american drones - not so efficient

[bud]

if the deaths of innocent civilians matter to you, then this latest study is quite alarming:

Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today.

The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’.

And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene.

The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike.

link

are nobel peace prizes ever taken back?

[Mr.Canada]

It doesn't concern me. It's war. People die in war. They hate us anyways. I don't care.

[bud]

who are the terrorists again?

[Mr.Canada]

who are the terrorists again?

People die in war, that's a fact of life. They started it and we're going to finish it. If they didn't want to die they shouldn't support terrorists, offer a big $ reward for killing a guy who makes a cheap movie.

[DogOnPorch]

People die in war, that's a fact of life. They started it and we're going to finish it. If they didn't want to die they shouldn't support terrorists, offer a big $ reward for killing a guy who makes a cheap movie.

Also, the bulk of these strikes are in Waziristan where the term civilian is applied to the folks in the gun markets making weapons to kill Canadians and their allies. If any of us, including bud, were to be dropped into this area via parachute, we'd last only as long as until they found us. That would be civilians...

[bud]

People die in war, that's a fact of life. They started it and we're going to finish it. If they didn't want to die they shouldn't support terrorists, offer a big $ reward for killing a guy who makes a cheap movie.

you're an awesome character.

[Mr.Canada]

you're an awesome character.

Well I cannot support a nation that hides terrorists and offers to kill a citizen of a foreign nation for exercising free speech.

[Guest Manny]

War is the ultimate tragedy but I support the use of surgical strikes, rather than carpet bombing with "dumb" bombs of old. However, statistics like the one shown here in the OP are unacceptable, if true, and I'm sure we could do a lot better to identify the value of targets, and who else is in the vicinity that might be killed as so called co-lateral damage.

No wonder they hate us, and would skin us alive if we ever were dropped in to their village. Most normal human beings would.

The "war on terror" is different in that it has no precisely defined enemy. It's more of a war on a certain ideology. "Winning" would be defined as changing the ideology so that people in these regions become our allies, so that they no longer resist western influence. So that they bow down to us, to our values, capitalism, hedonism, consumption. We need to see girls in bikinis walking the streets of Baghdad.

Just kidding of course, but the point is it's the core western values, democracy and liberalism that goes against the very foundation of islamic belief.

Still, there are some pro-western countries where muslims have successfully made the "adjustment". The war is actually within Islam, more than anything else. It is Islam we are trying to change.

[Shady]

Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today.

That's because most of the time, these terrorist cowards, surround themselves with civilians, hoping it'll act as a human shield. Apparently they're not as eager to die as the people they have conduct their suicide missions.

Having said that, I do believe better care needs to be taken to avoid civilian deaths, even when a high value target becomes available. And I also agree that the Nobel prize Obama received before doing anything was an absolute joke, and only brings down the value of the award. But, it was all part of the first affirmative-action president program.

[TimG]

Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians

84% percent of statistics are just made up ;-)

Seriously though, I call BS on the number because I don't believe any outsider has any ability to determine who is a 'civilian' and the people who do have some idea also have a vested interested in inflating the number as much as possible in order to embarrass the US.

Edited September 30, 2012 by TimG

[Guest American Woman]

84% percent of statistics are just made up ;-)

Seriously though, I call BS on the number because I don't believe any outsider has any ability to determine who is a 'civilian' and the people who do have some idea also have a vested interested in inflating the number as much as possible in order to embarrass the US.

This is an informative OP about the report "Living Under Drones," which bud was referencing (excerpt):

Foust ... notes that the 130-person sample size for a country of 175 million “is just not representative. 130 respondents isn’t representative even of the 800,000 or so people in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the region of Pakistan where most drone strikes occur. Moreover, according to the report’s methodology section, there is no indication of how many respondents were actual victims of drone strikes…. The direct victims they interviewed were contacted initially by the non-profit advocacy group Foundation for Fundamental Rights, which is not a neutral observer (their explicit mission is to end the use of drones in Pakistan).”

Foust concluded that the “Living Under Drones” report “has some serious bias issues.

