Whale sharks eat plankton. Any fish that get pulled in are collateral damage. Actually, not even "damage", as they get shot out the gills unharmed.

Edit: Well wikipedia says they do occasionally eat very small fish, my bad.

That approximation of civilian casualties alone is reason enough to question the intent of this video: objective journalism or propaganda?

Add the "almost supernatural effectiveness" or the grossly misleading "inherent right to self-defence under international law" and I'm inclined to say that this is a disgusting propaganda piece.

When he emphasized the "humane" behaviour of operators (let the children leave before pulling the trigger) and the insinuation that victims of drone attacks are actually thankful for it, well that's just icing on the cake.


What he fails to mention:

-- low rate of civilian casualties: every male of fighting age in the target area is now considered a militant, so everything you hit is a target, unless there is concrete intelligence to prove otherwise, posthumously.

-- pinpoint accuracy: UAVs hit their targets, but the targets themselves are defined as such by piss-poor intelligence or no intelligence at all.

-- guilt by proximity: if you are near a suspect or, generally speaking, in a strike-zone, your mere presence makes you a suspect yourself, as defined by the Obama administration. Now try to square this definition with previous accusations that terrorists embed themselves into the civilian population.

-- double-tap: again, your mere presence at the site of a strike, even if your intent is to provide medical assistance, turns you into a target (eg Collateral Murder). And better stay away from funerals as well, or else they send you a present.

-- US citizens Anwar al-Awlaki, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were intentionally killed by drone strikes, without trial.

-- collateral damage: when you kill a person's family, you provide that person with a non-ideological reason to fight the US, a personal vendetta. Recent drone attacks in Yemen increased the numbers of AQAP members by killing civilians left, right and center.

-- covert killings, proxy warfare: the use of UAVs, particularly in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, reminds us of the good old days. Death from above or how I learned to love the drone.

The problem I see here are twofold:

1. Cenk is right, this is not a declared war. I wish we would declare a war as it would probably speed things up. That and if it was a war, the US would probably be more justified to have that collateral damage in order to get a terrorist.

2. If terrorists discover that we won't shoot at them if they're surrounded by civvies. They'd just use them as shields. So while I have a problem with the fact that we're over there in the first place. The sooner we get on clean energy and aren't so dependent on middle east oil, the sooner we can wipe our hands of the whole region and we can leave them to their own devices and their justification for terrorizing us would decrease or be eliminated.

but the fact of the matter is, we are there and you fight to win, and yeah, war isn't pretty, war isn't fair and I hate to say it but those civilians were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

sucks..but so does war....want shit like this to stop? seems like a pretty good motivation for us to get the fuck out of there and eliminate our dependence on oil.

One of my first cars was a hand-me-down Toyota Camry that my parents bought close to the first year they were made. I remember that before it became my car, it broke its timing chain causing it to be dead in the water and required a tow to fix. I don't think that caused any collateral damage when it happened, it just died. Seems like that is likely to mean that it wasn't an "interference engine"?

It seems like having a non-"interfering" engine would be a very desirable thing, to limit the potential damage caused by a broken timing belt/chain. Why isn't that standard design? Takes up too much physical space? I remember when the hood of a car used to have a whole lot of cubic area of air/empty space inside, and now it seems like everything is designed to jam pack in there and fill it to the brim. Or is there some other major engineering or design challenge that makes that difficult/impossible?

Not to sound like a viral ad, but that early Toyota Camry served me real well. My family got 220,000 miles out of it before a CV joint died that it wasn't trivial to find a replacement for. We ended up handing it over to a junkyard at that point since we couldn't track down the part. A local Mexican handyman bought it from the junkyard and either found the part or homebrewed some other solution, and for all I know it could well still be running and up into the 300k+ miles.

The collateral damage from war on drugs is incalculable - we abuse the non-users and demonize non-violent people users. When will the world understand that doing drugs is not equal to being bad person? War on drugs is a social engineering failure. People who do drugs will always get them legally through prescription or illegally, no matter consequences.

