You know how Certs are the only mints with Retsin?

I was just thinking about that.

8/19/2005 2:16:25 AM

Quote :

"Right, a national Serbian website.....yeah, that’s a good source to quote. Oh, wait aren’t these the same genocidal fucks responsible for the mass graves we're still digging up? Brilliant!"

no, they're not the same genocidal fucks responsible for the mass graves. THOSE ARE BEING TRIED IN THE HAGUE. if you knew anything about the conflict you'd know that the instances of mass graves were conducted by police, military, and paramilitary forces. I DONT THINK THIS SITE IS MILITARY, DO YOU? Granted it may have gov't bias, but this shit really happened.

i love how you think they must have just made up all of these bomb craters or blew their own shit up. open your eyes and realize that our gov't isn't full of angels like you seem to think.


plz to stop trolling.

8/19/2005 9:19:37 AM

So after you got the shit pwnt out of you with your Iraq nonsense, you want to talk Serbia? OK, ese, let's have at it.

1) How many of the sites listed by the no doubt oh-so-surely-reputable Serbian website were intentionally targeted and not accidentally hit?
2) How many of those sites were targetted with the intent of harming the civilian population?
3) How many of the so-called "civilians" affected were paramilitaries?
4) How many of the cases were outright made the fuck up by men with no motivation to tell the truth and every reason to fudge it heavily?
5) How many of those sites actually qualified as "indispensable" to civilians as would be necessary for the Geneva Convention article you listed to have any relevance? (Hint: none of the ones in the first part you posted and very few of the ones in the second, if they meet the other qualifications, which they don't)
6) How many of the sites targetted were illegally housing Serbian military and paramilitary units?

8/20/2005 7:31:34 PM

SHIT PWNT OUT OF ME? YOU DIDN'T EVEN READ ALL MY GODDAMN LINKS

YOU STILL DON'T HAVE A CLUE.

1. http://www.nato.int/video/990510b.mpg http://www.nato.int/video/990426c.mpg http://www.nato.int/video/990425e.mpg considering they are giving videos of maybe 100 out of 23,614 munitions released .
here's an american site: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/hayden.htm but i'm sure it's irreputable.
2. Tell me how many soldiers you know that work in factories, rail stations, tv stations, et cetera.
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/30/kosovo.02/ "crowded with vehicles and pedestrians." don't forget who the bombs were supposed to help on this humanitarian mission.
3. Tell me, what's an acceptable percentage of paramilitaries in that group? What's a good civilian to paramilitary ratio that let's you sleep at night? 1:1, 2:1, 50:1?
4. one bad apple spoils the bunch must be your official policy, right?
5. that's easy: hospitals. tell me how you can justify attacking civilian hospitals. or rather, allowing the damage and destruction to hospitals to take place?
http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-proto.htm

Quote :

"Article 57: Precautions in Attack In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken: those who plan or decide upon an attack shall: do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects and are not subject to special protection but are military objectives within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 52 and that it is not prohibited by the provisions of this Protocol to attack them; take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects; refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated; an attack shall be canceled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or is subject to special protection or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated; effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not pemmit. When a choice is possible between several military objectives for obtaining a similar military advantage, the objective to be selected shall be that the attack on which may be expected to cause the least danger to civilian lives and to civilian objects. In the conduct of military operations at sea or in the air, each Party to the conflict shall, in conformity with its rights and duties under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, take all reasonable precautions to avoid losses of civilian lives and damage to civilian objects No provision of this article may be construed as authorizing any attacks against the civilian population, civilians or civilian objects. "

5a. http://www.un.org/icty/basic/statut/stat2000.htm#3
6. burden of proof is on NATO and the US for that one.


what more do you need? i'm sure i will find it for you or i just left something out.

8/20/2005 8:34:03 PM

Quote :

"SHIT PWNT OUT OF ME? YOU DIDN'T EVEN READ ALL MY GODDAMN LINKS"

No, I didn't. They were numerous and quite long. If there is something in one of your links (which you apparently read thoroughly) that proves me wrong or supports you at all, quote that shit.

Don't expect to win an argument by throwing so much information out that nobody with other thinigs to do will bother to go through it. On the other hand, I made several points about the things I did read, none of which you responded to at all.

In response to the points:

1) The videos were of roadways, which are legitimate military targets according to the article you cited. Transportation infrastructure is fair game.
2) Firstly, I don't recall reading "never ever kill a civilian," so that leaves military factories and communications facilities fair game. Besides, you've yet to prove that such installations were intentionally targetted with the intent of killing civilians or depriving them of necessitites.
3) My personal opinion on the matter is less relevant than that of the Geneva Conventions. As long as the "civilian" end of the ratio was minimized by NATO, the GC says its OK.
4) Nonsensical. Answer the question. Can you find anything that corroborates what the clearly biased Serbs said on the matter? Do you think it would be the first time that a government outright and indisputably lied about something?
5) As long as reasonable efforts were made to spare the hospitals, you don't have a leg to stand on here, even discounting the possibility that each incident has an answer unfavorable to your argument to each of my other questions.
6) I'm sure it does, why don't you get on looking for that? My guess is that you've only searched for things you knew would support your cause, or else some of these questions would've crossed your mind before now. The only reason you have to believe that these sites weren't targetted because of enemy activity there was because a Serbian website said so. At the end of the day, if it comes down to NATO's word versus Serbia's, who do you think wins the case?

8/20/2005 8:54:20 PM

1.

Quote :

"1) How many of the sites listed by the no doubt oh-so-surely-reputable Serbian website were intentionally targeted and not accidentally hit?"

we know at least 3 sites were intentionally targeted, don't we?
2. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/30/kosovo.02/ explicitly goes against:

Quote :

"...take all reasonable precautions to avoid losses of civilian lives and damage to civilian objects "

3. What does it matter that some of them were paramilitaries? It doesn't change the fact that there were a large number of innocent civilian casualties (seriously though, this was a humanitarian effort.)
4.

Quote :

"How many of the cases were outright made the fuck up by men with no motivation to tell the truth and every reason to fudge it heavily?"

How can I answer that? How is the benefit of the doubt for the bombers (see above), but not the bombees?
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/30/kosovo.02/ corroborates it.
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9904/13/nato.attack.04/ shows NATO acted in a manner contrary to Art. 57 by not taking "all reasonable precautions to avoid loss of civilian lives"
PLEASE READ THIS ONE, too large to quote. i will explain the logic that they acted illegally, if you need me to, seriously.

Quote :

"Do you think it would be the first time that a government outright and indisputably lied about something?"

i know, that's what i'm saying. just about the US gov't.
5. This is once again the burden of proof being on NATO's shoulders. How do we know they took every effort? Why do we have to trust them? You have to put that qualifier in there that relies solely on NATO's honesty.
6. why don't you (the one who's arguing for them) get on it? Fine, i checked NATO's official site and their relevant press releaseshttp://www.nato.int/docu/pr/pr99e.htm. only on 3 occasions do they address Serbian false claims.
a) http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-079e.htm
b) http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-074e.htm
c) http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-072e.htm

8/20/2005 9:52:39 PM

1) Bridges weren't listed in the article as "indispensable" to civilian life, because they aren't. Yes, they pass the "Did we target them?" test, but then they turn right around and fail the "Is it illegal to target them?" one.

2) Bridges are not civilian objects. They are now, have always been, and will always be military targets of importance.