I don't think the report should be entirely dismissed, however; I think this is reasonable: The study ... urges policy makers to “rethink current targeted killing practices” based on evidence of the “damaging and counterproductive effects of current U.S. drone strike policies.” I think it's a good idea to re-evaluate any practices periodically to see if they are accomplishing/aiding the government's goals.

[Guest Manny]

How about when they bring the smoking burned bodies of women and children out of the village to a big city where everyone can see it. Would that be convincing enough?

Judging from the apologies issued by USA to the government of Afghanistan, somebody is sating sorry we killed your women and children. That should be justification enough to believe this is really happening.

[TimG]

Judging from the apologies issued by USA to the government of Afghanistan, somebody is sating sorry we killed your women and children. That should be justification enough to believe this is really happening.

No one is claiming that there are no civilian causalities. But the 50-to-1 ratio in the op is extremely suspect.

[Guest American Woman]

No one is claiming that there are no civilian causalities. But the 50-to-1 ratio in the op is extremely suspect.

Of course no one is claiming that; I doubt that there's ever been a war/conflict where there were no civilian casualties. Like you, though, I really question the '49 civilians killed for every combatant' claim. I would be curious, too, as to what the civilian/combatant ratio is for the other side.

Edited September 30, 2012 by American Woman

[TimG]

I would be curious, too, as to what the civilian/combatant ratio is for the other side.

Killing civilians IS the stated objective of terrorists.

[Guest American Woman]

Killing civilians IS the stated objective of terrorists.

Exactly. So it's curious as to why nothing is made of those statistics by those who are so concerned about civilians killed by the western world.

[Guest Manny]

Whether its the stated objective or not, and whether it's 50-1 or not, we are certainly killing far more civilians than the terrorists ever did. Actual numbers are not known. I recall US Gen. Schwartzkopf saying "We don't do body counts", which leaves the matter entirely open to debate.

[Guest]

Whether its the stated objective or not, and whether it's 50-1 or not, we are certainly killing far more civilians than the terrorists ever did. Actual numbers are not known. I recall US Gen. Schwartzkopf saying "We don't do body counts", which leaves the matter entirely open to debate.

Every day we hear of another 5, or 12, or 26 people killed by a suicide bomber somewhere in the middle east. I don't think we are killing far more civilians than that. That we kill some is unfortunate but unavoidable.

[dre]

Every day we hear of another 5, or 12, or 26 people killed by a suicide bomber somewhere in the middle east. I don't think we are killing far more civilians than that. That we kill some is unfortunate but unavoidable.

Its not unavoidable. If spent our "nation building" dollars here at home in Canada and the US i doubt we would have to kill civilians with drones. And we would have a hell of a lot more to show for it as well.

[Guest Manny]

Every day we hear of another 5, or 12, or 26 people killed by a suicide bomber somewhere in the middle east. I don't think we are killing far more civilians than that. That we kill some is unfortunate but unavoidable.

Best estimates is that tens, or even hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in the gulf war alone.

[Guest]

Best estimates is that tens, or even hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in the gulf war alone.

By drones? Isn't that what we were discussing?

[Guest]

Its not unavoidable. If spent our "nation building" dollars here at home in Canada and the US i doubt we would have to kill civilians with drones. And we would have a hell of a lot more to show for it as well.

Hey, we didn't go over there and blow up a couple of buildings with hijacked airliners. I'd much rather that hadn't happened, and all the money spent on making sure it doesn't happen again had gone towards the deficit and social programs, but what's one to do?

[eyeball]

Hey, we didn't go over there and blow up a couple of buildings with hijacked airliners. I'd much rather that hadn't happened, and all the money spent on making sure it doesn't happen again had gone towards the deficit and social programs, but what's one to do?

Hey, we could stop doing the sorts of things that inspire people to fly airliners into buildings.

You don't have a clue what I'm talking about do you?

[bud]

No one is claiming that there are no civilian causalities. But the 50-to-1 ratio in the op is extremely suspect.

based on what, it's suspect?

[Guest Manny]

By drones? Isn't that what we were discussing?

You were talking about suicide bombers. Did you just move the goal posts on me?