[1] not making additional enemies, not setting the precedent that it's ok to bomb people, not driving away allies, not undermining your narrative that you're a good guy and therefore attacking you is unjustifiable, etc. These are just off the top of my head.
And sometimes the best way to save lives of your people is to bomb other people.
That’s very naive. Not all antagonists are rational state actors. Terrorist orgs like Al Qaeda or ISIS aren’t going to stop trying to kill you if you ignore them. The only solution is direct action and only question becomes who’s going to do it, i.e. the USA or a local proxy.
The Post-WWII history of the middle east mostly follows the pattern “US declares $X evil. In its fight against $X, US supports $lesserEvil with money and weapons. $Y years later $lesserEvil has used funding and weapons to grow and become $greaterEvil. US declares $W as $lesserEvil and funds them. Repeat.“
Short term that might seem smart, but do it long enough and you have a region full of well armed splitter groups, are least half of which hate you.
The UdSSR/Russia isn't blameless either, but the most notable positive long term effect of US actions in the middle east seem to be more jobs in the military-industrial-complex.
First there were the Nazis. They invaded half of Europe while the US remained neutral until it was attacked by Japan in 1941. After the US and its allies won the war, the overwhelming majority of Germans celebrated their liberation and went on to become a prosperous ally of the US. Great success.
Then there was the cold war, which was essentially an attempt to prevent the Soviets from achieving their avowed goal of world domination. Again, the US and its allies won that conflict and the overwhelming majority of Eastern Europeans are greatful for it. (Let's not get into a debate about the merits of Socialism here. Soviet style totalitarianism and Stalinism isn't what most on the left want nowadays. At least my Marxist friends don't)
So there were two very important historical episodes during which a refusal of the US to do anything more than defend the homeland would have been catastrophic. Unfortunately, this has lead to a doctrine of uncritical and imprudent interventionism and to a refusal to learn from the many mistakes that were made during the cold war, most importantly in the Middle East (but also in Latin America).
My point is, even though your criticism of failed interventionist policies is correct, it means little without also discussing the crucially important successes of global US military power.
In all the major conflicts after that - Vietnam, Korea, Middle East - the US was supporting opponents of the Soviet Union.
Sometimes, yes.
But those "preventative" bombings in recent decades are the very reason those people want to kill those in other countries. They directly say that they're attacking the west as retaliation, but the vast majority of people plug their ears, dismiss them as absolutely crazy and irrational, and say we'll never understand their motives. Maybe if a few weddings weren't bombed there'd be a few less terrorist attacks around the world.
Terrorist orgs like Al Qaeda and ISIS are relatively recent organizations. They didn't evolve in a bubble. They evolved in a place struggling with the damage of foreign intervention. To many people there, it's irrational not to support the group that opposes the what seems to be (and when looked at objectively) nonsensical intervention between two outside forces. The shit stirring there started as an attempt to push out Soviet influence. The mess in Syria continuing because Russia wants a sphere of influence and the west can't have that.
The tendency of dismissing enemies as irrational is the problem here. Groups don't grow so large with a complete lack of rationality. They have just enough that they persuade a considerable number of people, but they eventually go off the rails.
Hello, it's 2030 calling. Yeah, that recent nasty terror attack? Carried out by people born between 2005 and 2012. They grew up in the wartorn cities of Baghdad, Kabul, in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the little towns hit with little "pinpricks" of drone strikes for the past 20 years because the big brains in the USA thought that "BOMBING THEM FIRST" was the best plan. Those young kids who carried out that attack have known nothing but war, while you have known nothing but peace and have the gall to suggest that they and their neighbors should be subject to constant, round-the-clock, death-from-the-sky TERROR. They've known people who got hit by drones. They've known people who were collateral. They've seen the craters. Arms and legs blown off. Brains. Dead bodies. Charred remains. From machines in the sky, operated by people sitting in airconditioned offices half a world away. You don't think they know that? That drone operators sit in airconditioned offices and blow people up? War is fucking hell. And that's been their reality. And our reality has been playing video games. They fucking hate us. God damn, how could they not?
Welcome to the endless cycle of violence your myopia brings.
