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U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

(www.reuters.com)
350 points tepidandroid | 5 comments | 19 Sep 19 16:51 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
1. amingilani ◴[20 Sep 19 11:58 UTC] No.21025640[source]▶
Related: Pakistan body count[0]. "Whether it is a suicide bombing or an attack by a flying drone, for me it's the same: a Pakistani got killed."

I posted this site a few years ago, but it didn't get attention, but I'm glad to see the community is finally outraged over drone strikes.

[0]: http://pakistanbodycount.org/

replies(1): >>21026147 #
2. waffle_ss ◴[20 Sep 19 12:56 UTC] No.21026147[source]▶
The site doesn’t differentiate between terrorists and civilians killed, so I don’t get the point? It’s not like Pakistan is running low on terrorists or the state intelligence service ISI isn’t sponsoring their activities.
replies(1): >>21026417 #
3. amingilani ◴[20 Sep 19 13:26 UTC] No.21026417[source]▶
> The site doesn’t differentiate between terrorists and civilians killed

It does[0].

> It’s not like Pakistan is running low on terrorists or the state intelligence service ISI isn’t sponsoring their activities.

I don't know how to respond to that, since there isn't a question in there, just a belligerent statement. I suppose the best way is to simply not engage.

[0]: http://pakistanbodycount.org/definitions.html

replies(1): >>21026682 #
4. waffle_ss ◴[20 Sep 19 13:55 UTC] No.21026682{3}[source]▶
I saw the definitions page but my point is about the tally number which seems to be conflating everything together[1] (adding dead terrorists into the tally), which I think is disingenuous.

Compared to, for example, https://www.iraqbodycount.org, which only counts civilian deaths (which I assume based on the name is the inspiration for this page).

[1]: http://pakistanbodycount.org/drone_attack.php

replies(1): >>21028030 #
5. amingilani ◴[20 Sep 19 15:50 UTC] No.21028030{4}[source]▶
True, and I don't know what the rationale behind their specific motivation is, but if I were to make a website, I'd do the same. That's not to say that they shouldn't be more transparent about their methodology. The truth of the matter is that there's very little known about the people that actually die in these strikes.

There is a fair amount of confusion on whether the deaths reported to be terrorists are actually terrorists. Some say they are not especially since the dead are never charged. There are also reports that the Pakistani military straight-up calls civilians terrorists[0] but these are heavily contested by the military[1] itself.

If you had a dataset which was heavily reported to be mislabelled, what would you do?

Personally, I'd do the same but perhaps add a better explanation.

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48139648

[1]: https://www.dawn.com/news/1486313