This is deeply tragic. I wish the story gave more details. Based on the provincial governor's statement, it sounds like U.S. forces were relying on the Afghan government's intelligence assessment.<p>I also wish news sources would be more careful about suggesting that there are autonomous killer robots in the sky. The <i>drone</i> didn't target anything. A remote pilot did, based on information he/she was provided.
I have kids and live in a rural U.S. town. I fear "normal" things such as drugs, school/gun violence, sex predators, etc. This... this is next level. I couldn't even fathom what it would be like if missiles rained from the sky at faster-than-sound speeds - from another country no less. You could say: "There aren't terrorists in rural U.S. towns," but I'd argue that isn't the case anymore with all the mass shootings, racial hatred, and so on. The world is in such a sad state.
Now imagine “U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in France” and feel the difference (which is non-existent). Then it goes on tv and reads the list of this morning’s evil men who must be stopped.
Notice the wording - the drone targeted the workers. The drone didn’t make a decision and target the workers, the drone pilot targeted the workers, and whomever was standing behind them gave the order to launch the missle. The whole “I’m just doing what the computer said” defense only works in movies.
Today I saw the BBC's "Bitter Lake" documentary. It explains why Afghanistan is so fucked up.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p0z6iHGzdE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p0z6iHGzdE</a>
I wonder why, even though we generally try to be skeptical of the news, I’m not seeing many comments here that question whether what this article is saying is even accurate.<p>How exactly does the reporter know which people are IS fighters? Is there some notion that militants don’t ever also farm?<p>Also in these comments there seems to be a huge double standard. The idea the United States might accidentally kill some civilians is somehow morally outrageous, but the regular and deliberate targeting of civilians by the Taliban and the IS as they attempt to completely destabilize the Afghan government is taken as somehow normal?
Can someone explain to me how the US military is still unable to distinguish pine nut farmers from IS Jihadi terrorists? Where is all this advanced military tech I keep hearing the US military is developing that people are mistaking for aliens?
This is how you create terrorists.
What do you think the children and friends feelings towards the US will be from now on?
People get radicalized for much less than that.
Would be really so unthinkable a high army charge going to the area to make in place a public televised apology to those people, asking how can help alleviate this disaster, and returning the families a little dignity at least?<p>And please journalists, stop referring to the people as "tribal this" or "tribal that". To always focus on that point is unnecessary and disrespective. A father is a father in any part of the world.
On a side note it's very interesting to re-watch Rambo III, where he teams up with local jihadists in Afghanistan to fight the occupying Soviets in the area. Hollywood propaganda at its finest, but brutally ironic today.
Both the Taliban and the US are killing innocent civillian bystanders. This is more and more common with drone strikes. It was konwn that it's pine nut picking season and the governor of the province was informed. There was wither miscomunication or the US forces simply ignored the fact and launched the strike anyway.<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-drones-letter/letter-detailing-civilian-presence-failed-to-prevent-deadly-afghan-drone-strike-idUSKBN1W431P" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-drones...</a><p>The Taliban were all too coward to plant a car bomb in the proximity of the government intelligence department building, so what they did was to plant it next to a nearby hospital.<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/killed-car-bomb-attack-afghan-province-zabul-190919042138106.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/killed-car-bomb-attac...</a>
Just keep bombing somewhat random people, year in and year out. Are we at the 2nd decade of this yet?<p>This way I promise no one will join the rebells. Why would anyone join the rebells just because their families are slaughtered? That's absurd.<p>(Irony.)<p>There comes a time when <i>YOU</i> would strap on a bomb belt. Just imagine that They killed half your family and then goes on telling you they will continue doing it...
Related: Pakistan body count[0]. "Whether it is a suicide bombing or an attack by a flying drone, for me it's the same: a Pakistani got killed."<p>I posted this site a few years ago, but it didn't get attention, but I'm glad to see the community is finally outraged over drone strikes.<p>[0]: <a href="http://pakistanbodycount.org/" rel="nofollow">http://pakistanbodycount.org/</a>
Misleading:<p>> JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A U.S. drone strike intended to hit an Islamic State (IS) hideout in Afghanistan killed at least 30 civilians resting after a day’s labor in the fields, officials said on Thursday.<p>Officials here seems to refer to unnamed tribal “officials.” The US and Afghan defense ministry officials cited a few paragraphs before that did not say anything about civilian casualties.
Alexander and his successors tried to hold Afghanistan but they failed after three centuries.<p>The Mongols tried and failed.<p>The Arabs tried and failed.<p>The Mughals tried and failed.<p>The British tried and failed.<p>The Soviets tried and failed.<p>NATO tried and......<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan</a>
I think Americans we are about numb to these headlines as another mass shooting compared that to the reaction of civil society in Germany when a SUV "only" killed 4 people in Berlin.
It would be an interesting experiment for the US military to try stop killing people. It would mean that if you say had a bunch of ISIS guys going to kill civilians like they did in Iraq you'd have to find a non lethal way of stopping them like drones with tasers or maybe diplomacy / bribery. It would be an interesting tech challenge to make non lethal AI drones say that could stop a traditional military.<p>Or maybe like the non lethal terminator in Terminator 2 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3XJxWwYx58" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3XJxWwYx58</a>
Not that this isn't a tragedy (and/or mass murder depending on your viewpoint), but I don't think hackernews is the right venue for this.<p>Hackernews should try and keep to tech and away from politics or its quality will continue to degrade. For instance the comments here are mostly not saying anything that hasn't already been said a thousand times before (is this just outrage porn?).
More news from the <i>War on Pesto</i> ...<p>Only the government has the right to produce pesto. You cannot store pesto in a bank safety deposit box (in fact, all safety deposit boxes will be banned). You cannot enter or leave the country with more than 10,000 paper promises of pesto. Anyone who buys, or sells, or consumes pesto will be tracked, and suspicious patterns will be assigned to their <i>Social Pesto Score</i>.<p>The rule of <i>Civil Pesto Forfeiture</i>: the police assume anyone in possession of pesto is engaging in criminal activity. The pesto will be confiscated without any charge, and the onus will be on the pesto owner to litigate to prove that the pesto was obtained legally.<p>Food banks will charge a fee for dispensing or receiving pesto. Storage of pesto at a food bank will require a negative interest fee.<p>Futures trading in precious metals for pesto does not need any store of physical metals. Any trade in precious metals for pesto is legally regulated by the Federal Government, but those laws will not actually be enforced.<p>Pesto lost in boating accidents will be assumed to be still in the owners possession for tax purposes.<p>The government reserves the right to create as much pesto as necessary for the culinary welfare of the nation. The government decrees that the supply of pesto shall be 2% more than is normally consumed. The excess of pesto will result in too much pesto being included for normal baking transactions, and the value of pesto stored under the mattress will decline.<p>The production and use of crypto-pesto will be studied by the government in a slightly perplexed manner. For the moment, they do not understand why anyone would want to buy crypto-pesto that cannot be eaten with physical pasta.<p>All transactions on the <i>condimentchain</i> will be monitored by the government. Eventually they will ban crypto-pesto, because they still don't understand it, but they suspect it threatens their monopoly on printing pesto promises.