3) It matters because their inclusion could drop the number of actual civilian deaths dramatically. Wouldn't it be convenient (and easy) for the Serbs to take every paramilitary death and tack a "civilian" tag on it? Don't you think your argument loses some steam if instead of, say, 100 total civilians killed, it was just 50 (the rest being paramilitaries)?

4)

Quote :

"shows NATO acted in a manner contrary to Art. 57 by not taking "all reasonable precautions to avoid loss of civilian lives""

No, it doesn't. I think you must not understand what "reasonable" means. It's not just a filler word that you can forget about when interpreting the GC.

Quote :

"How is the benefit of the doubt for the bombers (see above), but not the bombees?"

Well last time I checked it's been a while since the US was committing genocide, so I'd say that's a pretty big character point on our side. Of course, from the proof you've offered to condemn the bombers I see nothing but proof that exonerates them, if, I mean, you know how to read and stuff.

5) Maybe I'm tired of playing this game. Who says NATO has burden of proof? You're accusing them of something. In this country don't we do burden of proof lying with the prosecution?

But no matter. Why do we have to trust them over the Serbs? Well, mostly because the alternative is trusting the fucking Serbs over NATO. But also because of the proof that has been put forward by you, and because of the nature of a military and political system that makes it far more easy and likely for the Serbs to lie, and so on and so forth.

6) Well there you go. That is, at the absolute minimum, 3 of the things you mentioned, things upon which you're basing your entire argument, that were outright fabrications.

8/21/2005 3:41:52 PM

Quote :

"No, it doesn't. I think you must not understand what "reasonable" means. It's not just a filler word that you can forget about when interpreting the GC"

I think reasonable action would be not bombing a fucking commuter train

not bombing hospitals

and not bombing the chinese embassy.

And nato committed genocide. Kosovo now has no serbs, when 15 years ago the province was 75% Serb.

And don't get me started on the sanctions.

[Edited on August 21, 2005 at 3:55 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2005 3:54:29 PM

1. your latest response has no bearing on neither your question "1) How many of the sites listed by the no doubt oh-so-surely-reputable Serbian website were intentionally targeted and not accidentally hit?" nor my answer of at least 3 videos of them.

2. Power plants supply energy to both military and civilian operations. The effectiveness of cutting a military's power by destroying power plants is nothing because the military's power needs are backed up by generators. the average Kosovar home has how many electric power generators? it's been proven in the gulf war that cutting power has no tangible effect on any military. targeting something that has no effect on the military means it's pretty unreasonable.

3. "Don't you think your argument loses some steam if instead of, say, 100 total civilians killed, it was just 50 (the rest being paramilitaries)?" Where is the evidence that 50% of the civilians killed were paramilitaries? WHERE?

4. I guess it's unreasonable for the pilot to refrain from bombing a bridge in the middle of the day when it is loaded with cars and pedestrians. it's unreasonable for NATO to bomb during the night or during a time where a large number of civilians were not on the bridge.

i forgot that according to you, it's unreasonable to actually visualize your target before launching a missile at it, especially when the target is a dual-use structure. it's also unreasonable to not fire a 2nd missile at a bridge after the pilot struck a commuter train which was obviously still on the bridge at the time. it IS reasonable to bomb the bridge and prevent the victims from getting medical assistance.

Last time I checked it was the serbian police and military that were committing genocide, not the factory workers and doctors and nurses. not to mention the civilian journalists. considering they are non combatants, but they can't be trusted? are you kidding me?

the proof of violating international law is 2 paragraphs up.

5. common sense says NATO needs to prove that they were acting in a manner to minimize civilian casualties, not to mention the international community.

I forgot we can't trust national and international reporters.

"In this country don't we do burden of proof lying with the prosecution?"

guess who was playing the prosecution, NATO. for fuck's sake, man.

6. Actually, no. Match up those 3 instances with anything that i've quoted. I'd like to see you do that. that shit was already accounted for; i looked. nice try, though.

8/21/2005 4:57:38 PM

1) My point is this: I asked these questions knowing that the answers to some of them would be, "This many" or "that many," but unless you have one example that fits in all six questions, you don't have a case. In order for the Geneva Conventions to be violated, we can't just have killed a civilian, we have to have killed him under certain circumstances.

2) Electricity is not indispensable to civilian life, and in fact a good many people in that part of the day spend most (if not all) of their time not having it at all, even when we aren't bombing anything. Your understanding of the military value of power plants as targets is, well, laughable. You working with any evidence that the Serbian military has much in the way of reliable and independent power generators? Because even if you have that evidence, you don't have shit. Blowing up power infrastructure has wider effects than just electricity at bases.

3)

Quote :

"Where is the evidence that 50% of the civilians killed were paramilitaries? WHERE?"

That's rather a different question, don't you think? You were acting as though even if I did have such proof it would amount to nothing, which is ludicrous.

4) You think trains don't run at night? The pilot did visualize his target, and said that the train came in at the last instant. The only thing that even comes close to helping you out here is that he fired a second missile, but even then, he fired it with the aim of missing the train.

If we're going to make it so that you can never shoot anything anywhere near a civilian, we might as well call everyone in history a war criminal.

Quote :

"considering they are non combatants, but they can't be trusted? are you kidding me?"

I didn't say that they couldn't be trusted, I said that an obviously-biased Serbian nationalist website couldn't be trusted.

Quote :

"guess who was playing the prosecution, NATO."

Way to screw the pooch on this one.

Guess who was playing the prosecution in a murder? The murderer did.

Look at it for a second and see how identical those two lines of "reasoning" are. You are making an accusation. You have to back it up.

Quote :

"common sense says NATO needs to prove that they were acting in a manner to minimize civilian casualties,."

So far every piece of evidence I've seen from either side says precisely that.

6) What do you mean? They didn't appear in that long list you cited?

Even if they didn't, I've still got this one.

8/22/2005 2:57:43 AM

1. Yes, i'm sorry that NATO has not released all of it's videos concerning the munitions dropped. believe me, once they do, i can show you that these targets were exactly that, targets. I'm still looking for evidence that they were not targeted. If NATO is in the right, why won't they release the videos? I do not see a security threat.

Again, how are the Conventions not violated when a NATO "... pilot was using a remotely targeted missile he fired from several miles away, said Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander in Europe. "?? http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9904/13/nato.attack.04/

How unreasonable is it to visualize the target with the pilot's own eyes which can see commuter trains headed towards the bridge? How unreasonable is it to gain a copy of a rail line's usage? Hell, I can do that. just think what NATO intelligence officers can do! Trains do run at night, obviously. But also obviously is the frequency of commuter trains isgreatly reduced, no matter where you are.

It's also reasonable to call off the attack of the bridge when it is obvious that medical personnel need to access the damaged train cars. Wouldn't a minimal amount of deaths occur if the pilot returned later (after intel reports the bridge cleared)?

Again, how is it reasonable to bomb a crowded bridge in the middle of the day when intelligence can tell when the bridge is rarely used? How is it reasonable to launch a missile directly at civilians if there are times when those civilians would not be there (or less would)?

2. Electricty supplied to water supply and treatment plants is most definitely indespensable to civilian population.
"In an another instance, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea declared : "If President Milosevic really wants all of his population to have water and electricity, all he has to do is accept NATO's five conditions and we will stop this campaign." quoted from the Washington Post at this site: http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/kosovo/faironwponkosovo.html
Sounds like she's saying that NATO doesn't give a shit if it's affecting the civilian population.

