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| ▲ | 0xDEAFBEAD 4 days ago | parent [-] | | >The kidnapping of random civilians Can you provide a citation for the claim that these were literally random civilians (as opposed to people suspected of committing a crime or plotting to commit a crime)? >very few people were convicted of it The obvious possibility is that few were convicted because it wasn't widespread. --- As an American, I think you are correct that these incidents may constitute evidence of institutional rot in our armed forces. I'm thinking maybe I should vote for politicians who will withdraw the US from NATO, so that the US will be involved in fewer wars in the future, and there will be fewer opportunities for American soldiers to commit war crimes. Do you support this? | | |
| ▲ | sofixa 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Random taxi driver who happened to pass by Bagram, tortured to death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilawar_%28torture_victim%29 Another one was kidnapped because of his watch type, a Casio: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-fil... There was also another one who had the misfortune of sharing his name with a man accused of terrorism. > The obvious possibility is that few were convicted because it wasn't widespread Considering the well known and documented facts around Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, that's obvious not possible and not true. NATO being a defensive alliance, your last point has no merit. | | |
| ▲ | 0xDEAFBEAD 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Your own source states that Dilawar was arrested by an Afghan and turned over to the US as a suspect in a rocket attack. Just read the NY Times article as excerpted by Wikipedia. Looks much more like a case of a guilty Afghan framing an innocent Afghan for a crime, than a case of the US flipping coins in order to kidnap civilians 'at random'. >Another one was kidnapped because of his watch type, a Casio: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-fil... This article doesn't appear to substantiate the claim that anyone was kidnapped solely for owning a Casio. Can you quote the specific excerpt that you believe substantiates this claim? What fraction of watches worldwide would you estimate are Casio F-91W wristwatches? Supposing we know that Al Qaeda trainees are issued this specific make and model of watch. (The Guardian: "The Casio was known to be given to the students at al-Qaida bomb-making training courses in Afghanistan...") Are you familiar with the concept of a likelihood ratio? Can you estimate the likelihood ratio for someone being an Al Qaeda trainee given that they possess this specific make and model of watch? Do you understand how a sequence of likelihood ratios (pieces of evidence) can be multiplied together to get a posterior likelihood ratio, from which you can derive a probability estimate that e.g. someone is a terrorist? >There was also another one who had the misfortune of sharing his name with a man accused of terrorism. Suppose you learn that your local police department has arrested a man who shares the name of a man on your country's "most wanted" list. What would be an appropriate response? Fire the person who arrested him and everyone in the chain of command? Or accept that mistakes are made, and arresting innocent people is an inevitable part of having a justice system? Now (as in the Dilwar case) imagine that your local police department is operating in a warzone, does not speak the local language, experienced an attack on their police building this morning, and are trained to fight wars as opposed to administer justice. What result do you expect? I asked whether the people involved were "literally random civilians" vs "people suspected of committing a crime or plotting to commit a crime". All of your examples appear to be people suspected of crime, in some cases for good reason. So -- thanks for answering my question, I guess? (To clarify, I agree that the US made serious mistakes in Iraq/Afghanistan, and Dilawar's story is incredibly sad and tragic. However, I think my original point about the comparative per-capita rate basically stands. Israel recently got hit by a large terrorist attack, akin to Sept 11, and I would argue their response has been far more indiscriminate and vindictive than the US's: https://x.com/AssalRad/status/1859069963132432562#m No one has provided any comparative data re: 21st century conflicts where we can be confident fewer war crimes were committed per capita, as I requested.) >Considering the well known and documented facts around Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, that's obvious not possible and not true. Given your very creative interpretation of the sources you've shared so far, where arresting someone who shares the name of a suspect is basically the same as arresting someone 'at random', I reckon there's a decent chance that this claim of yours is also based on a creative interpretation of some kind. >NATO being a defensive alliance, your last point has no merit. Are you sure we can trust the US to keep it a defensive alliance? Perhaps they will provoke the alliance into a conflict. Perhaps it's best for the US to withdraw from the alliance so it stays defensive. That's safer for other NATO members, because it will prevent them from