If you think the best way to defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda is by blowing up random people who seem important now is a good plan, then it's going to be a fail. Al Qaeda and ISIS need to be defeated and expunged by and from CIVILIZATION--their networks dismantled and defunded by detective work, cooperation with local governments, the rule of law, and lots of arrests. They are going to be defeated when the local population is sick of their shit and doesn't believe what they believe. They are going to be defeated when being part of Al Qaeda is a poor alternative in life, because life offers you so much better alternatives, and their ain't shit to be that damn mad about.
There won't be Al Qaeda when people chill the fuck out, on all sides. Instead, everyone has absolutely lost their minds; they are incapable of seeing threats at their true scale. But no, some kind of insanity has taken over the thinking in the military and intelligence agencies where every threat is clear and present, and every single terrorist anywhere is just five days from hitting NYC with a nuclear bomb....
There's a great quote by Machiavelli that explains this: "There can be no proper relation between one who is armed and one who is not. Nor it is reasonable to expect that one who is armed will voluntarily obey one who is not."
> Welcome to the endless cycle of violence your myopia brings.
Myopia is thinking the world is nothing but sunshine and lollipops. There are people in this world who's entire existence is based on the destruction of everyone else with a different way of life. ISIS falls into that camp and anything short of utter destruction of them and anyone that gives aid or comfort to them will allow them to continue. A cancer like that needs to be fully excised to prevent it from returning.
> If you think the best way to defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda is by blowing up random people who seem important now is a good plan, then it's going to be a fail.
I never suggested that "blowing up random people" is a good idea. I was making that point that in the interests of saving lives of your own people, it can make sense to bomb (and presumably kill) other people. It's not that there won't be any loss of life. It's that doing so will save lives on your side.
> Al Qaeda and ISIS need to be defeated and expunged by and from CIVILIZATION--their networks dismantled and defunded by detective work, cooperation with local governments, the rule of law, and lots of arrests. They are going to be defeated when the local population is sick of their shit and doesn't believe what they believe. They are going to be defeated when being part of Al Qaeda is a poor alternative in life, because life offers you so much better alternatives, and their ain't shit to be that damn mad about.
Sure it's bombs alone that will solve the problem of Al Qaeda and ISIS. Nor did I suggest that they would. But putting pressure on the locals by splitting the world into "with us or with them" camps isn't that crazy either.
> There won't be Al Qaeda when people chill the fuck out, on all sides.
I can assure you that nobody in either Al Qaeda or ISIS will ever "chill the fuck out". Given the opportunity to maim, hurt, or kill anyone in Western society, or more generally anyone that's not they're specific sub-sect of Sunni Islam, then they will seize on it.
There is also the deterrence theory.
I don't think Google would stop all wars by not contributing to this project. But Google, and the employees who work at Google, has power - a kind of power that's very, very different from my power as an individual when paying taxes or when voting for a federal employee (behaviors that create dissonance for me because they contribute to the war machine). I think that power can, and should, be used to prevent wars - not to make them "cleaner". The small attempt at organizing protests made by some employees at the company was a good step, but the only one I have heard of (maybe there have been others?) and I want the people who have the most access to power to start thinking about what they are doing and trying to make more positive changes.
Consume less. Be more mindful of environmental damage. Speak out against the oppressive regimes that help murder people.
Oh, there is actually a very clearcut line for this; it's coincisively described by the following headline:
"If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding, We'd Ground Our Fleet"[⁰]
[⁰] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-dr...
If a drone strike hit an American wedding they would ground their _home_ fleet. Its a key difference. The information for an electorate of a democratic state to make more empathetic choices are available its just a question of whether:
* The electorate are wilfully ignorant of foreign suffering (as its tortuous to read)
* The electorate are kept ignorant intentionally or unintentionally as a product of the conflict for eye balls between media institutions.
* The electorate are not able to make impactful choices due to the type of democracy they have.
I'd argue its a bit of every one of those things.
I prefer to measure things in outcomes and I would posit the major difference in supplying or not supplying arms to a conflict is merely the level of guilt from the origin of supply. People are still going to die be it by drone, missile, mortar, ak-47 or spear. We could argue that arms sales can enable conflict by giving one side an apparent advantage that they choose to capitalise on but that's a messy problem to investigate. Surely to wish to capitalise means that someone has already drawn the lines and is considering hostilities. What makes a war? The lines being drawn or the weapons or a combination of many factors multiplied over time and key events or decisions made by actors on either side? One may decide to war without advantage, one may choose not to war with advantage. So I don't think its as clear cut as weapon sales == war.
