47123886]I wasn't aware that the Predator/Reaper is armed with a flamethrower. :rolleyes:[/QUOTE] [URL]http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/agm-114n.htm[/URL] Hellfires are an inciendiary weapon. They kill by burning people to death in a cloud of flaming metal.

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123852]Yeah because calculating collateral damage and preventing it is so easy from a drone. Quit acting like the US deliberately killed the kid. It was an unfortunate mistake that can happen when we use drones.[/QUOTE] This is exactly the kinds of arguments that were put forward when Israel had it's share of "collateral damage", except we also had terrorists dressed up as civilians in densely populated areas where innocent people live, while they put rockets in civilian homes and hospitals they used kids as a deterrent against strikes. Suddenly when it's the US it's okay? It doesn't matter who does this, it's unacceptable.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47123892]"Mistake" makes it okay, then? Like, seriously, try to have a tiny shred of empathy for one second and try to imagine what it would feel like for your entire family to be killed horribly by a country on the other side of the world that justifies it by saying "Whoops", then continues inflicting the exact same thing to countless other people. Also, it's not "war". Nothing about this is "war". There is no declared war in Yemen or the half dozen other countries we're killing people in. Nobody in Yemen seems to be shooting at us. We're just murdering people who are politically inconvenient to our interests in the region. You need a certain degree of parity to call it a "war". When one side is just slaughtering the other with impunity, it's not a war anymore. It's just genocide of anyone that meets the arbitrary "You must be this tall to ride the Drone Strike" degree of radical-ness. [editline]11th February 2015[/editline] [URL]http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/agm-114n.htm[/URL] Hellfires are an inciendiary weapon. They kill by burning people to death in a cloud of flaming metal.[/QUOTE] Never said that. I said it was an unfortunate accident. Obviously a miscalculation. But that doesn't justify you to act like the US set some kid on fire for fun.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47123892[URL]http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/agm-114n.htm[/URL] Hellfires are an inciendiary weapon. They kill by burning people to death in a cloud of flaming metal.[/QUOTE] Thermobaric =/= incendiary. It's not a burn, it's an explosion [editline]yes[/editline] Not to mention that's only one variant of the Hellfire. Most Hellfires use a HEAT warheat instead.

[QUOTE=Muskof;47123910]This is exactly the kinds of arguments that were put forward when Israel had it's share of "collateral damage", except we also had terrorists dressed up as civilians in densely populated areas where innocent people live, while they put rockets in civilian homes and hospitals they used kids as a deterrent against strikes. Suddenly when it's the US it's okay? It doesn't matter who does this, it's unacceptable.[/QUOTE] I never said it was okay . Put away your moral compass and realize that shit like this happens all the time. It is extremely saddening. But also remember the US doesn't deliberately bomb fucking schools and hospitals.

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123919]I never said it was okay . Put away your moral compass and realize that shit like this happens all the time. It is extremely saddening. But also remember the US doesn't deliberately bomb fucking schools and hospitals.[/QUOTE] But it raises the question of why we're still meddling in the Middle East.

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123852]Yeah because calculating collateral damage and preventing it is so easy from a drone. Quit acting like the US deliberately killed the kid. It was an unfortunate mistake that can happen when we use drones.[/QUOTE] It's something to be aware of though. You have to realise how damaging collateral is to US reputation and I have no doubt it exacerbates the war on terror. You can't just play it off as an accident though and there is so much going on in that article that I suspect you didn't read it. For starters the US did deliberately kill that kid. It's claimed the boy was a terrorist and there's going to be no investigation into that. Not only was he killed, but his father and brother back in 2011. We work ourselves into a frenzy every time we lose a soldier or civilian but we rarely even report it when we kill civilians accidentally or deliberately.

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123919]I never said it was okay . Put away your moral compass and realize that shit like this happens all the time. It is extremely saddening. But also remember the US doesn't deliberately bomb fucking schools and hospitals.[/QUOTE] Israel doesn't either.

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123919]I never said it was okay . Put away your moral compass and realize that shit like this happens all the time. It is extremely saddening. But also remember the US doesn't deliberately bomb fucking schools and hospitals.[/QUOTE] The point is that it's insanely hypocritical to devote hours and hours of outraged news coverage when somebody else does it and act like we have clean hands and moral authority.

[QUOTE=Muskof;47123929]Israel doesn't either.[/QUOTE] Yes they do. Please refer to this thread ~ [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1450482[/url]

[QUOTE=Prismatex;47123922]But it raises the question of why we're still meddling in the Middle East.[/QUOTE] Ask the people who want the US to kill the fuck out of ISIS

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47123892]"Mistake" makes it okay, then? [/QUOTE] As opposed to on purpose? You still would have posted the article condemning the US.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47123931]The point is that it's insanely hypocritical to devote hours and hours of outraged news coverage when somebody else does it and act like we have clean hands and moral authority.[/QUOTE] Actually when the US kills civilians it is highly publicized.