becoming entangled in conflicts that are provoked by the US. Even if fighting a defensive war, the US will likely commit war crimes. They committed war crimes in Iraq, and also in Europe as part of WW2. (Along with ~every nation that participated in WW2, I believe.) --- I just want you to take a consistent position here! One consistent position is that we should think of war crimes as being sort of like regular crimes. If you picked up a newspaper and saw that someone committed a murder in your country, would you view it as a reflection on the millions of people who live in your country? Or as a reflection on that individual? Or somewhere in between? Alternatively, if you actually believe your own arguments, that the US is a uniquely evil country, then you should accept the straightforward implications of that. You should wish to diplomatically disentangle the US from your own country, which means you should praise US withdrawal from NATO. If the US is evil, you shouldn't wish to be allied with it, same way you wouldn't wish to be allied with Nazi Germany -- even as part of a "defensive alliance". Again, I just what you to take a consistent position. I don't particularly care so much what it is. I just want you to accept the very straightforward implications of the claims that you yourself are making! Why should my tax dollars pay to defend your country, if my country will inevitably end up committing war crimes in the process, and open us up to accusations that we are all monsters, like the accusations you're making in this thread? This just seems like a lose-lose proposition to me, as a US citizen. It seems better to just not have this arrangement, and withdraw from NATO. How would you feel if you were in my position? Can you see how absurd this conversation feels to me? | | |
| ▲ | aguaviva 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Looks much more like a case of a guilty Afghan framing an innocent Afghan for a crime, than a case of the US flipping coins in order to kidnap civilians 'at random'. You're being far too charitable to the occupying forces.
Remember, they tortured the guy to death. Whether their own people picked the guy up off the street, or they outsourced the task to their local proxy forces (likely offering cash incentives, thus more or less guaranteeing that exactly this sort of thing would happpen), ultimately doesn't matter too much. If at all. This article doesn't appear to substantiate the claim that anyone was kidnapped solely for owning a Casio. Can you quote the specific excerpt that you believe substantiates this claim? This fellow, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salih_Uyar According to Mother Jones: More than a dozen detainees were cited for owning cheap digital watches, particularly "the infamous Casio watch of the type used by Al Qaeda members for bomb detonators."
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| ▲ | 0xDEAFBEAD 3 days ago | parent [-] | | >You're being far too charitable to the occupying forces. I was responding to the specific claim: "The kidnapping of random civilians to get tortured". This claim seems to be clear hyperbole. >they outsourced the task to their local proxy forces (likely offering cash incentives, thus more or less guaranteeing that exactly this sort of thing would happpen) It says right there in the Dilawar article that the Afghan who framed him is suspected of being responsible for the rocket attack. But yes, I suppose this was all secretly orchestrated by the US somehow... It says right there in the Salih Uyar article that the watch was just one reason. You can see the other reasons here (Wikipedia citation): https://web.archive.org/web/20060711215342/http://www.ciponl... A pattern I'm seeing in this thread: Someone makes a hyperbolic "America is evil" claim. I spend, like, 60 seconds investigating. The claim doesn't appear to hold up. It seems clear to me that you, and others, love to exaggerate how evil the US is, regardless of the facts. And you haven't given a historical example of a country that did a good job of addressing counterinsurgency/counterterrorism with belligerents who hide in a civilian popuation. For example, perhaps you think that China's method in Xinjiang represents a superior approach? Please, provide a model that you think worked well! I just want you to do one of two things: (a) admit you/others in this thread might be exaggerating a smidge, or (b) embrace the logical implication of your position, that the US should withdraw from NATO. I don't care which of those you do -- I just want you to be consistent! As an American, I personally have become more and more convinced that the US should withdraw from NATO, with every comment that's left in this thread. It just isn't worth the risk that something like this will happen again in the future, should the US become involved in another major war. And, I don't think Americans should die for people who love to exaggerate how evil we are. That's absurd, frankly. | | |