Same for a hospital (patching up wounded enemy combatants) or a school (educating future insurgents).
Or a nursery, football stadium, shopping mall, etc etc...
If I misunderstood your original comment, please clarify.
You were being flippant but now you're acting innocent over it which belies a fabricated ignorance that is further insulting.
Conflict and arms is a complex topic and simplifying it to "just don't kill people lol" is crass at best. Either engage with the arguments or go to a school about to be bombed in this perceived reality you've fabricated where I represent your perfect demon to squabble with.
If that wasn't clear enough: I am not fucking advocating genocide.
Edit: In the spirit of reconcilliation, I would like to explain that I didn't accuse you of anything, much less advocating genocide (I don't even think that bombing a school is genocide; infanticide, at scale, maybe- but, genocide? I don't see that).
I felt you are trying to do something extremely risky, to justify killing Y civilians by the number X of combatants that would also be killed. I don't think Y > 0 can ever be morally justified and I don't think that a targeted strike against any number of enemy combatants in a civilian area is, either, no matter the tactical outcome. Dropping bombs on the heads of people going about peacefull activities is just wrong, any way you cut it. Hence my comment- we don't accept the bombing of hospitals, regardless of their tactical value as targets, so why would we accept bombing weddings to kill some terrorists?
It's clear you find the idea of bombing hospitals or schools revolting, yet you're OK with bombing a wedding? I don't understand that.
Somehow I see that as far more rational outcome than a meeting of key figures in a nursery or a schoolyard unless you're going to war against babes or schoolchildren which suggests you have bigger problems.
Introducing the school/nursery begs the question though:
> If someone surrounds themselves with children 24/7 but commands an army or commits otherwise potentially savage deeds are they immortal in your eyes from a direct attack?
The blurring of combatants and non-combatants happens often in practice, especially as the scales tilt strongly toward one actor. Its easy to argue your point when your the scales are even and between completely non-civilian and professional armies but when those lines are blurred your position makes one completely incapable of action.
For example, if an army took its entire family onto the battlefield as civilians how would you respond? Would you consider the non-combatants civilian? Would you authorise the user of air-power against enemy positions? If a standing army has no barracks and operates from their respective family homes are their families still effectively civilians or just non-combatants and as murderable as an army technician or medic?
I don't disagree. The current situation is that we're trying to find a balance between the perceived necessity of warfare and the undeniable horror of the consequences of it to civilian populations. It's absurd to think that we can nicely and cleanly separate war against a nation's army from war aginst that nation's people.
The obvious solution would be to not accept the necessity of warfare anymore. But I guess, we're very far from that.
One could argue that conflict is a consequence of human behaviour so I don't see that ever being a likely outcome. Nice to see we can somewhat agree. I just feel that coming down hard on either side is missing out on discussing the detail.
I don't see the conflict in Yemen as just but at the same time I feel like countries should have the freedom to declare war on neighbouring countries, especially given an uprising.
Sure, between the lines the Saudi Kingdom is trying to retain its puppet government but this is what we get from having allies that we don't see eye-to-eye with.
In recent years, we have this notion of battlefield morality, where armies are supposed to fight each other and an invading force is expected to occupy the enemy's territory _without_ proactively harming its civilians. Whether this is actually achieved in practice or not is a different matter (it is not- civilian populations are still the ones that bear the brunt of any invasion).
The thing is, modern morality leans very strongly away from attacking civilians with militaries. Again, whether this is at all possible in practice is a completely different issue, but what is certainly not equivocal, or "arguable" is that civilians must not be attacked deliberately.
You will notice for instance that even when the US bombs weddings or other civilian targets (it's usually the US) they never, ever, under any circumstances try to justify the killings. Instead, they explain the civilian deaths as a mistake and try to explain the mistake (the wedding participants were firing their AK-47s into the air as per custom, the bride's gown looked like an Islamic oriflame, the groom had a suspiciously long beard, or something equally absurd).