3. What's ludicrous is that you act as if 99% of civilian casualties are warranted if the other 1% is paramilitary. See, the point i am making is that if every 1, 5, or 20 of every 100 civilian casualties is paramilitary, it still doesn't change the fact that far too many civilians are being killed. The targets should be (and were, for the most part) only something along the lines of a serb police station, where yes civilians are, but the amount of police to civilians will almost always be much less than 1:1 (why would a police station be outnumbered?)

4. see 1.

Quote :

"The pilot did visualize his target."

Quote :

""... pilot was using a remotely targeted missile he fired from several miles away,"

5.

Quote :

"I didn't say that they couldn't be trusted, I said that an obviously-biased Serbian nationalist website couldn't be trusted."

even when nothing from their site has been shown to be false by NATO or anyone else, is it still something you cannot trust? the explicit examples i am using are from international journalists who have a code of ethic to verify the facts before they write them.

6. first off, use ctrl+f to search a webpage for keywords. it works regardless the length.
secondly, because i never quoted or used them as evidence, your argument is moot. you argued that i used false Serbian reports as evidence against NATO. However, i have not used any false reports. My evidence is still valid and is not affected by the 3 NATO press releases.

[Edited on August 22, 2005 at 5:42 PM. Reason : quote issues]

8/22/2005 5:40:27 PM

1) It has occured to you that not every bomb NATO drops has a camera attached to it, right?

Quote :

"How unreasonable is it to visualize the target with the pilot's own eyes which can see commuter trains headed towards the bridge?"

Pretty unreasonable. If you have to see a target before you can shoot it, you have to get close to it. If it's a target, your enemy knows its a target and is much more likely to defend it. Ergo, if you can blow something up while exposing yourself to minimum danger, you do it.

Quote :

"How unreasonable is it to gain a copy of a rail line's usage?"

I'm certain that Serbian railroads during the height of the air war were running on time enough to make those worthwhile. No really.

Quote :

"Trains do run at night, obviously. But also obviously is the frequency of commuter trains isgreatly reduced, no matter where you are. "

So you want the guy to see the target with his eyes, but you also want him to fly at night when he can't see. OK, I think I've got you.

2) Jacksonprogressive strikes me as being reliable. I'm serious. I really, really am, just like I'm being serious when I say that everyone described as a "spokesman" says only things that represent their organizations' beliefs all the time.

That said, unless an effort was made to destroy power infrastructure in order to deprive Serbs of water, you've got nothing. Reread the first article if you don't remember why. Power grids are fairly complicated, and blowing up one thing may have impacts in a lot of places. Even so, the GC considers power a viable target.

3) I don't think the ratio makes things "OK" here, I think it takes a lot of momentum out of your argument and your source. I'm not saying, "You can always blow up a target where there will be a paramilitary," I'm saying, "I bet a bunch of the "civilians" you said we killed weren't civilians at all.

Quote :

"it still doesn't change the fact that far too many civilians are being killed. "

Well how many can be killed before it's too many?

4) If he saw the train coming onto the bridge, it means he saw the bridge.

5)

Quote :

"even when nothing from their site has been shown to be false by NATO or anyone else, is it still something you cannot trust?"

It comes from men with a record of lying, a strong motivation to lie, and all the ability in the world to lie. Do you think NATO is going to scan the internet all day looking for fudged claims so they can be refuted? No.

6) See the above.

8/22/2005 8:17:42 PM

1. How unreasonable is it to NOT launch a 2nd missile against a bridge with a KNOWN commuter train on it? I mean, he die just SHOOT the train himself, did he not?

I'm certain those train lines just stopped running with any sense of order after the first rail line was destroyed. No really, only Americans try to run on a schedule. only Americans can effectively keep trains running on time on undamaged tracks. no, really.

I really doubt that intelligence is capable of locating the coordinates of a bridge using satellite imagery. and then i even more seriously doubt that these coordinates could be programmed into a missile to be launched by a pilot. and if he doesn't see any lights from any trains, then i can't imagine that he could launch that missile in the middle of the night after verifying the bridge is clear, because you know, trains run without lights.

2. hmmm considering a spokesman's job is do to exactly that, communicate the organization's beliefs through words, i would think a spokesman does say what the organization feels.

actually, jacksonprogressive was just hosting the article from FAIR. okay, after 20 minutes searching NATO http://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990525b.htm

but i'm sure you're not satisfied with that.

3. Yet, it does not invalidate my argument, which you are trying to say that it does.
We can take at least 22 from those two arguments from the total number. But i'm sure 22 isn't a big number to you until it's 22 of your friends and relatives.

4. He visualized the target after he launched the missile. which makes it useless to know that he at some point (after mind you) visualized the bridge. he also visualized it on his second pass and saw a commuter train, but fired a 2nd missile.

5.

Quote :

"Do you think NATO is going to scan the internet all day looking for fudged claims so they can be refuted? No."

Considering that these were charges of violation of international law, I DO think that NATO is going to look into each situation and verify the truth, which I have shown that it does. NATO had taken it seriously enough to address these 3 instances of falsehoods.

Wait, i thought you of all people might remember Clinton's lying (that's a record of lying). Bad press and criminal charges (a reason to lie), and all the ability in the world to lie.

6. you can only dismiss them because they came from Serbians, the most loathsome and untrustworthy nationality in the world.

8/22/2005 9:12:31 PM

1) With the second shot he active tried -- and succeded, it looks like, to miss the train.

Was the missile in question the first to be launched in the NATO campaign? My money says, "No." So the reason I'm guessing Serbia couldn't hold up a train schedule is that it was a country at war, under bombardment, and divided by all manner of military and paramilitary conflict within the country.

You can't simultaneously say you want the pilot to see, with his eyes, what he's shooting at, and that you want him to fly when he can't see. Passenger cars might turn off their lights at night so people can sleep, so unless you happen to see certain parts of the train you don't see lights. It also isn't as though there aren't other lights in the area.

2) A much better source this time, but just because a woman said it trying to describe NATO's position doesn't mean she had it spot-on. People misspeak. Even if she was saying things right, there was no violation of international law -- water got shut down because power got shut down. Power was what NATO targetted and hit, and power is a viable target.

3) It invalidates parts of your argument (like the ones where you act as though we blow up as many civvies as we have to in order to kill the bad guy). And if 22 of my friends and relatives die I'm going to be pissed whether or not law, international or otherwise, was violated in the process.

4) I explained why firing before he could physically see the target was justifiable, and now I'll explain that even if he saw the tracks before he launched there's no guarantee he'd see the train -- it came upon him at the last minute before the missile impacted.

5)

Quote :

"Considering that these were charges of violation of international law, I DO think that NATO is going to look into each situation and verify the truth, which I have shown that it does."

If they ever heard about the charges they'd probably look into it, unless of course they knew they were dealing with a propaganda agency and not actual charges, which anyone in a position to do so could make at any time, and which nobody has done.

Quote :

"Wait, i thought you of all people might remember Clinton's lying (that's a record of lying). Bad press and criminal charges (a reason to lie), and all the ability in the world to lie."

As you maggots love to remind me, lying about sex isn't quite lying about war. It also isn't like lying about genocide, which is what got the whole thing started.

6) No, I dismiss them because they come from a website that is clearly run by Serbian nationalists. If it came from people who were actually making charges on the world stage, I would listen. If it came from an impartial site (or at least one more impartial than that garbage), I would listen. It comes from some douches on teh int4rw3b, and from douches who, among other things, support genocide.

