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I'm pretty peaceful, but surgical, targeted drone strikes against combatants that are currently a threat against civilians isn't exactly going to keep me up at

I'm pretty peaceful, but surgical, targeted drone strikes against combatants that are currently a threat against civilians isn't exactly going to keep me up at night. Edit: Yikes, the downvote brigade is swift. Here is what I'm saying: Compared to traditional war. Where we lose tens of thousands of people or more on both sides, targeted drone strikes are a net positive. I'm not for perpetual war in the middle east, but realistically speaking we can't just pull out everywhere and targeted drone strikes are better than conventional responses.

dforrestwilson1 10y ago
What civilians are they a threat against exactly?
- themartorana 10y ago
  At least 160 children through 2011. It's been a lot more time since then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_US_drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_US_dr...
cyberferret 10y ago
Does that mean you are 100% confident that these drone strikes are ONLY killing bad guys that deserve it? How many collateral deaths of innocent men, women and children do you consider OK before it begins to infringe on your peaceful sleep?
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  The Taliban keep women and children at their militant camps. We cannot stop fighting a war, cannot cripple our effectiveness, simply because the enemy has decided to put the innocent in harms way. The US military goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but at some point you must do what must be done.
  - megalodon 10y ago
    Ever wondered why they exist? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
    - 3pt14159 10y ago
      This is not the point. The point is not why they exist, or why we are at war. The point is that drones are better that stealth bombers. They are more targeted. Less civilians die. I agree, we should fix our diplomacy and hopefully we'll live in a world without drones one day. But in the mean time, fixing our prisons is more important.
      - dingaling 10y ago
        > They are more targeted. Less civilians die. Even "more targeted" would be sending in operatives to only kill those directly identified as combatants; no collateral damage at all to civilians, double-tap to the head and job done. Mossad used .22 pistols from point-blank distance for this purpose as their bullets posed no danger of exiting the skull and injuring bystanders. But the USA doesn't do that, at least not for run-of-the-mill bad-guys, apparently because they consider the life of a soldier-citizen more valuable that a non-citizen. That's what causes such distaste. One guy controlling a drone from Nevada is considered more important than some human-shield hostages in Pakistan.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        marcoperaza 10y ago
        Our people are and should be our priority. The duty of America is first and foremost to the American people. There is no duty to unnecessarily endanger your own people to avoid collateral damage, particularly when the enemy has chosen to bring non-combatants into their camps.
- 3pt14159 10y ago
  We don't live in a Utopia. I don't need to be 100% confident that drone strikes are ONLY killing 100% bad guys. Tens of millions of people died in WW2. The answer to stoping drone strikes is increasing diplomacy in the Middle East - not burying our head in the sand and banning drones from doing drone strikes against enemy combatants.
  - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
    This is an easy thing to say when it isn't your country being bombed by foreign powers.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
ska 10y ago
What about the rest of the drone strikes?
coldtea 10y ago
Yeah, and screw due process, rules of war, international treaties or even collateral victims.
- fixxer 10y ago
  Unfortunately, the opposition said that long before we did. Not saying I'm happy with our decisions regarding how to wage a war like this, but I can at least understand how we got to this place.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Unfortunately, the opposition said that long before we did. That no more an excuse than "we were following orders" has been.
    - fixxer 10y ago
      Nonsense. My statement relates to the realities of fighting a "war" against an ideology rather than a nation state, to which all those niceties (Geneva convention) were designed to accommodate. The system we have for fighting traditional wars does not apply to the shit we're dealing with. Bombs in Chelsea? Asshat stabbing spree in Minnesota? Geneva convention _that_.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        And my statement relates to the reality that the war is one-sided (a huge country or countries vs some fanatic goat herders with guns), and less about results and more about ensuring a continuous presence and state of affairs. Besides, it has killed much more innocent in foreign places that people or even soldiers have been killed on the "under defence" side. It's mostly oil, strategic interests, business as usual -- that were handed over a nice pretext that Bush took away and run with it.
        fixxer 10y ago
        If you had included Obama's continuation plus expansion of Bush era foreign policies, I might have taken your statement seriously.
jiiam 10y ago
Even in the case that the target of drone strikes were threats, often times these attacks lead to a number of civilian casualties that, I think, could be in no way justified.
- walshemj 10y ago
  As compared to the Blitz on Coventry or the Fire storms at Dresden? Or for example my fathers house being bombed in ww2 - they lived close to the biggest spitfire plant in the UK.
  - jiiam 10y ago
    I don't think I have the expertise to make the comparison to the historical events you cited, but I believe that, regardless of whether we consider those justified or not (I admit that I tend to say no, but would gladly listen to arguments made by expert supporting the opposite view, and in fact I am eager to). Another case we can talk about was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here the number of civilians killed is so outrageous that I don't know if there is any sensible way of condoning it. An attempt to give an analysis would be asking: what was the good reason to do it? I think that the answer to that question in the case of the drone strikes is not satisfactory.
gldalmaso 10y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/20/us-drones-strikes-target-rescuers-pakistan https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/20/us-dro... http://www.newsweek.com/wedding-became-funeral-us-still-silent-one-year-deadly-yemen-drone-strike-291403 http://www.newsweek.com/wedding-became-funeral-us-still-sile... https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terror-drones-cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-funerals/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terro...
belorn 10y ago
Wonder how well one would sleep having drones flying above ones head, with say 99% accuracy in targeting and evidence based missions (both which I suspect has much higher failure rates than 1%). That is to say, how peaceful is it to put Damocles swords over people? Maybe it is similar mine laying which was also promoted as a form of peacekeeping, done by neutral countries during world war 2. Surgical, targeted activity, against combatants that are currently a threat against civilians. Just don't mind how it effected fishermen when 1% of those mines got loose and started to drift.
berdario 10y ago
The problem is that these strikes aren't targeted very well http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-am-on-the-us-kill-list-this-is-what-it-feels-like-to-be-hunted-by-drones-a6980141.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-am-on-the-us-kill-list... https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147?0p19G=e https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone...

