[xmonkee]

>you woke up before dawn with your companions to go diving in the freezing cold ocean, in hopes of putting some mussels on your family's table. But suddenly, you die. A man you have never met and whose presence you did not know about has shot you with his rifle. His companions stab your lungs so that your body will sink to the bottom of the sea. Your family will likely never know what happened to you.

Man, fuck these people. Meanwhile hollywood will churn out another hundred films about how Captain America would never let something like this happen because murdering innocents is not a line America would ever cross.

[saurik]

> Meanwhile hollywood will churn out another hundred films about how Captain America would never let something like this happen because murdering innocents is not a line America would ever cross.

FWIW, Captain America's character arc throughout the MCU, at least (which is what I'd assume we mean by "Hollywood"), has largely been to realize that he can't actually trust the government and that not only is the government now corrupt (becoming so during his time skip), but it has always been just as bad: the "good government" he believed in from WWII was propaganda, it turned out SHIELD was a so deeply infiltrated with enemy spies that it was effectively an arm of HYDRA... even the UN's attempts at diplomacy inherently result in moral compromises that he refuses to accept, and, by the end, he ended up as a fugitive. I think you'd be hard pressed to watch these movies and think that Captain America's existence demonstrates that America would never cross such lines.

[pmarreck]

A lot of people bash the Marvel content for essentially having the depth of an arcade beat-em-up, but the character arcs of Cap and Iron Man alone through the movies is something to behold IMHO

[fluoridation]

That's not much an arc, at least as described. He starts with one set of principles, and he stays with those same set of principles, but just changes his methods. A more interesting (IMO) arc would be to realize that principles should be guidelines, not strict rules, and that those guidelines can sometimes be bent in order to accomplish goals. "I can't trust organizations anymore" is not character growth; the character is not learning anything about how his decisions affect the world.

[serf]

yeah, it's great writing -- it's a total coincidence that the Iron Man origin was conveniently re-written to implicate the middle east with arms trade, energy smuggling, and human trafficking for the movie. It's also great writing that it gets to show off the F-35 , a project that was hugely failed at the time economically, to the public as something with on-par agility to a super hero.

it's also a total coincidence that the original origin had Stark demonstrating his weapons in Vietnam, and being captured by communist war-lord Wong Chu.

It's so strange that all this great writing seems somehow connected to the current affairs of the United States at the time.

The fakey Lockheed Martin logo and typescript for Stark Industries is also a nice fuck-you, but the fans think it's endearing.

Any kind of semblance of "Oh the superhero now mistrusts authority" is there simply to make the actual propgadandized bullshit more palatable and believable, and you'll be damn sure that after the traitors are ousted in the movie it'll be good old Uncle Sam and the US whatever-corp waiting for the real super heroes when it's all through.

The DoD sure puts out some great fiction writing.

[pmarreck]

Hooo boy. I barely have time for this but...

1) First of all, you're talking about an imaginary universe with a character literally named "Captain America". Just to put this in the right perspective.

2) A single Google would show you that the Middle East often engages (AND has historically engaged) in all of that, and lots of other bad-actordom (please do not tu-quoque me here about the sins of the United States, I know about its meddling consequences). Do you know why? It's because the Quran endorses it. Do you want the quotes they use to justify it to this day? It's the same quotes that the Barbary Pirates quoted at Thomas Jefferson and John Adams when they traveled to Morocco to ask why their peaceful trade ships kept getting attacked... which shocked them... and which ended up in them forming the US Navy. So yes, the US military was literally created to fight the Islamic terrorism of its day. That is not propaganda, that is historical fact. (Source- This is wild, btw, if you weren't aware of it: https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php... Find the paragraph that begins with "We took the Liberty...") Just to give you an idea how deep the rabbit hole goes here, and that it's not all just "durr hurr brown people bad" (I mean... that might be some of it, but it's absolutely not ALL of it). In short, the "Middle East trope" was largely earned, not applied... and the US was founded on good principles by good people (who, uh, owned slaves sometimes. Yes, it's complicated. I know.). (Related side note - the Crusades were largely a response to Islamic jihadic conquests. But I digress.)

3) F-35 criticism- No contest. I didn't realize that, actually. And I'm a 4 year USAF vet, so... I should have.