Here are my questions: If you KNOW, for a fact, drone assassinations are going to kill civilians and you okay them anyways, aren't you in effect saying "Yes killing civilians is okay"? This is even before the first drone strike happens btw. After the drone strikes happen, and you have the intelligence data showing that yes, civilians are being killed by the drones, and you keep doing it, can you really call the civilian deaths accidents? Shouldn't we at least have the balls to stop hiding behind "We didn't mean it" as an excuse?

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123934]Yes they do. Please refer to this thread ~ [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1450482[/url][/QUOTE] This was because they were putting rockets into the schools and hospitals, we didn't bomb them for "fun".

[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;47123945]Here are my questions: If you KNOW, for a fact, drone assassinations are going to kill civilians and you okay them anyways, aren't you in effect saying "Yes killing civilians is okay"? This is even before the first drone strike happens btw. After the drone strikes happen, and you have the intelligence data showing that yes, civilians are being killed by the drones, and you keep doing it, can you really call the civilian deaths accidents? Shouldn't we at least have the balls to stop hiding behind "We didn't mean it" as an excuse?[/QUOTE]Bombs kill civilians, soldiers kill civilians, civilians kill civilians. Why are drones this big fucking fright? Everyone acts like evil robot overlord drones are targeting the nearest school group of orphans to hammer with explosives.

Im pretty sure hellfires dont actually burn people alive, and that whoever said they did doesnt know what a thermobaric weapon or shaped charge is.

[QUOTE=Muskof;47123950]This was because they were putting rockets into the schools and hospitals, we didn't bomb them for "fun".[/QUOTE] Say what justified the 1,500 civilian deaths?

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123943]Actually when the US kills civilians it is highly publicized.[/QUOTE] Hahahahaha. Right.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47123971]Hahahahaha. Right.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/afghanistan-no-justice-thousands-civilians-killed-usnato-operations-2014-08-11[/url] [url]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/amnesty-international-justice-afghan-civilians-killed-us-soldiers[/url] [url]http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/06/u-s-military-investigating-if-airstrikes-killed-civilians-in-iraq-and-syria/[/url] [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/us/soldier-gets-life-without-parole-in-deaths-of-afghan-civilians.html[/url] [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/us-forces-killed-8-civilians-most-of-them-children-in-new-incident-karzai-says/2014/01/15/939e3244-7e17-11e3-97d3-b9925ce2c57b_story.html[/url] Not a laughing matter at all.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47123931]The point is that it's insanely hypocritical to devote hours and hours of outraged news coverage when somebody else does it and act like we have clean hands and moral authority.[/QUOTE] Are you still talking about the Jordanian pilot? Because last time I checked, locking a man in a cage and burning him to death is a whole lot different than collateral damage in a missile strike.

[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;47123945]Here are my questions: [B]If you KNOW, for a fact, drone assassinations are going to kill civilians and you okay them anyways, aren't you in effect saying "Yes killing civilians is okay"?[/B] This is even before the first drone strike happens btw. After the drone strikes happen, and you have the intelligence data showing that yes, civilians are being killed by the drones, and you keep doing it, can you really call the civilian deaths accidents? Shouldn't we at least have the balls to stop hiding behind "We didn't mean it" as an excuse?[/QUOTE] It's worse than that. There are people on the kill list who took five, six, or seven strikes to successfully kill, each with dead civilians as collateral. Meaning, we repeatedly killed innocent people, accomplished nothing, and decided to try again and kill ANOTHER batch of innocent people. It's really hard to argue that the people orchestrating these strikes care about civilian life when they repeatedly kill civilians in FAILED attempts at assassinating a target. Best case scenario is that they are incompetent.

[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;47123945] After the drone strikes happen, and you have the intelligence data showing that yes, civilians are being killed by the drones, and you keep doing it, can you really call the civilian deaths accidents? Shouldn't we at least have the balls to stop hiding behind "We didn't mean it" as an excuse?[/QUOTE] FYI one agency's terrorist is another countries civilian ya we've fucked up, and i don't support the use of drones to the extent we do today, and i do believe we should not classify their missions under CIA cloak n dagger, but half the time the military will say that house was full of militants, while regional sources say that house was filled with sweet innocent puppy-loving civilians. who's right? i would like to think the CIA is more informed than the local al'jezera reporter who probably doesn't even visit the site in question

[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;47123964]Say what justified the 1,500 civilian deaths?[/QUOTE] Nothing, what justified the killing of the 13-year old?

[QUOTE=Apache249;47123984]Are you still talking about the Jordanian pilot? Because last time I checked, locking a man in a cage and burning him to death is a whole lot different than collateral damage in a missile strike.[/QUOTE] No, it's fucking not! What, you think because we have less ritual about the whole thing it's better? Because we push a button instead of lighting a match? Hell, we even go on TV and give speeches about why our killings are justified.