dforrestwilson1 10y ago

What civilians are they a threat against exactly?

themartorana 10y ago
At least 160 children through 2011. It's been a lot more time since then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_US_drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_US_dr...

cyberferret 10y ago

Does that mean you are 100% confident that these drone strikes are ONLY killing bad guys that deserve it? How many collateral deaths of innocent men, women and children do you consider OK before it begins to infringe on your peaceful sleep?

marcoperaza 10y ago
The Taliban keep women and children at their militant camps. We cannot stop fighting a war, cannot cripple our effectiveness, simply because the enemy has decided to put the innocent in harms way. The US military goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but at some point you must do what must be done.
- megalodon 10y ago
  Ever wondered why they exist? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
  - 3pt14159 10y ago
    This is not the point. The point is not why they exist, or why we are at war. The point is that drones are better that stealth bombers. They are more targeted. Less civilians die. I agree, we should fix our diplomacy and hopefully we'll live in a world without drones one day. But in the mean time, fixing our prisons is more important.
    - dingaling 10y ago
      > They are more targeted. Less civilians die. Even "more targeted" would be sending in operatives to only kill those directly identified as combatants; no collateral damage at all to civilians, double-tap to the head and job done. Mossad used .22 pistols from point-blank distance for this purpose as their bullets posed no danger of exiting the skull and injuring bystanders. But the USA doesn't do that, at least not for run-of-the-mill bad-guys, apparently because they consider the life of a soldier-citizen more valuable that a non-citizen. That's what causes such distaste. One guy controlling a drone from Nevada is considered more important than some human-shield hostages in Pakistan.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - marcoperaza 10y ago
        Our people are and should be our priority. The duty of America is first and foremost to the American people. There is no duty to unnecessarily endanger your own people to avoid collateral damage, particularly when the enemy has chosen to bring non-combatants into their camps.
3pt14159 10y ago
We don't live in a Utopia. I don't need to be 100% confident that drone strikes are ONLY killing 100% bad guys. Tens of millions of people died in WW2. The answer to stoping drone strikes is increasing diplomacy in the Middle East - not burying our head in the sand and banning drones from doing drone strikes against enemy combatants.
- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  This is an easy thing to say when it isn't your country being bombed by foreign powers.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

ska 10y ago

What about the rest of the drone strikes?

coldtea 10y ago

Yeah, and screw due process, rules of war, international treaties or even collateral victims.

fixxer 10y ago
Unfortunately, the opposition said that long before we did. Not saying I'm happy with our decisions regarding how to wage a war like this, but I can at least understand how we got to this place.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Unfortunately, the opposition said that long before we did. That no more an excuse than "we were following orders" has been.
  - fixxer 10y ago
    Nonsense. My statement relates to the realities of fighting a "war" against an ideology rather than a nation state, to which all those niceties (Geneva convention) were designed to accommodate. The system we have for fighting traditional wars does not apply to the shit we're dealing with. Bombs in Chelsea? Asshat stabbing spree in Minnesota? Geneva convention _that_.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      And my statement relates to the reality that the war is one-sided (a huge country or countries vs some fanatic goat herders with guns), and less about results and more about ensuring a continuous presence and state of affairs. Besides, it has killed much more innocent in foreign places that people or even soldiers have been killed on the "under defence" side. It's mostly oil, strategic interests, business as usual -- that were handed over a nice pretext that Bush took away and run with it.
      - fixxer 10y ago
        If you had included Obama's continuation plus expansion of Bush era foreign policies, I might have taken your statement seriously.

jiiam 10y ago

Even in the case that the target of drone strikes were threats, often times these attacks lead to a number of civilian casualties that, I think, could be in no way justified.

walshemj 10y ago
As compared to the Blitz on Coventry or the Fire storms at Dresden? Or for example my fathers house being bombed in ww2 - they lived close to the biggest spitfire plant in the UK.
- jiiam 10y ago
  I don't think I have the expertise to make the comparison to the historical events you cited, but I believe that, regardless of whether we consider those justified or not (I admit that I tend to say no, but would gladly listen to arguments made by expert supporting the opposite view, and in fact I am eager to). Another case we can talk about was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here the number of civilians killed is so outrageous that I don't know if there is any sensible way of condoning it. An attempt to give an analysis would be asking: what was the good reason to do it? I think that the answer to that question in the case of the drone strikes is not satisfactory.

gldalmaso 10y ago

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/20/us-drones-strikes-target-rescuers-pakistan https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/20/us-dro... http://www.newsweek.com/wedding-became-funeral-us-still-silent-one-year-deadly-yemen-drone-strike-291403 http://www.newsweek.com/wedding-became-funeral-us-still-sile... https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terror-drones-cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-funerals/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terro...

belorn 10y ago

Wonder how well one would sleep having drones flying above ones head, with say 99% accuracy in targeting and evidence based missions (both which I suspect has much higher failure rates than 1%). That is to say, how peaceful is it to put Damocles swords over people? Maybe it is similar mine laying which was also promoted as a form of peacekeeping, done by neutral countries during world war 2. Surgical, targeted activity, against combatants that are currently a threat against civilians. Just don't mind how it effected fishermen when 1% of those mines got loose and started to drift.

berdario 10y ago

The problem is that these strikes aren't targeted very well http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-am-on-the-us-kill-list-this-is-what-it-feels-like-to-be-hunted-by-drones-a6980141.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-am-on-the-us-kill-list... https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147?0p19G=e https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone...