american drones - not so efficient

[bud]

Hey, we didn't go over there and blow up a couple of buildings with hijacked airliners.

you're absolutely right. they flew those planes for no reason and now we're the victims here. sorry women and children, i wish we weren't the victims, but we are.

i need mr. canada here to drive home the message.

[bud]

legal experts at stanford and new york university are obviously working for the terrorist PR department.

The expansive use of "double-tap" drone strikes is just one of a number of more recent phenomena in the covert war run by the US against violent Islamists that has been documented in a new report by legal experts at Stanford and New York University.

The product of nine months' research and more than 130 interviews, it is one of the most exhaustive attempts by academics to understand – and evaluate – Washington's drone wars. And their verdict is damning.

Throughout the 146-page report, which is released today, the authors condemn drone strikes for their ineffectiveness.

Despite assurances the attacks are "surgical", researchers found barely 2 per cent of their victims are known militants and that the idea that the strikes make the world a safer place for the US is "ambiguous at best."

Researchers added that traumatic effects of the strikes go far beyond fatalities, psychologically battering a population which lives under the daily threat of annihilation from the air, and ruining the local economy.

They conclude by calling on Washington completely to reassess its drone-strike programme or risk alienating the very people they hope to win over. They also observe that the strikes set worrying precedents for extra-judicial killings at a time when many nations are building up their unmanned weapon arsenals.

link

[Guest]

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?

One thing I hate about these types of forums is when people give up on actually discussing stuff and resort to "You don't have a clue what I'm talking about do you?"

I know exactly what you're talking about. You think that there are policies that excuse people flying aircraft into buildings. I don't.

[Guest]

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

No, you said drones killed more innocents than terrorists do. I said that wasn't the case.

[Guest]

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.

I think it's just intent. They want to kill them. We do it by accident.

[Guest]

you're absolutely right. they flew those planes for no reason and now we're the victims here. sorry women and children, i wish we weren't the victims, but we are.

i need mr. canada here to drive home the message.

Does the fact that they felt they had a reason justify the act?

What was the reason anyway?

[Guest Manny]

No, you said drones killed more innocents than terrorists do. I said that wasn't the case.

No, I never said drones specifically. You misunderstood. Go back and read it again.

However thread drift is normal around here. My comment about the lack of body counts, etc. was in response to TimG that civilian deaths are the stated goal of terrorists, implying that lack of intent to kill absolves us of the blame and responsibility.

[Guest Manny]

Does the fact that they felt they had a reason justify the act?

Not in my view, nor does the response to launch an all out war against a nation and its people, killing 100-1000 times more. A few sharp surgical strikes in a few pockets. And cut off the god damned money train to Pakistan, the same that is used to help them kill us.

... But we (actually US but it don't matter) are incapable of doing that, aren't we... follow the money. For reasons previously stated... they're a nuclear nation and its vital that they remain our "allies". At all costs, apparently.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Manny

[Guest]

No, I never said drones specifically. You misunderstood. Go back and read it again.

However thread drift is normal around here. My comment about the lack of body counts, etc. was in response to TimG that civilian deaths are the stated goal of terrorists, implying that lack of intent to kill absolves us of the blame and responsibility.

Yeah, that's true. I got the thread title mixed up with your post.

As to the lack of intent, I do believe it makes a difference(I think I said so on another thread about half an hour ago)

We can't not kill those who would try to kill us. It's unfortunate when innocents are killed, but to not carry out the action would leave people alive who then would go on to kill innocents themselves, so innocents are going to die regardless. They always do.

[kraychik]

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

More importantly, the responsibility for collateral damage lies with the terrorists themselves. The terrorists make a conscious choice to embed themselves with supposed civilians. If I have to make a choice between them and us, I'm going to choose them ten times out of ten. Permitting a terrorist to operate with impunity simply because he or she surrounds him or herself with so-called civilians is not an acceptable option. We cannot accept more victims on our side because our political leadership didn't have the courage make the difficult choice to liquidate the terrorists who use human shields.

[kraychik]

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.

What's unacceptable is that the world's foremost military power, America, is entrenched in conflict with a third-world backwater hellhole for over a decade. Why? Because the American political leadership, beginning with Bush Jr., didn't and still doesn't have the courage to do what's required, instead endlessly using "surgical strikes" that don't win the war. Get in there, beat them, force them to cease their hostilities or destroy their ability to wage war on us, and get out. Unfortunately, leftist politics are determining the method of prosecution of these wars, which is why they seem to be endless. The very "strategy" that you are in favour of is exactly why America and its allies are in this mess.

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

And you love them and cry crocodile tears for their dead, while Canadian soldiers were given ridiculous RoE which the enemy used to its advantage, and then were accused of being "war criminals" by the left via Richard Colvin and his NDP and Liberal allies.

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.

I propose a simpler objective: destroy the enemy's ability to wage war against us. They don't need to be Western, although that'd be ideal. That's too ambitious of an objective, though.

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.

Agreed.

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.

I think there's some truth to that, but until that happens we need to be vigilant. Muslims alone cannot win this ideological conflict.

[Moonlight Graham]

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?