@ghark

Paragraph 1:

1. The difference between collateral damage and terrorism is easy to assess. Intentions, methods, and actions of the bombers of 9/11 and the allied forces are different. Does that make civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan less tragic? No. Do we have to understand the ripple effect of those lost innocent lives? Yes. If an allied soldier killed my family I probably would not care why they did it - accident or not - and I would probably want to seek revenge. Thus the viscious cycle that armed conflict perpetuates.


However, to call allied soldiers terrorist is completely out of line.

2. I'm not defining terrorist as a muslim with a beard.

As George Carlin said, "You have to be realistic about terrorism. Certain groups of people, certain groups, Muslim fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists, and just plain guys from Montana, are going to continue to make life in this country very interesting for a long, long time."

What George is pointing out, and I believe Sam to agree with, is that people with bad ideas are bad no matter where they are from.


Or from wikipedia: "Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion."

Paragraph 2 - Harris Fear Mongering, Generalizing:

1. How is Harris fear mongering? He is stating simple facts about the reality of a nuclear attack on US soil. He did not inflate those numbers or misrepresent them.

2.You can say things like "blatant generalizations" but you are not giving any real concrete examples.

Paragraph 3 - Hedges:

1. Aside from some debates I have seen Hedges in I have very little knowledge of his work. I can't comment on it because I have not read it.

Paragraph 4 - Self Gratification?


1. I fail to see how Harris mention of a possible nuclear attack on the United States, or anywhere, is an example of self gratification. I do not think this statistic brings Sam any pleasure at all.

Nuclear Attack a Ticking Time Bomb

Now for the Rip.


You admit you didn't listen to the video in its entirety which means you didn't give Sam a chance to fully develop his ideas. I don't know exactly what you expect from him or any other speaker, but they can only get so many words out of their mouth at one time and they cannot cover every objection. From what I have read and heard from Sam in the past I know him to be a fairly reasonable person - so I give him some leeway.

It reminds me of a fellow student in one of my literature classes in college. He opened his mouth and said," Well, I did not have a chance to read the story, but from what I'm hearing in the discussion I think..."


The Professor stopped him right there. He had no right to spend my time giving me his opinion of something he did not take the time to understand - and frankly neither do you.

Obama: "Occupy Wall Street" reflects "broad-based frustration"

President Obama on Thursday called the "Occupy Wall Street" protests a reflection of a "broad-based frustration about how our financial system works" and pledged to continue fighting to protect American consumers.

The president, speaking at a press conference, said he had heard about and seen television reports on the recent protests on Wall Street, and noted that "I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel."

"We had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression - huge collateral damage throughout the country, all across main street. And yet, you are still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to crack down on abusive practices that got us in the situation in the first place," Mr. Obama told reporters. "I think people are frustrated.">> ^shagen454:

They are all bad. Democrap or Retardican. Its all the same shit bought by different... or the same, corporate greed. Obama has hardly even acknowledged Occupy and ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE. You voted for the change marketing strategy but you let corporate greed buy into even more Bushesque policy by believing that voting makes a difference. He doesnt want to publicize Occupy by even referring to it because he knows and the powers that be know that people are beginning to take note that it is all bullshit, its broken, its an illusion and it all fundamentally needs to be rebuilt... utilizing the constitution.
Instead of voting you should fucking protest a system that doesn't work on voting day!!!! Whether it is Romney, Paul or Obama its nearly the same shit. They strip you of liberties and steal from your coffers, deregulation for the corporate state, more police state, privatizing everything under the sun, raising the prices and gauging everyone who does not have a million dollars. Stop perpetuating the illusion.

Our foreign policy is too screwed up. This CBS News story talks about how a huge number of Christian Americans (70 million?) feel they are compelled by God and the Bible to support Israel against all of its enemies. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/03/60minutes/main524268.shtml

I wish all support for Israel was dropped by the US. If private citizens want to fund Israel's defense, then go ahead. But they should be required to publically declare any support they have for Israel so that any terrorists can specifically target them, and not blast us in their collateral damage causing attacks. Right now Americans are being threatened by people such as Al Qaeda forces because the whole of the American country is defending this minority faction of Americans who are die-hard Israel supporters.