4) Regarding "choice of enemy"... funny story I read about this lately related to that is that the lead designer of the Call of Duty games is having trouble traveling overseas without a security attache because of the enemies he picked in his past games, lol. If you're curious, I can find the link. But the unfortunate truth is that the dramas set up in these media have to have SOME plausible semblance to reality. (I will return to this in a moment.)

5) "Any kind of semblance of "Oh the superhero now mistrusts authority" is there simply to make the actual propgadandized bullshit more palatable and believable" This is not a falsifiable claim, and I'll demonstrate why: A) If the movie depicts the US as flawless, you will see it as propaganda. B) If the movie depicts the US as flawed, you... Also see it as propaganda? See the problem yet? If there are no conditions under which a Marvel movie is not "United States propaganda" to you, then it is not falsifiable, end of story. It also completely misses any satirical elements, which were surely present.

Now, to my last point...

Ich sprech fliessend Deutsch. My mom is from Heidelberg and my dad is from Bremen and they emigrated to the US and I am a firstborn American with some particular German sensitivities that we likely share (couldn't help noticing your gmx.com email address). And so we get to the problem of Every Single US-Produced Historical Videogame using Nazis As The Enemy. Contributes to negative German stereotypes. I feel that. As a US citizen who is also German (100% German ancestry, actually), I want to apologize for that. There's gotta be some part of you that this pains, because it does me. Germans should be known for waaaaay better things they've contributed to the world, than that (Ordnung über alles! lol). So, I'm sorry. Perhaps that fed into some of your rage here. If so, I'd understand... possibly more than most. (I've also been called a Nazi more than once.)

[fluoridation]

>So yes, the US military was literally created to fight the Islamic terrorism of its day. That is not propaganda, that is historical fact.

I mean, you're bending the truth a little. The US Navy was created to fight thieves and murderers on ships, who happened to be Muslim. There was no ideological component to the conflict. That someone can cite a passage from a book to justify robbing you doesn't mean that his robbing you is inspired by the book.

>funny story I read about this lately related to that is that the lead designer of the Call of Duty games is having trouble traveling overseas without a security attache because of the enemies he picked in his past games, lol.

Sounds extremely dubious. For one, there's not a designer. It's always been at least two different companies working on alternating titles; right now it's three or four. Second, who would even recognize him, by either face or name?

>B) If the movie depicts the US as flawed, you... Also see it as propaganda? See the problem yet? If there are no conditions under which a Marvel movie is not "United States propaganda" to you, then it is not falsifiable, end of story.

For example, if the US government wasn't a player at all (it's not aware of the conflict, it's totally powerless to do anything about it [for or against], etc.), it would not be propaganda. Or it could depict a realistic US government, as not a monolithic entity, but a massive swath of people with different motivations, principles, and knowledge. Hell, imagine this: two different branches of the government want to help with the problem but they refuse to cooperate out of mistrust and their solutions work against each other, cancelling each other out, and a third, smaller branch makes a small but key contribution to the heroes' effort.

[pmarreck]

> That someone can cite a passage from a book to justify robbing you doesn't mean that his robbing you is inspired by the book.

I'm sorry, what? I literally don't follow. If someone robs my home because of what it says to do in an unquestionable book that they've been raised on, how is that not literally inspired by the book? This is nonsense. People do things all the time (good and bad) because of what they believe is true in books. Would you not fault those books if they state something wrong that causes people to commit harm? I mean... Trepanation? Bloodletting? Countless other things that were believed to be true, were acted on because of that, but were actually wrong?

Have you actually read the relevant passages?

(I more or less agree with your other statements.)

[keepamovin]

What is the alternative, ask them not to tell?

If you had to make the decision in the moment how would you weigh compromising the chance to prevent thousands or millions of deaths for advanced warning of nuclear or other attack using your ability to install that monitoring equipment now or in future, versus the lives of potentially hostile people who show up in your mission area?

You have to live with the moral cost, and human conflict means these choices have to be made.

[chubot]

What happens if you just abort the mission? Probably nothing, and certainly doing nothing is less likely to provoke war and further escalation than murdering civilians, hoping no one notices, and then having a front page NY Times article published about it later

If North Korean spies murdered fisherman off the coast of California on a failed mission, you bet there would be blowback

If they were simply noticed, the US govt might be able to and be incentivized to downplay it. Similar to downplaying whatever drones were flying over NJ

[keepamovin]

That's one way to assess it. Can you take the cost if your presence is detected?