If a foreign country ever blew up my innocent family with missiles or other means I would seriously consider joining some kind of military or terror group to seek retribution. It would make virtually anyone furious beyond belief. Amazing there haven't been more terror attacks from all across the world vs western countries over the last 50 years or so.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Moonlight Graham

[eyeball]

One thing I hate about these types of forums is when people give up on actually discussing stuff and resort to "You don't have a clue what I'm talking about do you?"

You're right I should have worded that differently. You don't think I have a clue.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

I have no doubt you do. The Freudian slips in so many of the statements you folks make belie the reality you know exists but refuse to acknowledge.

You think that there are policies that excuse people flying aircraft into buildings. I don't.

No, you think there are excuses for the policies that inspired so many to hate us so badly. I don't.

[Guest American Woman]

If a foreign country ever blew up my innocent family with missiles or other means like that I would seriously consider joining some kind of military or terror group to seek retribution.

What if your innocent family had been in the WTC? What would you have done then?

[Moonlight Graham]

What if your innocent family had been in the WTC? What would you have done then?

Join the military?

Actually in either drone strike or 9/11 I would probably have these initial reactions of rage, but eventually cooler heads would prevail & I'd remember that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

[Guest]

You're right I should have worded that differently. You don't think I have a clue.

I'm sure you have lots of clues.

I have no doubt you do. The Freudian slips in so many of the statements you folks make belie the reality you know exists but refuse to acknowledge.

Do you have any examples of the ones I have made? I could take them along to my sessions with my analyst.

No, you think there are excuses for the policies that inspired so many to hate us so badly. I don't.

Not so. I just think that if you don't agree with the policies, flying aircraft into buildings is not the correct way to register disapproval. I had no problem with Al Qaeda sailing a boat into the USS Cole as a response to US policies, just as I have no problem with the US dropping drones on anything in the Khyber Pass that looks like it is carrying an AK47.

[kraychik]

If a foreign country ever blew up my innocent family with missiles or other means I would seriously consider joining some kind of military or terror group to seek retribution. It would make virtually anyone furious beyond belief. Amazing there haven't been more terror attacks from all across the world vs western countries over the last 50 years or so.

Well said, Islamic terrorists have demonstrated incredible restraint in their completely understandable pursuit of revenge.

[kraychik]

What if your innocent family had been in the WTC? What would you have done then?

Moonlight Graham likely thinks that the WTC was staffed with "little Eichmanns" when it was attacked on 9/11.

[eyeball]

Not so. I just think that if you don't agree with the policies, flying aircraft into buildings is not the correct way to register disapproval.

It's probably not what I would have done either.

I had no problem with Al Qaeda sailing a boat into the USS Cole as a response to US policies, just as I have no problem with the US dropping drones on anything in the Khyber Pass that looks like it is carrying an AK47.

Al Qaeda had no problem hitting the west where they thought they could cause the greatest possible damage.

We should probably have a lot more problem with who we let our governments pick fights with and more to the point why they get picked in the first place. That's something we could do without any violence whatsoever.

[Guest American Woman]

It's probably not what I would have done either.

"Probably?" So you're not sure if you would have attacked and killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children? As you criticize everything the U.S./Canada/Western world does?

Al Qaeda had no problem hitting the west where they thought they could cause the greatest possible damage.

It's always easiest to cause the greatest damage when targeting and attacking unarmed men, women, and children out of the blue. Literally.

[Guest American Woman]

Join the military?

So you understand why we attacked in response. In fact, I bet you believe that "they had it coming/asked for it," right?

[eyeball]

"Probably?" So you're not sure if you would have attacked and killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children? As you criticize everything the U.S./Canada/Western world does?

Nope, not in light of what we've done.

It's always easiest to cause the greatest damage when targeting and attacking unarmed men, women, and children out of the blue. Literally.

It's even easier when we can contract this out to a puppet.

[Moonlight Graham]

So you understand why we attacked in response. In fact, I bet you believe that "they had it coming/asked for it," right?

It's understandable, but not necessarily morally correct. If US/NATO attacked out of revenge, that is completely wrong and immoral, although a natural knee-jerk reaction as I've just expressed.

A legit reason for attacking the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere following 9/11 is to a) maintain the security of the US & allies from further/similar attacks.

Yes al-Qaeda and those culpable were asking for it/had it coming or whatever. Also doesn't make it morally correct.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Moonlight Graham

[Guest American Woman]

It's understandable, but not necessarily morally correct. If US/NATO attacked out of revenge, that is completely wrong and immoral, although a natural knee-jerk reaction as I've just expressed.

What if they didn't react out of revenge? If an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind, turning the other cheek leaves only one side black and blue.

A legit reason for attacking the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere following 9/11 is to a) maintain the security of the US & allies from further/similar attacks.

Exactly.

[kraychik]

It's understandable, but not necessarily morally correct. If US/NATO attacked out of revenge, that is completely wrong and immoral, although a natural knee-jerk reaction as I've just expressed.

So you believe that natural human behaviour is wrong and immoral. This is unsurprising, coming from a leftist. This basic philosophical point of departure is form the foundation of your support for and justifications of massive government coercion of individuals: because human nature not only can be, but must be perfected. Truly frightening.

Edited October 1, 2012 by kraychik