What do we think of drone warfare? I think the drones themselves are brilliant, we can kill our enemy whoever that maybe miles away with no risk to us. My problem however is how they're being used. Civilian life must be evaluated.
When we have lunitic muslim terrorist that kill men women and children in the world, drones are a good thing. If terrorist and pissant dictators swear off of terrorist attacks, we can keep our drones on the ground.
"Civilian life must be evaluated." Taxcutter asks: Like Bomber Command did? It's war, not law enforcement.
I just don't understand why people are so up in arms when they hear "drone strike", but see it as business as usual if we kill people using a coventional jet; it's pratically the same thing in terms of the result! In fact, drones are better because the piolets life is not in danger: he's sitting hundreds or thousands of miles away at a desk in front of a computer!
The public has been fooled into thinking drones are surgical, and takes the mess of innocent carnage out of the picture, when the opposite is true. I don't think civilian casualties will ever be taken out of the picture, but to sit there and pretend that civilian casualties from drones has no negative consequences make you oblivious to the facts that state other wise.
I just can't get past the irony of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who uses drones to carry out targeted assassinations. I am not saying I am against it... but the hypocrisy is quite amusing. I am with ya on the civilian thing. Civilian casualties must be avoided. Killing civilians just creates more terrorists.
I have a thread on drones in the military boards http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=329485 I think I agree that the issue is not the technology, but how the technology is used A. we are now bombing areas we otherwise would not/bombing nations we have not declared war on/we are carrying strikes with no authorization from congress, one of the legal loop holes is the fact that we're using members of the CIA to pilot these drones rather than uniformed members of the military issue B is the cost in civilians lives they cause, the US has a current policy that says that any military aged male killed in the "strike zone" of a drone is considered a military combatant until it can be proven otherwise... so they're basically guilty until proven innocent, but by that time they are already dead issue C is the blow back.. the people living in the areas of the drone strikes are developing a deeper hatred towards the west with each person killed by a drone... and for good reason, we'd be outraged if another country did this to us, many of these strikes exceed the civilian casualty rate (and child casaulty rate) of Sandy Hook the first drone strike authorized by Obama in Yemen killed over 40 civilians including 21 children and 14 women. 5 of the women were pregnant
when a Muslim kills men, women and children it's an act of a lunatic, when a drone kills men, women and children it's a "good thing" and for the record, it's the dictators who are maintaining the drone strikes in these countries, the Yemeni congress recently voted to end US drone strikes in their country.. but it's really just a symbolic vote, as the Yemeni president overrules all http://rt.com/news/yemen-parliament-bans-drones-294/ the people will only take so much before they retaliate against the US and their own government
Bingo! I think people just fear that word "drone". Images of Terminator esque robotics running around scares people.
Plus how many people actually knew that there is an "acceptable collateral damage" equation? I've been hearing a lot of people saying that no collateral damage is acceptable, however, this isn't true. In war we use big weapons and when we use big weapons collateral damage must be taken into account. Until we develop video game type Ion space lasers that can zap individual people then we will continue to have collateral damage. In the grand scheme of morality no collateral damage is acceptable. In real life and in war there is a certain amount of acceptable collateral damage when planning and executing combat operations. So yeah collateral damage may not be acceptable to YOU, but it is acceptable to the military to a certain extent. Just thought people should know.
Yes! Indeed! President Obama has "aggressively" supported drone strikes as a significant part of our country's counterterrorism efforts around the globe, just as his predecessor did. The campaign has been extraordinarily effective, targeting militants across Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and parts of Arica. This military weapon has "helped" cripple the Al-Qaeda "leadership." Many of us are "troubled" by the risk of civilian casualties and the largely secret rules by which drone controllers select and strike their targets. The secrecy around the drone program makes it difficult to judge how well the U.S. has done to avoid civilian casualties and select "appropriate" targets. But a Justice Department memo provides "confidence" about the legal "justification" for the deployment of drones. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel's memo dates back to 2010. It states that " . . . Targeting a member of an enemy force who poses an imminent threat of violent attack to the United States is . . . a lawful act of national self defense . . . " The memo restricts "targets" to " . . . a senior operational leader of Al-Qaeda or an associated force . . . " It requires that " . . . an informed, high-level . . . " American official determine that the "targeted terrorist poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States. It requires that officials determine that the "target" cannot be captured. Simply put --- This is the future of national defense --- more dependent on advanced technology and less dependent on risking "boots on the ground." This is critical to efforts to identify and respond to terrorist threats to the U.S. before an attack is put into operation. Let me leave you with the following thought --- Drones offer manty clear advantages over more conventional forces. They are more precise, limiting (though not eliminating) the collateral damage that results from aerial bombing and ground operations. They are relatively "cheap." And they bring no direct risk to American troops. Let's remember that in "war" politicians talk, while young men and women die.