| ▲ | aguaviva 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I'll cop to (a), but only out of laziness, not for any of the broader motives you are attempting to impute. And definitely not to (b), which definitely does not follow from what you (falsely) think to be my position, at all. Frankly -- to every extent you think we're busily trying to "dial up" America's innate evilness, it seems you're definitely trying to divert/deflect blame for its actions, also. For example, spinning the torture/murder of Dilawar as a matter of his being framed by locals (as if that were the primary cause of what happened to him); without focusing on the infinitely bigger circumstances behind his death, which is the simple fact of the occupying soldiers choosing to beat the guy to a bloody pulp in the first place. There's also the weird way you describe his death as "sad and tragic", as if it were a car accident, or something similar fateful. It was nothing of the sort of course - it was a war crime, straight up. Someone makes a hyperbolic "America is evil" claim. They said nothing of the sort. The initial commenter made some serious (and in my view perfectly justified) criticisms of the fact that the US never seems to have undergone a genuine moral reckoning for the moral disaster that was the 2003 Iraq invasion. But this is very different from an essentializing, moralistic statement like "America is evil". So for all your concerns about hyperbolicizing over small details such as why exactly so-and-so got picked up before they were tortured, you're clearly doing some serious hyperbolicizing yourself in this case, and in a much intentional, top-down way. | | |
| ▲ | 0xDEAFBEAD 3 days ago | parent [-] | | >not for any of the broader motives you are attempting to impute Why do the errors of your "laziness" all point in the same direction? Motivated reasoning is the obvious explanation. >spinning the torture/murder of Dilawar as a matter of his being framed by locals (as if that were the primary cause of what happened to him) Yet again I will emphasize that I was responding to the claim "The kidnapping of random civilians to get tortured". Way up in this thread I stated: >Can you provide a citation for the claim that these were literally random civilians (as opposed to people suspected of committing a crime or plotting to commit a crime)? Perhaps you were too lazy to read that part? The question here is not how gruesome the crime is. Repeating myself yet again: The question is the degree to which this crime reflects on the entire US nation, vs specific culpable individuals. Insofar as it reflects on the entire US nation, that's where the implication that we should withdraw from NATO is straightforward. >There's also the weird way you describe his death as "sad and tragic", as if it were a car accident, or something similar fateful. It was nothing of the sort of course - it was a war crime, straight up. I already stated in this thread: "I think you are correct that the US service members committed some fucked up war crimes in Iraq." I won't respond to you further in this thread. It's increasingly clear based on your responses that you simply aren't reading what I'm writing, and aren't thinking very hard about this topic. And, I don't think my nation should be defending yours. You're not an ally. An "alliance" means mutual benefit. But there's no benefit to me from partnering with you. Defending you is charity, and considered as charity, it is frankly terrible. I don't believe in charity for wealthy, self-righteous, entitled, smug, thankless people -- especially not when it entails significant personal risk. You haven't remotely justified why my tax dollars should pay for your defense, given the risk of US service members committing more gruesome war crimes in the course of defending you, same way they did in WW2. | | |
| ▲ | aguaviva 3 days ago | parent [-] | | But there's no benefit to me from partnering with -you-. Defending you is charity, and considered as charity, it is frankly terrible. I don't believe in charity for wealthy, entitled, smug, thankless people. The extent to which you're going out of your way to launch an all-out, gratuitously personalized and caustic attack like this (based on fully imagined attributes, such as how "wealthy" you think I am, or what kind of passport you think I hold) -- is really quite bizarre. |
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| ▲ | sofixa 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Why should my tax dollars pay to defend your country, if my country will inevitably end up committing war crimes in the process, and open us up to accusations that we are all monsters, like the accusations you're making in this thread? This just seems like a lose-lose proposition to me, as a US citizen. It seems better to just not have this arrangement, and withdraw from NATO. You seem to be making a number of assumptions, all of which are wrong. Your tax dollars are defending your country and its interests, and it just so happens that defending other countries is in your country's interests. The US doesn't keep NATO existing out of the goodness of its heart, it's a geopolitical tool. The US wants to combat Russian and Chinese influence and prevent them extending it, so it has various alliances and similar deals (like in Korea, Japan, the weirdness with Taiwan). Second, that war crimes are an inevitable fact of life and nothing can be done. This is bullshit. War crimes can be committed in "the heat of the moment", but if properly dealt with (punished), will not be a frequent thing. Third, that an army which has committed war crimes is automatically "all monsters". Only if it refuses to deal with its war criminals and they're in sufficient numbers, yes, but neither