3 ms·

> Didn't the USA carpet bomb many places in the Middle East with drones? The drone war's been horrible, but "carpet bomb" means a specific thing, so, no, the U

> Didn't the USA carpet bomb many places in the Middle East with drones? The drone war's been horrible, but "carpet bomb" means a specific thing, so, no, the USA did not do that [EDIT] To be clear, this isn't pedantry—that doesn't even figuratively describe what's gone on.

endisneigh 5y ago
Is this not carpet bombing? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-iraq-us-air-force-bombing-qanus-island-video-a9100526.html?amp https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-ir...
- brimble 5y ago
  1) Not drones. 2) I assume you brought up drones in particular because the drone war has raged, as you wrote, "all over" the Middle East, which is part of what's alarming about it. Iraq and maybe Syria have experienced US-led saturation bombing during the drone war (but not by drones). Countries subject primarily to the drone part of the war have not.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    1) fair enough. My mistake. And yeah your interpretation of my point is correct.
    - brimble 5y ago
      Cool. Again, I find the drone war more than a little worrisome, so we're probably more-or-less on the same "side" here, but drones have not, as far as I know, been used for this sort of "destroy an entire large area kinda indiscriminately" attack—not because they couldn't be, but because that's not the usual tool the US happens to use for that at this time, so if they did it it'd be with traditional aircraft (as in the linked article), and also because the drone war has, as far as I can tell, mostly not involved those sorts of strikes. Iraq is a big exception, but that's not because of the drone war—it's because of the ordinary war that the US waged there. The drone war has caused plenty of collateral damage regardless, of course. I'm just not sure characterizing it as carpet bombing is either accurate or helpful in pinpointing exactly what's uniquely bad about the drone war. In fact, I don't even think the people in charge of it are trying to cause widespread damage beyond their typically-very-limited targets—though lack of accountability ultimately is one of the bad things about it, along with normalizing that kind of extraterritorial violence in the first place, the everything-looks-like-a-nail factor (when all you've got is a Predator drone...), and so on.

endisneigh 5y ago

Is this not carpet bombing? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-iraq-us-air-force-bombing-qanus-island-video-a9100526.html?amp https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-ir...

brimble 5y ago
1) Not drones. 2) I assume you brought up drones in particular because the drone war has raged, as you wrote, "all over" the Middle East, which is part of what's alarming about it. Iraq and maybe Syria have experienced US-led saturation bombing during the drone war (but not by drones). Countries subject primarily to the drone part of the war have not.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  1) fair enough. My mistake. And yeah your interpretation of my point is correct.
  - brimble 5y ago
    Cool. Again, I find the drone war more than a little worrisome, so we're probably more-or-less on the same "side" here, but drones have not, as far as I know, been used for this sort of "destroy an entire large area kinda indiscriminately" attack—not because they couldn't be, but because that's not the usual tool the US happens to use for that at this time, so if they did it it'd be with traditional aircraft (as in the linked article), and also because the drone war has, as far as I can tell, mostly not involved those sorts of strikes. Iraq is a big exception, but that's not because of the drone war—it's because of the ordinary war that the US waged there. The drone war has caused plenty of collateral damage regardless, of course. I'm just not sure characterizing it as carpet bombing is either accurate or helpful in pinpointing exactly what's uniquely bad about the drone war. In fact, I don't even think the people in charge of it are trying to cause widespread damage beyond their typically-very-limited targets—though lack of accountability ultimately is one of the bad things about it, along with normalizing that kind of extraterritorial violence in the first place, the everything-looks-like-a-nail factor (when all you've got is a Predator drone...), and so on.