Maybe nothing happens. How likely is nothing? And if your presence finds it ways to the authorities, what's the cost? Likely, NK will patch what might be your best chance at advance warning.

As fishing is dangerous and many never return, their plausibly 'accidental' deaths provide cover to keep the secrecy and your future access intact.

Now the story leaks out from inside - what are the consequences? I don't know.

[impossiblefork]

It doesn't matter if you can take the cost.

It's forbidden to kill civilians. You can only kill non-civilians, and there's nothing allowing you to hide the bodies of civilians or interfere with their burial rites.

[arcatech]

The article states that it was NOT forbidden to kill civilians. Or at least, the US considered it justified.

[chubot]

the US considered it justified

s/ the US / "some bureaucratic process within the military"

which is almost certainly politically influenced, as many decisions at this level are

In this case, I don't think the bureaucracy reflects the will of the people

[impossiblefork]

The US has signed treaties according to which it is forbidden and these treaties are additionally so special that they're treated as applying to even non-signatories, the so-called customary international law.

[keepamovin]

Specialist missions normally have custom RoE not always mirroring those in conventional theatre, but nevertheless appropriate for the mission specifics.

[impossiblefork]

Yes, but this it's clearly forbidden to make civilians object of attack, and it doesn't matter whether you risk discovery or whatever. Surely the RoE should be at least as restrictive as IHL.

I think it might be legal to hide the body, but if you do so you must do something to ensure that it can be recovered, either informing the enemy afterwards or some other measure to that effect.

[justacrow]

I don't think it's so much about the Rules of Engagement but more about "Don't indiscriminately murder people"

[w0de0]

They’re detected now. Right now. Front page of the NY Times. The murders didn’t do shit.

[keoneflick]

> What is the alternative, ask them not to tell?

The moment the seals fired the rifles the mission was over, a complete failure.

So the obvious alternative was to abort without killing everyone. The vaunted seals can't escape from a fishing boat? Nothing was accomplished by this mission other than killing a bunch of fishermen. For shame.

[impossiblefork]

The alternative is not murdering anybody and leaving.

You don't have a right to kill civilians and being discovered can never be a justification for doing so.

You can only kill actual combatants.

[mlhpdx]

False dichotomy. There were many other options available.

[keepamovin]

Such as?

[sussmannbaka]

Not becoming a murderer for hire in the first place, for one.

[lifeformed]

If I break into your home to steal something, and accidentally wake you up, is the only reasonable option for me to shoot you?

[Ferret7446]

That's a surprisingly fitting analogy, because you don't know if the person you're robbing keeps a gun under their pillow, and you may only have a second to find out.

[lifeformed]

Yes, killing them is the "correct" answer if the only thing that motivates you is self-preservation, but it is the worst answer if you consider pesky inconveniences like morality, legality, and basic humanity and decency.

[jacquesm]

You're not a thief. You're a murderer. Because it is only a matter of time before that situation occurs.

[lifeformed]

> versus the lives of potentially hostile people who show up in your mission area?

So what? Then you fight the people proven to be hostile or run away. At no point is executing innocents an option that should be on the table in that situation. If things go wrong and escalate to a life threatening situation for you, then that's one the risks YOU consented to. It's not a risk that civilians are responsible for.

Maybe you get killed, or there is political fallout, but both of those situations are a better outcome than killing civilians.

[NewJazz]

Amazon is showing Homelander do exactly this though haha.

[gamblor956]

The Winter Soldier was literally a film about how Captain America had to stop America from doing something like this because murdering innocents was a line that those in charge were perfectly willing to cross.

[xmonkee]

Do you not understand that that is also just more finely processed american propaganda? Captain America represents the "real" America, one that will not compromised by the corruption in our system. I think after the 90s it was just too much to show all Americans as the good guys, so now we do this dance where we are still essentially good, and we just have to stand strong against the bad guys within.

[gamblor956]

I don't think you understand what propaganda is.

Propaganda wouldn't be a movie in which the villain is the government of the country that the main hero also belongs to, and remains with at the conclusion of the movie.

OTOH, the trope of the hero's government being the villain is very much a trope in the conspiracy thriller genre, which has been around for more than 50 years.