8/22/2005 10:14:36 PM

1. the train was still on the bridge when he shot the 2nd missile. It is very reasonable to NOT fire the 2nd shot and not make a 2nd pass and not kill innocent civilians. Especially given that the pilot acknowleges the fact that he saw the first missile hit the train and he knows the train's wreckage was still on the bridge.

Because a simple call to a train station wouldn't get the information to the pilots. Why not call the depot, and find out the current train status before the mission was flown? Go ahead and check the power plants hit, because none of them are near Krusevac.

Every commuter night train i have been on has had it's lights on all the time. Including eastern european night trains.

I can say that i would like at least one or the other. in this case we got ZERO. Still no response about the smart missile? 22 deaths are worth the extra work it takes to get a satellite map and coordinates and program them into a missile?

2. Spokespeople are tasked with the job of expression an organization's beliefs, which clearly came out in her comment. It's more evidence of their disregard than malevolence towards Serbs.

3. "3) How many of the so-called "civilians" affected were paramilitaries?" was your original post. Without proof of stark numbers of paramilitaries in the civilian figures, your argument is baseless.
22 people is a lot of people to be expended nonchalantly, don't you say?

4. the point remains is that he fired on a bridge he knew was full of civilians WITH COMPLETE DISREGARD for their safety. If he had had ANY REGARD for their safety, he would have aborted the mission, which would have been utterly REASONABLE. It is REASONABLE to allow paramedics to aid the casualties and return to the bridge at a later time.

5. They heard of these 3 charges which they proved to be wrong. now tell me, why would they respond solely to these accusations? Is it because they have definitive proof? Is it possible that the other charges are NOT baseless?

Quote :

"As you maggots love to remind me..."

Quote me mother fucker. mounting evidence of the shit you have for brains.

wait, aren't you the one that sees things only in black and white? how is it now that you're arguing for degrees of lying? People inherently lie if it keeps their necks out of the noose.

It's funny that a German report would say that there was no conclusive evidence that ethnic cleansing was taking place but rather only on paramilitary activities.

German/English
http://www.jungewelt.de/frameit.php?/1999/04-24/011.shtml
http://iraqwar.org/germanreport.htm
oh no! an anti-war site! Irreputable!

this is not an argument against US involvement in Kosovo, generally speaking. It's an argument against the method used in the involvement.

6. So, tell me again how these sites were destroyed and damaged if the Serbs are lying about them? did the KLA fly over Main St. Belgrade and drop their load of munitions?

Let me think, "if the Serbian government is making the accusations, would NATO make a response?"
obviously , yes, they would if they could exonerate themselves. All the lies the Serbs had said (those 3 NATO releases) were refuted, why not the rest of the "long list"?

8/23/2005 1:02:18 AM

1) Did the second shot kill anybody? I'm asking because I'm seriously too lazy to go back and look for it among all our various links here.

Calling the train station would be cluing the enemy into an imminent attack on the train.

I'm sure your train experiences represent all of them, ever.

Firing just based on coordinates is not the most accurate thing in the world; even good GPS screws up or is off by a little. A train track is not a huge target.

2) I know what spokespeople are tasked to do. I also know that people fuck up.

3) Without proof that your Serb website is giving accurate figures of real civilians, yours is pretty baseless, too.
Nobody should be expended nonchalantly. I wouldn't have wanted those 22 to die. But if letting those 22 get it will save countless Albanians and whoever might have been next from outright massacre, I'll have to let it happen.

4) You fail to finish the job, they expect you to come back later, and there they are, waiting. All of this is, of course, taking out of consideration several relevant factors:
a) Just because one pilot did it does not make NATO an organization of war criminals. If everything you said was accurate and sound, it could make the pilot a war criminal, but not much of one.
b) I say "could" because the firing of the second missile does not necessarily represent a calculated measure and even less necessarily one calculated to kill civilians. It's the heat of the action. Mistakes happen.

5) It is possible. That does not make it likely. You have one website that lists these places. If one website on the internet is making accusations, and especially if those accusations seem ridiculous or are not publicly discussed, NATO may never even hear about it, and if they do, they may wave it off as what it is: bullshit. The President doesn't respond to allegations that he's a pawn of an Illuminati-Jew-Banker Conspirator, and salisburyboy can show you a dozen sites claiming just that.

If you don't think there was extensive persecution of Kosovar Albanians, that's a different discussion. If you think the Serbs were only giving as good as they got, that's another discussion, too.

6) Well, let's see, we have a couple of possibilities:
a) The damage was inflicted by something other than NATO attacks altogether.
b) The damage was inflicted by something other than NATO attacks, but it was close enough to a NATO attack that it was easy to shift the blame.
c) The damage never happened and is completely fabricated.

Wouldn't NATO make a response even if the allegations were true? Why am I not seeing loads of desperate efforts to explain these things away?

8/23/2005 8:18:09 PM

1.

Quote :

"The pilot fired a second missile in an attempt to hit the opposite end of the bridge, Clark said. But by "an uncanny accident," the train had slid forward, moved across the bridge and ended up in the [second] missile's path. "

note that it is uncanny for an object that was traveling forward to have been struck by a missile, but still moved forward still. inertia is sooo uncanny.

Quote :

"I'm sure your train experiences represent all of them, ever."

ha, so where the foundation for your theory about trains running at night without lights?

Quote :

"A train track is not a huge target."

but a bridge spanning a river in the middle of nowhere is big enough to know.

3.

Quote :

" I wouldn't have wanted those 22 to die. But if letting those 22 get it will save countless Albanians and whoever might have been next from outright massacre, I'll have to let it happen."

but you see, it's not just 22 people. i understand that for this air campaign to have been successful, there would be casualties. however my point is that at least these 22 lives could have been saved if NATO had been more responsible. Would you be so quick to disregard these 22 if you were close to any of them? Would you not also want some accountability and punishment?

4.

Quote :

"If everything you said was accurate and sound, it could make the pilot a war criminal, but not much of one."

one soldier killing 10 innocent civilians needlessly isn't much of a war criminal? I know you seriously don't believe that. how many until it is to you much of a war criminal.

Quote :

"It's the heat of the action."

the action was him flying a plane and a missile. there was no report from him or anyone about resistance. routine? Mistakes do happen, and people are held accountable for their mistakes.

5. Persecution /= Genocide in anyone's dictionary.
since when are the citizens held accountable for the military's actions legally?

6. We can pretty much rule out a KLA attack in Belgrade because KLA was concentrated in the mountains of Kosovo.
if you admit possibilities that the reports are false, how can you deny the possibility that the present Serb gov't is telling the truth? Is that not as plausible as any of yours?

NATO made the response for the bridge bombing in Krusevac and the Chinese Embassy bombing. Perhaps these are the only ones that they have to hold themselves accountable to?

8/24/2005 11:18:31 PM

1) That the train moved forward is not so uncanny, but you know so few of the specifics that to laugh off the claim is itself laughable. You don't know how far it slid. You don't know how big the bridge is. You don't know a lot of things you need to in order to make this judgement.

Quote :

"but a bridge spanning a river in the middle of nowhere is big enough to know. "

If I'm interpreting this bastardization of a sentence correctly, you far overestimate the precision of satellite guided munitions. We're talking about something that's maybe ten feet wide and that is hovering in midair. A few feet one way or the other (well within the margin of error for the kind of strike you're suggesting), and you miss the bridge and hit who knows what else.

3) You keep saying that just because those close to the 22 are really upset, we should all be. Everyone close to everyone who dies is upset, regardless of whether they deserve it.

I'm willing to allow that accidents and mistakes happen, and that accidents and mistakes do not a war crime make.

