List of children who have been killed by U.S. drones

[DogOnPorch]

Yeah I don't dispute it. I said that to show why people get upset when they find out their military is killing civilians. It challenges their view of good vs. bad.

On another level it's hard to disentangle what we've done. We, meaning everyone. We have to make concessions to our ideals , choose the lesser of evils. But only evils.

Oh thank goodness we have you to provide a moral compass.

[Guest Manny]

Oh thank goodness we have you to provide a moral compass.

NOO silly boy! I have my own sense of morality, same as everybody else.

Don't be thinkin me a preacher now. It wont help people like you anyway! ;0

[Guest Manny]

Oh thank goodness we have you to provide a moral compass.

Actually you're right, it is good I'm here ;0

[Argus]

Yeah I don't dispute it. I said that to show why people get upset when they find out their military is killing civilians. It challenges their view of good vs. bad.

Only if they're fools. You can't conduct widespread military operations in an area choked with civilians without some of those civilians dying. Hell, the military can't even prevent 'friendly fire' incidents on its own troops. But they do their best to minimize both.

On another level it's hard to disentangle what we've done. We, meaning everyone. We have to make concessions to our ideals , choose the lesser of evils. But only evils.

On a 'big picture' scale, I have few moral qualms about doing what is necessary to do to protect our society.

[Guest Manny]

Only if they're fools.

Or, they could just be young.

[GostHacked]

It's totally relevant. You don't honestly believe that the majority of those in terrorist organizations are "high level," do you?

Actually I don't believe that at all. But almost weekly we see a report in the news where the US claims they killed another 'high official' of some terrorist group.

It's not about the bravery of face to face conflict - it's about the most effective means of accomplishing the goal with the least amount of civilian causalities and military causalities on our side.

it's nothing more than a video game to the pilots now. So disconnected from the battlefield they have no real connection to the event. Provides them a nice comfort zone, kill people then be home in time for dinner with the wife and kids.

[Guest American Woman]

Actually I don't believe that at all. But almost weekly we see a report in the news where the US claims they killed another 'high official' of some terrorist group.

Wow. I have to wonder what news sources you read, because I sure don't see that anything even remotely close to "almost weekly."

Now back to the original point - since we now agree that a small percentage of the organization is "high level," it would make sense that only 2% of the terrorists killed by drones are "high level," meaning that the person who said it really has no point.

it's nothing more than a video game to the pilots now. So disconnected from the battlefield they have no real connection to the event. Provides them a nice comfort zone, kill people then be home in time for dinner with the wife and kids.

It would be so much better if they were killed too, is that it? - along with a whole helluva lot more civilians?

[Guest Manny]

it's nothing more than a video game to the pilots now. So disconnected from the battlefield they have no real connection to the event. Provides them a nice comfort zone, kill people then be home in time for dinner with the wife and kids.

I know that nothing is perfect in war, god forbid, but the issue I see significant with drones is that the "intell" is not as good. Boots on the ground are obviously far more risky than a drone, but boots on the ground have a much more immediate sense of what's going on, who's in the house they want to blow up.

In a situation like war, you have multiple groups vying for power in the outcome. They WILL spread false intell, in the hopes that the enemy will bite, will attack innocents. Or on the other hand, that someone they hate in a particular village gets killed by drones. That's the game.

[Guest American Woman]

Or, they could just be young.

Many young people know better - as many old people never learn.

[GostHacked]

Wow. I have to wonder what news sources you read, because I sure don't see that anything even remotely close to "almost weekly."

CNN, FOX, ABC MSNBC and others, they are in the other sections that many don't even go read.

Now back to the original point - since we now agree that a small percentage of the organization is "high level," it would make sense that only 2% of the terrorists killed by drones are "high level," meaning that the person who said it really has no point.

Not really, a high level one gets killed, and then someone else takes his place as the high terror official. Promotion happens there too as it does in the military.

It would be so much better if they were killed too, is that it? - along with a whole helluva lot more civilians?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTicIasmGwg

[Guest Manny]

Ha, Gosthacked, that makes me think of a quote. "The death of a single person is a tragedy. The death of millions, a statistic." I think it was a Stalin quote.

[bush_cheney2004]

....In a situation like war, you have multiple groups vying for power in the outcome. They WILL spread false intell, in the hopes that the enemy will bite, will attack innocents. Or on the other hand, that someone they hate in a particular village gets killed by drones. That's the game.

So what ? "We" used to bomb entire cities, and are still prepared to do so.

[Guest Manny]

So what ? "We" used to bomb entire cities, and are still prepared to do so.

Yup.

[DogOnPorch]

So what ? "We" used to bomb entire cities, and are still prepared to do so.

The US tried its best to avoid civilian casualties during WW2 in Europe. Too many guys named Antonelli, LeChance and Schwartz on that B-17 to be carpet bombing civilians in Europe. Japan...another story and exception. The Norden bomb-sight allowed accurate bombing from 20,000'+ in the daylight making hitting the factory and missing the houses possible. The British and Canadians on the other hand used night area bombing which...well...didn't give a rat's rear what was hit as long as the bombers dropped between the falling target markers. That's how Hamburg and Dresden etc burned to the ground. Ten thousand pound 'cookies' followed by ten pound incendiary bombs...not 500lb GP bombs.

