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.)

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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?

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."

> 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.