of those are facts of life. Had the US executed the people responsible for torturing civilians to death, nobody would be saying that the US ignores its war criminals; it did nothing, so everyone is right to say it. As for the rest, you're trying to deflect based on technicalities. It doesn't matter if the US or allied militias did the kidnapping, US service members tortured those people to death with zero due diligence. They were tortured to death for the sadistic pleasure of groups of people in individual locations that could have been dealt with.... But not in Guantanamo. There the torture was the result of an official policy, implicating multiple high level officials, so the rot ran very high. Fun fact: do you know what the Arbeit Macht Frei of Guantanamo is? "Honor bound to defend freedom". Can't make this shit up, perfect for an illegal in existence, no evidence required, torture to death/vegetable status unlimited detention camp. | | |
| ▲ | 0xDEAFBEAD 3 days ago | parent [-] | | >Your tax dollars are defending your country and its interests, and it just so happens that defending other countries is in your country's interests. So you will have no objection if we reassess our interests and decide that defending you no longer aligns with them? Because that's what many Americans, including me, are starting to think. I don't want conflict with Russia or China. As an American, that's not in my interest! And, I have no desire to partner with a country full of dishonest, self-righteous individuals such as yourself. That's not in my interest, either. Nor is it in my interest to risk a conflict on your behalf which could result in US soldiers committing more war crimes! "Helping me is in your interest, buddy..." I know a con when I see one. I'm hoping with Trump's election, the US will act as more of a neutral and peaceful arbitrator, instead of automatically taking the side of "allies" like you for some bizarre reason. >will not be a frequent thing You still haven't even attempted to address the key question of whether the per capita rate of war crimes in Iraq was notably high. War crimes are wrong. I condemn them. I support more US-internal war crime investigations. But you've persistently failed to even address the question of whether US war crimes make it unusual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_war_in_the_Russia... https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/06/24/death-and-destru... Where are the executions? I suppose the Ukrainian military is all monsters? Can you even give a single historical incidence of a country dealing with war criminals on its own side in a way you consider acceptable? How about for your own country? >No investigation; No prosecutions. Major-general Christopher Vokes commander of the Canadian 4th Armoured Division freely admitted ordering the action, commenting in his autobiography that he had "No feeling of remorse over the elimination of Friesoythe." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_World_War_II#Cri... >it did nothing You are making more straightforward exaggerations, trivially falsified with 60 seconds on Wikipedia. "Nothing" is what Canada did in response to its WW2 crimes. I'm done. There's no point in continuing with someone who delights in dishonesty. | | |
| ▲ | sofixa 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > You still haven't even attempted to address the key question of whether the per capita rate of war crimes in Iraq was notably high. What? So war crimes only matter if there were a lot of them? I've only skimmed the Geneva convention but don't recall seeing that part. In any case, you'd struggle to find a developed country in the past few decades with anything resembling the US war crime rate, and torture of civilians rate. So yes, obviously. And there's a legitimate case to be made that ISIS and their crimes are the direct result of American incompetent handling of Iraq post the toppling of Saddam. So we can add some more to the pile. > I'm hoping with Trump's election, the US will act as more of a neutral and peaceful arbitrator, instead of automatically taking the side of "allies" like you for some bizarre reason You seem to have misconceptions about US foreign policy and what it means to be a US ally, and, hell, what Trump is and what he stands for (money). Check out what the US did to France with the Australian submarine deal, is that the an ally siding? With Trump in charge, his favourite dictators will do whatever they want. In any case, good riddance. A few countries will be screwed through no fault of their own (Ukraine, Taiwan), being surrendered to a despotic regime. It's unfortunate, but it's clear that a lot of Americans cannot tell right from wrong, so it is what it is. The rest of the world can't force the US to continue in the role it took itself as the world police at least paying lip service to freedom and morality and what not. (More often than not this was propping up fascists and similar against anything left of Franco, but still, in some cases like Taiwan and Ukraine, something good came out of it) But the EU will take the opportunity to stand up and become more autonomous, fully taking in on how unreliable the US is. The world will be better off, on average. It's just horrible how many people will have to suffer to get there. |
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