[Topaz]

The wars of the past are just that wars of the past but the todays war are different. The group of people called the "terrorist" don't have air power for one thing. Can you imagine is the military forces in this theatre were equal? The west could have bombs dropping on their cities and killing millions of people and if the people of North America think it can't happen, I can see Russia, China and North Korea doing it down the road. attacking NA, especially the US, if the US keeps doing the things its doing in the Middle-East. Hopefully, with the US getting its oil from Canada, it will leave the Middle-East alone and concentrate on its 15 trillion debt.

[bush_cheney2004]

The wars of the past are just that wars of the past but the todays war are different.

No, they are pretty much the same. We even invented a new description for it...."asymmetric warfare".

The group of people called the "terrorist" don't have air power for one thing.

Boeing 767's and 757's did nicely.

I can see Russia, China and North Korea doing it down the road. attacking NA, especially the US, if the US keeps doing the things its doing in the Middle-East. Hopefully, with the US getting its oil from Canada, it will leave the Middle-East alone and concentrate on its 15 trillion debt.

You mean the U.S. can start bombing Canada instead ?

Edited January 26, 2013 by bush_cheney2004

[eyeball]

On a different note, do you think he actually believed flying those planes into the Towers would "destroy" them?

Whether he did or not, it's clear 9/11 was a crippling blow. In a lot of ways the "Tower" is still in the process of toppling over but it wasn't so much the event of 9/11 itself causing that as much as the reaction to it.

[eyeball]

To the Left in Canada, it's all Black and White. You're either with them, or you're evil incarnate, the same as Hitler.

I think it must be you who's colour blind. You do realize just how how archly conservative Bin Laden was don't you? That would make him a right-winger, like Hitler.

[DogOnPorch]

No, they are pretty much the same. We even invented a new description for it...."asymmetric warfare".

Xenophon wrote the book on that. Anabasis. Irregular tactics vs irregular forces.

Boeing 767's and 757's did nicely.

Hijackings have been a weapon of terror since Mr Arafat & crew saw their first passenger plane.

You mean the U.S. can start bombing Canada instead ?

Watch it...we have plenty of snowballs.

Edited January 27, 2013 by DogOnPorch

[WIP]

They clearly aren't. But the bad guys are deliberately targeting civilians and you all don't seem overly concerned with that.

You don't seem to get the point that the reason why there is a terrorism problem in the first place is because the U.S. and Europe have an empire problem!

[bush_cheney2004]

You don't seem to get the point that the reason why there is a terrorism problem in the first place is because the U.S. and Europe have an empire problem!

Yep...just ask the First Nations in Canada.

[Argus]

I think it must be you who's colour blind. You do realize just how how archly conservative Bin Laden was don't you? That would make him a right-winger, like Hitler.

You're making the same error so many on the right, particularly in the US, make of equating religious conservatism with political conservatism.

They are most definitely not the same thing.

[Argus]

You don't seem to get the point that the reason why there is a terrorism problem in the first place is because the U.S. and Europe have an empire problem!

The facts don't bear that out. The terrorism problem does not come from the nations which suffered most under colonialism, but those who suffered least.

As for the post-colonial era, there does not appear to be any link between those nations who are most interfered with (mostly in Africa and South/Central America) and those who spawn terrorists. In fact, the only link is religion. Islamic countries are the ones where terrorism arises.

[Shady]

I think it must be you who's colour blind. You do realize just how how archly conservative Bin Laden was don't you? That would make him a right-winger, like Hitler.

Yes, the national socialist german workers party were big right-wingers.

[WIP]

The facts don't bear that out. The terrorism problem does not come from the nations which suffered most under colonialism, but those who suffered least.

As for the post-colonial era, there does not appear to be any link between those nations who are most interfered with (mostly in Africa and South/Central America) and those who spawn terrorists. In fact, the only link is religion. Islamic countries are the ones where terrorism arises.

Just because we haven't had any Latin Americans respond to modern Neocolonialism by engaging in terrorist attacks in the U.S., and instead mostly jump on the tops of freight trains and riding into Mexico, with the eventual goal of crossing the U.S. border....does not mean that the anger, hostility and resentment of the U.S. (and Canada) is any less than it is in the Middle East! Most Arabs and non-Arab Muslims have responded to the imposition of banana republic dictators who hog most of the profits from oil and resource sales in exactly the same way: looking for opportunities to emigrate if possible, to somewhere that will offer a better life for themselves and their families.

I suspect now that a huge part of the Vatican's obsession with Revolution Theology and removing leftist priests and nuns was the same reason why the state authorities in the M.E. decided they better get control of the clerics and what's being said in the mosques over there: they were telling their people the truth about how their leaders assumed power, who was keeping them in power, and how much of the nation's wealth was being extracted and shipped out, with most of the profits going to foreign banks and corporations....with a few bribes to the dictator and his minions in the colony.

The first response to colonialism in the M.E. was also protests, uprisings and revolutions; but when it became clear that the U.S. was going to use the entire weight of its Navy and assorted military assets to maintain the flow of oil under terms that maximized extraction at lowest cost available....then, that's when we started seeing more desperate tactics used. Even in respects to terrorism, the first terrorist attacks and the vast majority, occur over there, against the proxy forces of Exxon/Mobil and BP, not directly against the Americans, who are usually too far removed to get at directly. Exception being in the early stages of the war in Iraq, and the Obama Escalation in Afghanistan, when these so called "Surge" strategies put U.S. troops right up close. Now that they are mostly locked away behind their green zones, the terrorist attacks are once again against the flunkies who act locally on their behalf.