[opinali]

We also accidentally dropped two nukes in Japan, and accidentally made Napalm and Agent Orange rain into the Vietnamese, with enormously high and vastly-civilian casualties in both cases. And these are just easy cases where direct responsibility can be tracked all way up to the commander-in-chief, so please no BS about no official strategy.

And then of course, the military chain of command is exceedingly good at diluting responsibility -- generals will demand results implying but not writing down how far commanders can go; soldiers and commanders will cross many lines which no colleagues will report() and no immediate superiors will punish; the press will be strictly managed to not see anything that "national security" doesn't need us to see so our own civilian population will be morally appeased that we're being righteous, everyone is happy.

() A few will do, and then they're jailed for life as traitors.

[harlanlewis]

The comment you're responding was edited to couch the argument in "now at least".

The Drone Papers asserts ~90% of people killed by drone strikes weren't the intended target (with a wide mix of civilians, combatants, and unknown). https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/ Other sources, eg the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron...), provide more granular data over time. Precision is somewhat lacking in estimates due to the inherent secrecy.

While the number of actions, targets, deaths, and total casualties varies by nation (Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia...), a high rate of collateral damage is clearly an accepted part of the current strategy.

[masklinn]

> We also accidentally dropped two nukes in Japan, and accidentally made Napalm and Agent Orange rain into the Vietnamese, with enormously high and vastly-civilian casualties in both cases.

Don't forget the extensive firebombings of numerous cities including Dresden or Tokyo (casualties estimates for the latter are in the same 100000~200000 range as the two nuclear strikes combined)

[kuschku]

Which has still issues today – every few weeks whole districts in German cities are evacuated, because they found another WWII bomb with chemical timer that hasn’t exploded yet.

[Aqueous]

Yep, and in more recent years, we've lead the way in nuclear disarmament. We haven't firebombed entire cities in decades . In the past 8 years we've (to my great relief) de-escalated our military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Our military leaders take pains to make sure drone attacks and military incursions are as precise as possible. We've done this because we've recognized, unlike terrorists, that civilian deaths are extremely unhelpful to our foreign policy.

Again I'm not saying the US's hands are clean. I wholly disagree with many of the foreign military actions we've taken - especially between 2000 and 2008. What am I saying is that our policy - along with international law - have evolved considerably in the past 60 years. And I also sincerely believe that most of our armed forces in present day are doing their very best to avoid killing civilians.

I also think a lot of this is hand-waving away of the critical differences between terrorists who think it is acceptable to walk into a concert hall and gun down hundreds of people, and the militaries who are fighting those terrorists.

Nothing is simple, but there are meaningful moral differences here.

[humanrebar]

> In the past 8 years we've (to my great relief) de-escalated our military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

You're relieved about what's going on in Iraq? Seems like a big mess to me.

As bad as whatever the U.S. has done in the Middle East, it hasn't beheaded civilians to make political statements or committed genocide against religious and cultural minorities.

We can certainly discuss if the U.S. should pull out anyway, but I don't feel "relief" in making the least awful choice.

[Aqueous]

It is a big mess, but I'm relieved that our foreign policy has been reset and that if there will be further action in the Middle East it will be one undertaken and lead by an true international coalition (not the fake international coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003 for reasons un-related to terrorism). We won't keep pretending (at least not for the time-being) that it's even possible for the US alone to make sure that no terrorist attacks happen anywhere. Terrorism is not US's problem alone, it is a multinational problem with a multinational - and probably not even a military - solution. I'm glad the US's foreign policy has changed to reflect that reality.

[Fuzzwah]

You seem very confident of how the US will act in the future.

Have you heard of a guy called Donald Trump?

[Aqueous]

Despite his current standing in polls, I am extremely extremely skeptical that Donald Trump will win the nomination of a major political party.

[dragonwriter]

> I am extremely extremely skeptical that Donald Trump will win the nomination of a major political party.

There's some very good structural reasons to expect that, even if gets the most votes in the primaries, he may not win the Republican nomination.

OTOH, major parties have collapsed entirely before in US politics, and not having a candidate finish at least second in the Presidential general election would be a pretty big sign of collapse -- and pretty much every three-way head-to-head poll conducted with any has an independent Trump taking the #2 spot by a wide margin over the Republican.

Trump may well define the major party that replaces the Republicans.

[Fuzzwah]

I certainly hope so. But what about the next rich old white guy who panders to the ignorant masses in the next election cycle (or the one after, or the one after that).

Predicting that the US will remain in the hands of some what sensible leaders seems rather naive to me.