In other words, you might consider that bombing a wedding to kill an enemy lieutenant visiting it is "arguable"- but you are very certainly into a minority.
And like I say, that's some very dangerous arithmetic. We don't accept that innocent people should suffer in order to harm a legitimate target. You seem to be arguing that it's just a matter of how many innocents and how many legitimate targets we're talking about. There can clearly be no definitive answer, which opens the gates for a lot of what we currently recognise as war crimes.
Edit: removed a bit about genocide, to avoid further misunderstandings. Apologies.
These do not constitute war crimes but occupy this nebulous grey area named "collateral damage" at best and "war crimes" at worst.
In this case we are assuming that several if not many enemy commanders are attending a wedding and the question is asked whether the loss of lives at the wedding are "worth" the loss of lives through a protracted war that would arguably be the outcome if the enemy commanders continued operations.
I do not claim to have the answers but to merely state that this is not the solved mathematical and ethical conversation that some people assume it to be.
I'd argue that when you're the aggressor and are assisting a country that is one of the biggest human rights abusers on the planet, you do not get to claim moral superiority or any sort of gray area, you're just wrong and a war criminal, that's why I used the terminology.
I don't think the U.S. is in any position to judge how much someone's life is "worth", especially when not acting in self-defense, as in the case of Yemen, (or any recent U.S. intervention for that matter).
I can sort of see you point in the more general case, but in this case, where this drone would be used by the U.S. for illegal invasions, I can't.
We dream day and night about inventing self-driving cars and about reaching Mars (which are both nice things but without which I can easily live) but we've given up on trying to stop killing each other, and worse of all, we regard it as futile. It hasn't always been like that, for example just look at the Catholic Church's push to bring back peace in the war-torn world of the early Middle Ages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_peace_traditions#The_...). For example just look at one of Thomas Aquinas's arguments regarding this:
> Peace must be a central motive even in the midst of violence
Now, look at Google, an almost $1 trillion company which is one of the most successful business entities on this planet and tell me if you can say that "peace is a central motive" for them in the midst of the quest for profit. It isn't.
Wherever you want it to. This all-or-nothing approach to morality is stupid. Just because not every decision in your life may be 100% morally justifiable, that does not mean “throw all ethics over board”.
As an individual you may not want your name to be associated to evil(subjective) and you may want peace of mind. Say if my boss would ask me to do something I consider evil but it is legal I think I am strong enough and won't do it, and even advocate for my position. I also think that I have the right to talk with my colleagues and ask what they think and what can we do.
The fact that it should be illegal to kill people remotely without a trial or a declaration of war is a different problem of employees opposing working on "evil" things.
As a google engineer, you have the ability to impact this particular program in a way that you can’t impact what other military programs do.
Just as an American citizen you have more ability to impact American policy than you do Russian policy.
Make an impact where you have the power to make an impact.
I just quit my job because I was working on a DHS contract and it was getting harder and harder to ignore what they were doing to immigrants.
It’s small, but I don’t want to have to answer for what I was doing to my children.
Or for example, if I don't mug this old lady and take her handbag someone else will.
Then again, if I don't do it and you don't do it and nobody else does it, then nobody will do it at all.
Same for AI weapons- if nobody makes them there won't be none.
This has nothing to do with the use of AI in weapons systems- like it has nothing to do with cluster munitions, landmines, biological or radiological weapons etc.
The US (or any country really) can "defend" itself and its overseas interests without having to resort to such tactics.
If a hostile foreign power was to invade your country, what would you want the response to be? To what ends and what efforts should we support the military?
There are many ethically questionable choices we take for granted, especially those of us that live in the West. Everything we consume has a taint of human exploitation, environmental damage, contributes to oppressive regimes that murder people, etc.
Where does it stop?
On the other hand, it sounds like the work Google was doing here was to improve the relative safety of autonomous drone strikes. Oh, but if these strikes remained risky and unreliable, we wouldn’t do them! Believe me, there are a dozen other large defense contractors out there that will implement this if Google doesn’t, so it’s not like it’s a binary proposition.
My point is, working for Google is not the right target on which to pin arguments for or against the ethics of autonomous drone strikes.