Why do we all need to protect these pro-Israel people??? Let them fend for themselves. That's their belief system when it comes to everything in the world. Everyone must be self-reliant, free market, and so forth. But when it comes to defending Israel, they want all 300 million Americans to support it, and will take our tax money to do it. They are hypocrites!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Sorry for the late reply. Not really top-secret. More just trying to stay one step ahead of spammers. It's a constant battle going on in the background of VideoSift - and yeah, sometimes there is some collateral damage of innocent bystanders. We log IPs of previous spammers and automatically deactivate new accounts on the same IP. We also have a few "behavioural" trip-wires that can cause an automatic banning. We don't publicise these bannings as we don't want to give succour to the enemy.

So there are known bannings, there are unknown bannings and there are uh... banning bannings and then um ... forget it, Rumsfeld is a tool.

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
>> ^xxovercastxx:

http://videosift.com/member/OMNIPLEX
I didn't know this user at all. I just saw the banned symbol next to his/her name in a "Who voted for this video" section. Whenever I see a new banned user I usually go look at their profile to see what caused it. I guess I'm a Videosift rubbernecker.
In this case I see nothing. He/She's got 2 comments, no videos, no profile comments... obviously no down vote spree. What happened? And is there any way there could be a feed of bans/hobblings? (Do we even still have hobbling?) It might be good for checks and balances.


Top Secret, then? ;

I won't deny the other two examples. I said already Obama isn't a hardcore progressive. I wouldn't even label him on a scale as progressive. Those are examples of where he isn't. If that's the indictment, no one is disagreeing with you.

Dude, how are you not getting this. Obama hasn't justified a single policy with Christianity. This guy sited directly his warped Christian beliefs in his manifesto. It's pretty clear as day the difference. Obama refutes the notion of the US as a "Christian Nation", etc. He's ridiculed by the Religious Right in fact for this. Isn't this pretty obvious?

Yes, it is accepted as collateral damage. Thank you for making my point. Were the attacks launched with the purpose of killing these civilians? NO! Was it the intention of Osama bin Laden to kill as many civilians as possible in the 9/11 attacks on purpose? YES! THAT is the difference. If Obama could conduct these attacks without killing innocent civilians, he'd do it in a heartbeat. If bin Laden could have killed 1 million American civilians instead of the number he did, he'd do it in a heartbeat. That's the difference. You're assuming that because civilian deaths occur, that how many people are killed in collateral damage never influences decision making. That's simply not true. You'll rarely ever achieve objectives without accepting some collateral damage, unfortunately. This is unfortunately part of being the President.

So we're gonna terrorize the population of Libya why exactly?! What would that possibly achieve in and of itself? That's utterly ridiculous.

It's against international law how exactly to be intervening in Libya? It was approved by the UN Security Council. Are you speaking to military strategy? So you're saying we should just put ground troops in there and go door to door, which will cause even higher casualties and more terrorizing of the civilian population? I don't pretend to know all the difficulties the military is facing when coming up with the best plan to achieve objectives.

It's silly to believe part of why we're in Libya is to help establish a democratic gov't there? Look, I was a big critic of the second Iraq war, but I don't doubt for a second part of why the Bush administration wanted to go in was to establish democracy in the region. It was a stated goal. You can call it silly all you want, but it is even within the US's self interests to have as Libya be a democracy. Why wouldn't we want them to be democratic?!

It is progressive to intervene in a country to help protect human rights. Schools of geopolitical realism would have determined intervening in Libya to not benefit the US enough to justify involvement. Again, I'm not suggesting the entire reason we went in was to help the Libyan people. There are many reasons why. But one of them was to help the Libyan people. I fully accept there were geopolitical calculations as well. All of those things have to contribute to the decision making.

Was it progressive to partner with Stalin to defeat Hitler? If no, then FDR wasn't a progressive?! We did it because Hitler was a bigger threat than Stalin at the time. Once Hitler was out of the equation, we became enemies of Stalin. To think you can just make international policy based exclusively on progressive ideas is fantasy.