4) One soldier intentionally murdering 10 civilians is a war criminal, but not much of one. That sounds reasonable enough. Who are you going to go after first, that soldier or the guy who exterminates whole villages? Not that this guy intentionally murdered anybody anyway.

5) Ahahaha, you don't know much about the definition of genocide. You know that according to the UN just forcibly moving a population from its home area counts?

When the citizens elect and/or support the leader that commands the military to do what it does, they do share in responsibility.

6) The Serbian government may being telling the truth, and it may not be. Their word alone isn't enough to convince me, though.

8/24/2005 11:44:41 PM

1. while you make valid points, the train was electric and the lines were cut in the first strike, which means it was powerless. How did it move forward uncannily if it wasn't already in motion since the strike?

Quote :

"A few feet one way or the other (well within the margin of error for the kind of strike you're suggesting), and you miss the bridge and hit who knows what else."

like water or rocks. and somehow this is riskier collateral damage than commuter trains?

3.

Quote :

"You keep saying that just because those close to the 22 are really upset, we should all be. Everyone close to everyone who dies is upset, regardless of whether they deserve it."

you should be upset knowing that your tax money went to killing these 22 people unnecessarily because their deaths could've been prevented and the same military objective could have been completed.

Quote :

"I'm willing to allow that accidents and mistakes happen, and that accidents and mistakes do not a war crime make."

it's called accountability.
and not fulfilling the geneva conventions on reason actions to prevent the loss of civilian life, does violate international humanitarian law.

4. not taking the necessary reasonable actions to prevent the loss of civilian life is by definition a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions. It's similar to manslaughter, they didn't mean to do it, but they did it nonetheless and are punished accordingly.

5. missed the key word legally.

6. Thankfully facts do not require any one person to agree to their validity to be facts.

8/25/2005 6:22:12 PM

1) I thought we established that it was carried forward by inertia. What I'm saying is that for all we know, it appeared perfectly reasonable to the pilot that the train would slide, but not so far as it did, or that any one of a hundred other variables we know nothing about could be true.

And you don't know what the missile would hit. There are houses, even in the middle of nowhere. And maybe it would have hit nothing, but the important thing is that "nothing" includes the target. If something demands that you be unable to hit a perfectly valid military target, it's not "reasonable."

3) I am perturbed that mistakes were made, but I've got enough sense to know that they happen, and that if an otherwise good pilot makes one fuckup that in the scheme of things is relatively minor I don't need to see him hang (metaphorically or otherwise) as a result.

4) Uh, no. Throughout the Geneva Convetions (including the very first article we cited in this thread) references are made to doing harmful things to the civilian population "for that purpose." If a bomb's guidance goes haywire and flies a mile off course into a school, who does the Geneva Convention want to go down? Nobody, because it was written with enough damn sense to prevent people from going down over mistakes.

5) All fine and dandy, but we were never holding civilians accountable in Serbia anyway. We cut off their power and water in order to -- quite successfully, I might add -- get the population to throw out Milosevic.

6) You go right on believing a bunch of real war criminals' words over that of your own country.

8/26/2005 2:20:58 PM

1. inertia is still not uncanny.


What would be hit around this bridge besides earth and water?

3.

Quote :

"if an otherwise good pilot makes one fuckup that in the scheme of things is relatively minor I don't need to see him hang (metaphorically or otherwise) as a result."

10 people dead is minor, lovely. it's only minor because it happened someplace other than america, let's be honest here. So let me get this straight, you're saying that this guy fucked up and killed 10 people, and its not even worth going to court over?

Quote :

"If something demands that you be unable to hit a perfectly valid military target, it's not "reasonable.""

it is reasonable to delay an attack. obviously the Air Force thinks so, too, if it follows this law.

Quote :

"A4.3.1.4. Warning Requirement . Under the Hague Regulations, a warning must be given prior to bombardment, when circumstances permit, to permit the civilian population an opportunity to avoid injury."

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afpam14-210/part17.htm#page148
USAF Intelligence Targeting Guide

4.

Quote :

"In the conduct of military operations at sea or in the air, each Party to the conflict shall, in conformity with its rights and duties under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, take all reasonable precautions to avoid losses of civilian lives and damage to civilian objects."

This was a human error in planning. had nothing to do with guidance.

5. So, civilian morale is a valid military target these days? What concrete objective does it serve?

6. the US hasn't denied anything other than what NATO has.
it's about time you questioned my patriotism.

8/26/2005 4:34:32 PM

1) What would you hit? Gee, I don't know, but whatever it would be would have to be in that very small picture, because missiles certainly don't go very far.

3) Ten people dead is minor in this country, that country, and every country. I'm saying that when you're operating something designed able to kill dozens if not hundreds of people at a stroke, and you, through the slightest error, kill just ten, you don't need to go to prison disgraced for life as a war criminal.

The operant clause in the Air Force article is "when circumstances permit." Now you'll say, "Well they did permit," and I'll respond quite truthfully with, "You know virtually nothing about the circumstances surrounding this or any other military operation in Kosovo. You don't know if they expected to encounter an enemy, you don't know if a warning would have made AA pop up all around that bridge, you don't know much at all except what the accident and its consequences were."

4) It wasn't even an error in planning, it was an error in execution, where errors are oh-so-easy to make, especially when you're flying a multimillion dollar aircraft at hundreds of miles an hour in a combat zone with the intent to blow something up with precision weaponry while being called upon to make military and moral judgements about every action and to remember complex rules of engagement. Let's see you pull it off without fucking up just once.

5) Morale has always been a valid weapon. It's what psyops guys play with, and its concrete purpose is clearer in Kosovo than anywhere else: the population threw the enemy out of office and into our hands.

6) I wasn't questioning your patriotism, I was questioning whatever it is you're substituting for good fucking sense.

8/26/2005 9:59:29 PM

1) watch the video and shut your dumb mouth.

3.

Quote :

"you don't need to go to prison disgraced for life as a war criminal."

yeah, let's just not hold ourselves accountable. i mean people die all the time!

Quote :

"you don't know much at all except what the accident and its consequences were.""

well, guess what, you know less than me about it; that's for damn sure. watching the video informs one about alot.

Quote :

"The train was on a railroad bridge hit by America's newest and most accurate missiles -- the video-guided AGM-130, fired by a U.S. F-15E, Pentagon sources said. "

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9904/13/nato.attack.01/
F-15E:http://www.f-15estrikeeagle.com/gallery/pics/006b.jpg
hey, that looks like a pilot and a co-pilot! i wonder if that means that one flies the jet and the other missiles? at least now we don't have to worry about human error due to flying 2 things at once. Now what is preventing the co-pilot from noticing the train in the calculated actual time of ~6 seconds. where did this number come from? experts analyzed the video and concluded that the train was travelling at about 300km/h and the train came into sight for ~1.9 seconds. Because you're so quick to point out how lousy Serbian trains were, it's far more likely that the train was moving at about 100km/h (and that's gracious), which would give the pilot at least 5 to 6 seconds of reaction time. Now, please count to 6 seconds and tell me how long you think that is to steer a missile into the river below which would be clearly seen through the video camera. http://www.nato.int/video/990413d.mpg
now watch it in slow motion and tell me it's not fucked up. im trying to get the actual article but the newspaper servers are fucking up. the article is "Zug um Zug eine neue Version" by Arnd Festerling in the Frankfurter Rundschau, Jan. 6, 2000. NATO has even acknowledged this.

4.