On this site, I've defended progressivism when under attack from people who think progressivism is Communist, doesn't work, blah blah blah. Progressivism, like other ideologies, provides a lot of answers and ideas to solving problems, but it is also imperfect, just like every other ideology.

So Obama isn't progressive in the slightest?

Are the following progressive in nature?

Ending "don't ask, don't tell."
Advocating raising taxes on the rich
Increasing availability of Medicaid
Preventing health insurance companies denying based on pre-existing conditions

He's a moderate. Yes, I fully accept you could give a big long list of things that aren't progressive he's done, too. He's a moderate, who leans left. That's why I get really irritated when QM and WP call him a socialist or communist because it's simply not true.

@heropsycho
Re:war on terror as religious crusade
dismiss, ignore, ignore, deny, dismiss. You're not going to dismiss/deny the other two examples?

Re:Obama and Christianity
Obama claims to be Christian, that's the standard you use for Breivik.

Re:Obama is not intentionally trying to kill civilians
False. It's accepted collateral damage. Raining down hellfire missiles leveling apartment buildings, assassinating entire wedding parties, etc. is terrorism.

Re:Terror bombings in Tripoli
Sorry, everything we are doing in Libya violates U.S. and international law. It's irrelevant what the mission is. Bombing civilian areas and doing fly-overs for hours is done for one purpose: to incite fear into the civilian population i.e. terrorism

Re:"It's pretty silly to site an operation that inadvertently killed civilians to achieve a better life for the Libyan people at large."
It's pretty silly you believe that garbage.

Re:Extreme progressives
So you admit that "progressive" is just another hollow label? What's the difference between regular progressives and "extreme progressives" say...5 years ago? There wasn't. But now it's progressive to illegally bomb other countries.

Thanks for making my point.

Being the biggest backers doesn't mean it's being done for religious purposes.

I'm not debating some see it that way. You also have a bunch of people who didn't, too.

Where in that link did Tony Blair was quoted saying this was part of a Christian struggle?! It's loosely about believing it's a good versus evil thing. It's not about killing Muslims because Muslims are evil, or demoralizing Muslim culture to make room for Christian culture.. If you believe it was about killing Muslims, or advancing the interests of Christianity at the expense of Islam, you need your head examined. At no point was Blair ever on a Christian Crusade.

A VERY small group of evangelical Christian soldiers doesn't make the case.

Now, about Obama and Christianity. You do realize Obama at this point pretty much goes to church because it's a political liability if he doesn't. He quite possibly is the least religious president to ever be in office.

He is not intentionally trying to kill Civilians. #1. The statistics you sited are skewed concerning civilian casualties, although I'm not dismissing civilian casualties. Significant civilian casualties have been a mainstay in military action since WWII on all sides, after a brief reprieve in WWI and other wars leading up to it. You do the best you can to limit them while achieving your objectives. The reality is you won't achieve anything if you try to avoid any civilian casualties.

With that said, the article is discussing Predator drone casualties only, which is a small fraction of total casualties. And even then, you have a dispute on statistics, and I agree the US military is not going to give an unbiased number either. However, it's very difficult to tell what the accurate number is at this point.

See the above about civilian casualties as collateral damage. It would be difficult to achieve anything if the primary focus was to avoid them instead of achieving objectives.

Does all this add up to terrorism? No, for several reasons:

1. It isn't intentional, not any part of the objective in conducting them. Terrorist acts are specific explicit targeting of civilians. Often, the more civilians you kill, the better when you're a terrorist.
2. You sited bombings in Tripoli. Part of the objectives in that raid is to topple the oppressive regime in Libya, is it not? And yes, I completely accept that we're not just there for that. Libya has oil resources, etc. we're interested in, but it doesn't change the fact that part of the reason we're there is to free the Libyan people from an oppressive regime. It's pretty silly to site an operation that inadvertently killed civilians to achieve a better life for the Libyan people at large.