Quote :

"4) It wasn't even an error in planning, it was an error in execution, where errors are oh-so-easy to make, especially when you're flying a multimillion dollar aircraft at hundreds of miles an hour in a combat zone with the intent to blow something up with precision weaponry while being called upon to make military and moral judgements about every action and to remember complex rules of engagement. Let's see you pull it off without fucking up just once."

a. who was flying what now?
b. irrelevant cop-out.

5. Art. 51 Protocol 1

Quote :

"The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited. "

looks like attacking morale is illegal.

6. You know, you still haven't proven any of my sources as false, so seriously until you do, shut the hell up. you can't even back up your claim that these explicit claims of destruction are false. all you can do is speculate.

8/28/2005 4:16:15 PM

1) You have been missing the point here for so long it's not even funny.

If a course of action dictates that you not be able to hit what you're shooting at, it isn't bloody well reasonable.

3) If you make a mistake, especially one on this scale, you're not a war criminal no matter where you're from. "War criminal" is a serious term applying to certain specific cases, not something you can throw around willy-nilly to describe anyone who's responsible for any civilian's death, regardless of circumstances.

Quote :

"experts analyzed the video and concluded that the train was travelling at about 300km/h and the train came into sight for ~1.9 seconds. Because you're so quick to point out how lousy Serbian trains were, it's far more likely that the train was moving at about 100km/h (and that's gracious), which would give the pilot at least 5 to 6 seconds of reaction time. "

This is pathetic.

Because I said that Serbian trains were not likely to adhere precisely to schedules -- reasonable enough, since buses, trains, and planes in this country are off schedule all the time despite modern equipment and the absence of a war on our soil -- you pull out this estimate 1/3 that of what the fucking experts did? I never said Serbian trains were physically slow, numbnuts, I said they ran off schedule. The two are not interchangeable.

So since you estimated the speed at 1/3 what the experts did, we can safely assume that your estimate for the allowed reaction time is 3 times higher than what was actually available to the pilots.

Not that this matters, because even with six seconds:

Quote :

"it was an error in execution, where errors are oh-so-easy to make, especially when you're flying a multimillion dollar aircraft at hundreds of miles an hour in a combat zone with the intent to blow something up with precision weaponry while being called upon to make military and moral judgements about every action and to remember complex rules of engagement. Let's see you pull it off without fucking up just once."

4) Not irrelevant at all. You cannot call the people involved in this incident war criminals until you prove that they actively intended to kill those civilians and that they did not simply have a tragic accident.

5) "Spreading terror" =/= "attacking morale," dipshit. Psychological Operations are one of the oldest parts of warfare, and they are also one of the safest parts -- they win fights without killing anybody.

6) It's much harder to prove that something didn't happen. I could search on the internet all day and never find any other reference to some of those attacks, for instance, and that would not prove them false, even though it would make the truth pretty fucking obvious. Besides, you're the accuser, and you love "burden of proof" so damn much. You've made a claim, then supported it with possibly the least trustworthy site on the internet related to the matter.

8/28/2005 6:31:31 PM

1. no, i believe you are missing the point that NATO did not take all reasonable steps to prevent unnecesary civilian casualties. AND THAT'S AN EXPLICIT VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, WHICH I HAVE QUOTED AND PROVEN. my god, man.

3. actually, you're right. I misspoke. experts concluded that according the video displayed by NATO over the 3 real seconds, the train had to have been traveling at least 300km/h. given that NATO acknowledged that the tape was sped up, and that a reasonable train in serbia would be going about 100km/h it's concluded by the same experts to be sped up at about 3x. note that these numbers aren't made up by me, rather video experts analyzing the situation.

Quote :

"If you make a mistake, especially one on this scale, you're not a war criminal no matter where you're from. "War criminal" is a serious term applying to certain specific cases, not something you can throw around willy-nilly to describe anyone who's responsible for any civilian's death, regardless of circumstances."

FINE, DON'T CALL THEM A WAR CRIMINAL. just fucking fulfill the letter of the law and charge them with violating the geneva conventions or international law or customary international, whichever you want, sugartits. THE POINT IS TO HOLD NATO ACCOUNTABLE FOR ITS ACTIONS. that's the damned point.

Quote :

"when you're flying a multimillion dollar aircraft at hundreds of miles an hour "

durr the pilot was flying the jet, the co-pilot the missile. which means he can focus all or most of his attention to his job of flying the missile and looking out for commuter trains on a fucking rail line in the middle of the day.

Quote :

"Let's see you pull it off without fucking up just once.""

that's the irrelevant cop-out, sorry if i didn't clarify.

Quote :

"You cannot call the people involved in this incident war criminals until you prove that they actively intended to kill those civilians and that they did not simply have a tragic accident."

im not sure, but i don't see why i can't call the pilot, who committed a crime by not following the geneva conventions on war, a war criminal? just because it's got a stigma attached doesn't mean you should be afraid apply it when necessary (unless, of course, it's an american, because according to us, we can't be held liable).

5. so, when the Serb people are afraid of being bombed by NATO and they put pressure on their officials, that's different than terrorizing the population? the Serb people were terrified of being bombed randomly.

6.

Quote :

"You've made a claim, then supported it with possibly the least trustworthy site on the internet related to the matter."

and how many sources of anything have you provided against me? so kindly shut the fuck up. i'm tired of your lame-ass garbage.

8/28/2005 11:11:01 PM

1) Look, let me spell it out for you: The alternative you provided to the pilot's action was not reasonable. Ergo, he did not have to do what you suggested in order to be following international law. This doesn't speak to your whole argument, but it does deflate your whole "program the coordinates and go in at night" thing.

3) You can't charge them with anything pertaining the Geneva Conventions if they didn't violate the damn thing. It doesn't concern itself with accidents, and so far you've gone -nowhere- towards proving that this incident was anything but an accident.

Quote :

"which means he can focus all or most of his attention to his job of flying the missile and looking out for commuter trains on a fucking rail line in the middle of the day."

I'm sure you haven't understated the complexity of the job at all

5) Nothing in the bombing campaign was designed to scare civilians. Impress them, maybe. Terrorize them? No. If errant bombs hit civilians and scared them, well, OK, that's not our fault. And if a bombing targeted at something other than civilians (say, power) and that applied pressure on civilians as a side effect, well all the better.

6) When people argue with salisburyboy, do they waste time digging up evidence to go against his insane rantings? No, because it's a waste of time, just like refuting each claim made by a radical Serbian website.

8/28/2005 11:51:03 PM

1. according to you:
it is unreasonable to not fire on a bridge that is clearly known and seen to be filled with civilians in cars and on foot.
it is also unreasonable to use satellite guided munitions at night.
it is unreasonable to abort a missile attack when a commuter train can be seen to intercept the missile.
it is unreasonable to not fire a second missile at a bridge that is known and seen to have several train cars on it to prevent anymore civilian loss of life.

3. it's their fucking job to do this shit AND MORE at the same time. pilots and co-pilots are some of the most coordinated people on this planet. WOULD YOU LIKE A WEBSITE THAT YOU WON'T READ TO BACK THAT UP SCIENTIFICALLY?

5. backpedal all day.

6. one, you haven't even discredited one of my sources. not ONE of the long-ass list i posted.

8/29/2005 12:53:21 AM

1) You have mischaracterized my argument in every facet here.

a) It is unreasonable to remove infrastructure from the list of acceptable targets because it is used by civilians. Militaries often use the roads and railroads as ordinary people, and these conduits are essential targets for an attacker seeking to destroy the enemy's mobility.
b) It is unreasonable to use satellite-guided munitions to hit something like a railroad bridge regardless of the time of day, because you won't hit the bloody thing.
c) WTF? You think you can just make missiles stop in midair at the last second?
d) It is unreasonable to prohibit attacks on viable targets just because there are civilians in the vicinity; unless they are clearly in harms way (which you've yet to demonstrate they were in this case), you can shoot near civilians all day long.

3) Nobody messes up at their job? Better put, there's anybody who doesn't sometimes mess up at their job?

5) Backpedal my ass. For something to be a terror bombing, it has to be aimed at civilians physically and at instilling terror figuratively. Nothing NATO did meets either qualification.

6) How much time do you expect me to put into this website?

Tomorrow if I feel energetic I'll dig up an obscure source that isn't necessarily falsifiable with the information available to us on the internet and use it against you in a debate, k?

8/29/2005 2:41:38 AM

1.
a. you answered this for me already :

Quote :

"It is unreasonable to prohibit attacks on viable targets just because there are civilians in the vicinity; unless they are clearly in harms way (which you've yet to demonstrate they were in this case)"

You're absolutely correct, those civilians that were on a traffic choked bridge weren't in harm's way when the pilots launched missilies AT THE BRIDGE.

b.

Quote :

"The precision of these weapons is dependent both on the precision of the measurement system used for location determination and the precision in setting the coordinates of the target. The latter critically depends on intelligence information, not all of which is accurate. However, if the targeting information is accurate, satellite-guided weapons are significantly more likely to achieve a successful strike in any given weather conditions than any other type of precision-guided munition."

defined by wikipedia.
c. steer them into the river is what i mean by abort.
d. how is targeting a bridge with injured civilians on it reasonable?

3. well guess what, when normal people mess up at their job, like forgetting TPS reports, people don't end up dead. And the office worker that fucks up anything major most assuredly is punished for fucking up, even though we all do. DOUBLE STANDARD?

5.

Quote :

" We cut off their power and water in order to ... get the population to throw out Milosevic."

Actively targeting the civilian population? hell, you said it yourself. Purposefully and willfully harming the civilian population that has nothing to do with the military operations

Article 54: Protection of Objects Indispensable to the Survival of the Civilian Population

Quote :

"It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive. "

6. well, it's only fair.

[Edited on August 29, 2005 at 1:00 PM. Reason : adverb]

8/29/2005 12:58:54 PM

1) a) Traffic-choked? Are we still talking about the fucking train?

b) I like how you only bolded the part that made you look right, and not the part about intelligence accuracy. Do you think intelligence about this sort of thing is generally accurate to within six feet in a three-dimensional environment?

c) He said he saw it at the last second, did he not? Not enough time.

d) As long as he wasn't targeting the injured civilians, how was it unreasonable? Yes, it may have hampered aid, assuming of course the aid would have come from that direction. But I can also understand how that wouldn't have occured to the air crew in the few seconds.

And another thing: it has occured to me that the co-pilots in fighter aircraft, IIRC, are often navigators, not gunners/weapons operators.

3) I'm confident that this pilot heard about it later. Was he court martialled? Apparently not, and with good reason. Look, I hate to say it, but given the circumstances his fuck up was not particularly major, even if the consequences may have been.

5) Inconveniencing the civilian population =/= harming them.

Article 54 and Article 14 seem almost identical until the last sentence. That strikes me as odd. But whatever. Once again, though, you've left unbolded an operant part of the article:

Quote :

"for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population"

8/29/2005 6:32:08 PM

1. actually im talking about the earlier arguments that apply. im sorry if you can't defend broad topics as well as specific.

b. because the first part is responsibility of NATO's intel. if it's done right, it is the BEST and MOST ACCURATE and PRECISE strike. that's why we should use it.

c. watch the video and tell me how long you can see the train before it hits the train. then multiply that number by 3.

d. http://www.nato.int/video/990413e.mpg he targets the source of the smoke for God's sake.
Few seconds, mind you that the 2nd missile was on the 2nd pass.

Quote :

"The F-15's co-pilot bombardier is a woman. Mr. Bowden, who had access to the communications between pilots, describes how the bombardier locates the truck caravan, and with her laser guidance system directs a 500-pound bomb into the lead truck."

http://www.unieurope.org/archives.php?dest=showA&Aid=392
you brought up a good argument, and i'm actively looking for more info about who controlled the missile.

3.

Quote :

"fuck up was not particularly major,"

but you are admitting that he fucked up and left 10 people dead and you agree that he shouldn't've been court-martialed at all? you gotta do something about accidents like this. yes, they happen, but hold those involved accountable for their actions. That is my point.

5. if we destroy water supply lines and power lines to the water supply what other purpose are we doing it for? so they can't wash their cars? No, when 90% of belgrade is without potable water, obviously the purpose was to prevent belgrade and her civilians from getting water.

8/29/2005 7:52:10 PM

I dont know what you guys are arguring about and I dont care. When you blow up a train it's better to hit it twice. Might as well ensure the passengers dont have to burn to death in my opinion.

8/29/2005 7:56:12 PM

1) That's fine, but show me an excerpt of what we're talking about. I'm sorry, but I physically lack the time to read the entirity of every link you put up here, and since you appear to have read them you know what the salient points are.

b) Right, but that's a big fucking "if." You have to break out some pretty goddamned specific equipment to get a coordinate that precise, the type that may not exist, may not be widely available even within NATO, and which may require people deployed on the ground like surveyors to acquire.

c) Can't get at the video.

d) He aimed at what appeared to be just past the end of the train. I don't know what kind of munitions we're dealing with, here, but it's entirely possible that such a hit would not kill the inhabitants of the train. At the very least he did not aim for the middle of it.

3) I don't think he should've been court-martialed, particularly. Sending people to prison for fuck-ups accomplishes nothing. Should he perhaps have no longer been a pilot, at least on certain types of missions? Maybe. I don't know the man's record.

5) Was the infrastructure destroyed only connected to the water source? Or did it have some other, potentially viable purpose?

8/30/2005 1:29:12 AM

I am far too drunk to respond lucidly at the moment

I promise I will, though, notwithstanding the headache this thread gives me every time it gets bttt'd

8/31/2005 2:18:20 AM

hey, my post got fucked up. i can't see it anymore.

all you do is post vagueries anyhow, so do us both a favor and stop bumping, then.

[Edited on August 31, 2005 at 2:22 AM. Reason : d]

8/31/2005 2:20:53 AM

Man, I'm trying so hard to be relatively civil, and all you can do is talk shit? That's low, man.

I will respond to every goddamn thing you post in this thread, or else you'll say, "OMF YOU CONCEDED DEFEAT I PWNED YOU!!1," or something along those lines.

I'm ready to let it die when you are, and not a moment sooner.

8/31/2005 2:25:38 AM

well, they say 3rd time's a charm.

1. at the top of this page, search for "pedestrian".

b. That is the point, to break out that equipment. break out those satellite maps and find the coordinates. if google earth can do that, why not NATO? JDAM's are cheap $20k because they are converted "dumb bombs". $40,000 versus civilian lives and possible pilot lives? with a 90% efficiency and a 5m target accuracy, 2 would most assuredly get the job done, night and day.

c. keep trying, nato's servers may be down. they have always worked for me.

d. A missile designed to destroy concrete and metal structures may not kill civilians inside a steel and aluminum train car? seriously now?