Extreme progressives are critical of Obama for many of the things you're siting. Obama isn't an extreme progressive, socialist, communist, etc. as much as QM and WP would love for you to believe. He's a moderate politician who leans to the left. If that's the indictment, I don't think anyone would disagree he's not the most liberal progressive politician since FDR. He's not. To say however he isn't progressive at all is not true either. Honestly, as much oil as there is in Libya, it's not worth military action. There's a bit of idealist progressivism to conduct air strikes against Libya.

And again, I fail to see how that's relevant to the debate of the religion of this guy. He is a Christian, there's no doubt about it. Granted, he's got a warped Christian ideology, but it is Christian. You can't say someone isn't Christian just because you don't agree with their interpretation.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^heropsycho:
The war on terror isn't being waged based on an overt Christian ideology. There's the difference. There are plenty of Muslims in the US military who see no problem fighting radical Islam. Not sure how you missed that, but it's pretty obvious. This guy performed terrorist acts because of his warped Christian ideology.
My second point is wtf does Obama and Progressivism have to do with any of this? Short answer: it doesn't. And yes, this guy is clearly a Christian of the super-nutty variety. Every religion, and even atheists, have their nuts. Why is this so shocking to anyone?
>> ^marbles:
>> ^heropsycho:
1. How so?
2. WTF does that have to do with anything in this video?!
>> ^marbles:
The war against terror is largely a "Christian" crusade and yet I don't see you guys up in arms about it.
Any "progressive" that supports Obama or the Democrat Party is about as much progressive as Breivik is Christian.


1. Christian war hawks bombing and invading Muslim countries. Do some research.
2. Does this video not suggest Breivik is a Christian terrorist?


And as far as the war on terror as a Christian crusade, you have:
-Conservative Christians as the biggest backers of the Iraq war (link)
-Pentagon officials that see the "war on terror" as a religious war between Judeo-Christian civilization and Satan, with Islam of course cast in the latter role (link)
-President Bush using Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq (link)
-Prime Minister Tony Blair viewing his decisions to go to war in Iraq and Kosovo as part of a "Christian battle" (link)

-US Military trying to convert Arabs to Christianity (link)(link)
These examples are just the surface, they don't even really delve into the Zionist components of the wars.

As for your second point--short answer: it has everything to do with it. It exposes your own hypocritical POV. (along with many other's)
Obama is a self professed Christian. He indiscriminately kills civilians with military drones (some estimates put the civilian death rate at 90%, the other 10% are just suspects executed without due process)(link)
Is this not terrorism?
Is Obama not a Christian terrorist?
There is ongoing torture of uncharged suspects, many who are innocent civilians, many who we know are innocent civilians. (link)(link)(link)(link)
Just recently, NATO bombing runs in Tripoli would last for several hours, hitting civilian targets and killing innocents. (link)(link)
Is this not terrorism that is fully supported by Obama and progressives?

Well peeps, I'm not a fan of huge military spending either, but we live on a planet where, as nations go, America is the only moral force. We're the World Police whether we want to be or not. And that's on top of having the same legitimate interests--and therefore commitments-- around the world as other nations.

These other First World nations that barely step up with resources to solve international problems can go fk themselves, IMO.

The US should absolutley reduce the military presence in some theaters but not for the same reasons as the anti-war crowd. If you're going to fight a war, FIGHT IT. Level cities. Starve the enemy, cut his balls off. Otherwise, get out.

Unfortunately, because this world is insane: false morality, a refusal to accept collateral damage and timidity at the sight of blood has made us unable to properly kill, and the result is more good people than necessary get killed.

The money "saved" on wars belongs to the people, not government. The trillions for the wars do not belong to government schools or cowboy poets. They should never be returned to the federal trough for "local" politicians to hand out to buy votes, though that's what happens.

I agree with Obama that fiscally-speaking, earmarks are a drop in the bucket (especially with 60 BILLION being lost to Medicare waste, fraud and abuse every year). Yet I challenge anyone to look your unemployed neighbor in the eye and tell them why the cowboy poets are short on cash, or why a university needs a half-million dollar grant to study why men don't like wearing condoms<a rel="nofollow" href=" <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/19/nih-funds-study-men-dont-like-use-condoms/">http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/19/nih-funds-study-men-dont-like-use-condoms/"> (yes, that happened).