3. In the american court of law, people are sentenced for manslaughter all the time, regardless of it being an accident or not. considering this man killed 10 civilians "by accident" he should still be held accountable, just like you and i would be if we ran a stop sign and hit a city bus. an american pilot should be held to the same standards as every other american, period.

5. the lines connected the water supply were destroyed and the supply damaged by bombs.

8/31/2005 6:00:34 PM

Quote :

"an american pilot should be held to the same standards as every other american, period. "

Well, fire up the court system. I guess we'll start with the geriatrics from WWII first,

8/31/2005 6:48:12 PM

well, fuck, if they killed civilians needlessly, then i am all for it. so, let's go get those bombardiers over dresden!

liberty and justice for all*!

sometimes i forget that the active duty card is also a license to kill, anyone, it seems.

[Edited on August 31, 2005 at 9:08 PM. Reason : *all Americans.]

8/31/2005 9:06:24 PM

People die every day for stupid reasons. A lot of people die because of other people. That is just the way of the world. Genocidal Serbia has as much sympathy as Facist Germany. The worlds a bitch. "Innocent" people die every day, get over it. Americans still kill themselves at higher rates each day driving down a highway then in a warzone. I shed no tears for Serbia and their ethnic cleansing society.

[Edited on August 31, 2005 at 9:13 PM. Reason : .]

8/31/2005 9:12:48 PM

1) The article doesn't go into much detail that I could see about, say, whether the pilot had any way of knowing the bridge was full.

b) I'm saying that the equipment is not suitable for this task. In order to hit a bridge coordinates have to be accurate within a very small margin. Our coordinates are not that. Google Earth can't accurately tell you where something is within six feet, I'm sorry. If the munition itself has a 5 meter target accuracy on top of whatever might be wrong with our coordinates, you will not hit a bridge. I would suspect that a camera-guided bomb is by far the most practicable way of taking out such a narrow target without just carpet-bombing it.

c) Got it at last, and I had to watch it several times before I recognized the train as such before the very last second.

d) Munitions can be designed to distribute damage any number of ways.

3) I suppose it had previously occured to you that war operates under rather different laws than civilian life, right? He was doing his job, doing what he was ordered to do, and until the possibly questionable second pass he was operating well within the bounds of the Geneva Conventions and our own regulations on how to conduct warfare. Someone who runs a stop sign and hits something is far more negligent than this pilot. A train went in front of his missile. Remove the stop sign and your analogy works, but the manslaughter thing probably goes out the window, too.

5) You haven't answered my question.

8/31/2005 9:27:04 PM

1.

Quote :

"Nato is understood to have struck at 1pm local time (1100GMT) on Sunday, Tanjug said the area would have been crowded with people attending the town market."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/356580.stm

b. The most accurate guidance system doesn't mean anything to you, does it? That's the point about google earth. if commercial business have access to imagery that good, imagine what the US is capable of! you're just refusing to listen to anything i say.

c. because after the pilot just struck the train car with a missile, something OTHER than the train is going to be pouring out smoke THAT much??? If i know the train is on fire because i just put it on fire, then i'm not going to launch another missile to the source of smoke (read: train).

stop being obtuse.

d. all designed to explode in some manner. what kind of munitions would NOT kill people in a train struck by them?
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR700182000?open&of=ENG-390

Quote :

"Further questions about this attack were raised in the New York Times on 14 April, which reported that while NATO officials had refused to name the type of weapon or aircraft involved, officials in Washington had said that the plane had been an American F-15E, firing an AGM-130 bomb. General Clark had only referred to the aircraft pilot as being involved, but the F-15E carries a crew of two: the pilot and a weapons officer who controls the bombs. "

Quote :

"The AGM-130 carries the MK-84 2,000-pound Blast Fragmentation Warhead with high effectiveness against semi-hard area targets."

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/missiles/agm130/agm130.htm


3. if he breaks the geneva conventions at any time it still means that he broke the Geneva Conventions. it doesn't matter if he flew a perfect, legal record up until that time, he still fucked up, got 10 people killed, and needs to be held accountable.

5.

Quote :

"Other overnight Nato attacks included targets some 20km southwest of Belgrade: a chemical plant at Baric, a large power station at Obrenovac which serves the capital and large parts of the rest of Serbia, and a water purification station in the town of Makis. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/348287.stm

9/1/2005 9:40:57 PM

1) Fair enough, looking at it, but as usual you failed to quote several important parts, namely in this case the fact that the bridge in question was the last one linking two major regions of Serbia, meaning that it could well fall within the range of "reasonable" to hit the thing sooner rather than later, before more military items could be moved across.

b) You don't seem to understand what I'm saying. The guidance might be exceptionally accurate if the coordinates are spot on, which they never are. Google Earth's coordinates are not good enough. Yes, they give you very detailed numbers, but such does not mean that those numbers are accurate to within, say, the six or eight feet we're dealing with.

c) I was referring to the first missile strike.

d) It appeared to me that it struck right in front of the train, and from my passing familiarity with the range of munitions disposable to our military it is entirely plausible that there exists a bomb that would not kill civilians inside a train. I don't know that such were the munitions used. As a result, I ask you, oh wise sage of all these articles, how many people were killed by the second bomb?

3) It does matter, because it shows that he has a record of successfully avoiding civilian casualties and thereby makes it appear more likely that he did not intentionally target civilians.

5) If the NATO attack on the water purification plant was intentional, and if the plant was indeed indespensible (ie, could not easily have its functions replaced by other preexisting sources), that is unacceptable, but even that does not make the action in Serbia the one giant war crime you initially made it out to be.

9/2/2005 3:27:54 AM

1. "Sunday, May 30, 1999" they couldn't have destroyed it sooner than may 30th? 2 WHOLE MONTHS AFTER IT BEGAN.

b. you don't seem to understand that it is NATO's responsibility to get these coordinates accurately. The coordinates are coming from satellites, and the missiles are going to be directed by satellites, maybe even the SAME satellite. which means the satellites are going to be seeing the same damn thing.

you're so pathetic that you actually think i'm arguing to use Google Earth for our precision guided missiles. of course you realize that the public sector gets dual-use technology MUCH LATER that it was developed by the state. Imagine the precision and accuracy of an American military satellite that may or may not be classified.

c. this argument has already been defeated. read up.

d. i already told you the munitions used:

Quote :

"MK-84 2,000-pound Blast Fragmentation Warhead with high effectiveness against semi-hard area targets.""

3. i think the footage speaks for itself about his actions, not your speculations, which is your entire defense about everything.

5. but it sure as hell makes that individual action a war crime.

9/2/2005 9:25:17 AM

1) And so your track record of grossly oversimplifying military operations continues to be stellar.

b. I know you're not saying we should use Google Earth to guide missiles, but you are saying that it is some paragon of precision, and without any backing to speak of you are concluding that the military's ability to get coordinates is many times better, as it would have to be. May or may not be classified? May or may not exist.

c) I'm not seeing it.

d) I know you told me what munitions Washington said we used. I asked you how many people died in the second attack.

3) Speculation's about all you and I have, since the footage is not some end-all encapsulator of the entire situation.

5) Mind you, from that source it's not apparent that the plant was intentionally targetted, and mind you that, as far as war crimes go, this one would be very minor, like a sniper defending himself with a .50 cal rifle.

9/2/2005 12:24:57 PM

you know something, you're just too fucking obstinate to argue with.

i'm done. i've proven my case time and time again, and you refuse to accept that NATO should be held accountable.

whatever, suit yourself.

9/2/2005 3:59:02 PM