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Assassination Drones are OK or morally questionable?

Are spy/assassinatin drones morally acceptable?


  • Total voters
    75
  • Poll closed .
Yeah, you will notice that nowhere in there does it say "bombing". The vast majority of drones are used for collections, not kinetic targeting. And the reason I throw in pilots is because the use of planes for domestic collection is already widespread. But now that we are talking about moving from expensive planes and pilots to relatively cheaper drones who perform the same function, you seem to feel that this is a problem.

I'm more worried about the topic of the thread.
 
I'm more worried about the topic of the thread.

Is that your way of implicitly admitting that you jumped the gun by talking about domestic bombing?
 
Is that your way of implicitly admitting that you jumped the gun by talking about domestic bombing?

I may have jumped the gun, true that. But being off topic does sometimes throw a fellow.
 
3% hit rate???!!! I disbelieve. Please provide a link.

Pardon me, I was quoting the state from memory. I can't remember where I originally read it, so here is a figure from a study conducted by Stanford and NYU.

"[P]ublicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best. The strikes have certainly killed alleged combatants and disrupted armed actor networks. However, serious concerns about the efficacy and counter-productive nature of drone strikes have been raised. The number of “high-level” targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low—estimated at just 2%."

So, the hit rate of high level targets is actually lower. The point is that, as awful as Bush's foreign policy was, Obama's is actually worst - he is more of a warmonger than Bush ever was. Noam Chomsky, of all people, agrees with me.

He bombed Yemen and lied about it! And, he has drug us into even more wars and foreign occupations than Bush ever did (with plans to extend these ‘special operations forces’ into 60 to 75 more countries).

"Our government made a series of hasty decisions, in a poorly planned haphazard approach; too often we set those principles aside as luxuries we could no longer afford. Our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight. The decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for 'fighting terrorism' that was neither effective nor sustainable."– Barack Obama from a 2009 speech made in the Federal Archives.

In that same speech, literally sentences later, he proclaims new provisions he has added to the patriot act. Among these new provisions was something called “Prolonged Detention”, which is, essentially, preventative incarceration. No trial, no charges, no conviction, and no sentencing will be necessary to hold U.S. citizens. No bail will be posted and there is no limit to how long or for what reason you may be held. We expected this from Bush, but even he only applied this reasoning to non-citizens, outside of U.S. borders. Even he did not go this far.

He, like Bush, signed on to warrantless wiretapping, renditioning, the patriot act, prison abuse, detention without trial, violations of Habeus Corpus, and invasive airport security measures. He had this to say before not only extending the patriot act in length, but also breadth: "It's an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat."

And we actually waste time voting for these thugs.
 
That works well for citizens that are within reach of the FBI. What about citizens in hostile regions on foreign soil?

Well since they ain't here, it doesn't seem like it's that much of a concern. Let them bitch in a cave if that's what they want to do.
 
That's what I'm thinking about. The FBI is a strictly domestic agency. If a US citizen is (a terrorist and) in a foreign country, what are we supposed to do? Just say we're stuck, roll over, and give up?

What the f is some jackass in a foreign country going to do? Roll over and give up? No, but if he's not a threat then he's not a threat.

"OMG...that guy over there said anti-American things"
"Get him!"
"But he's over there"
"Quick, use the drone cause that guy way over there is apparently a threat even though he has no means to act out his crazy philosophy and honestly isn't much of a threat to us or our safety!"

Can't ignore the constitution just because it's convenient.
 
The number of “high-level” targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low—estimated at just 2%."

What qualifies as a "high level target", the top 2% of bad guys?
 
What the f is some jackass in a foreign country going to do? Roll over and give up? No, but if he's not a threat then he's not a threat.

"OMG...that guy over there said anti-American things"
"Get him!"
"But he's over there"
"Quick, use the drone cause that guy way over there is apparently a threat even though he has no means to act out his crazy philosophy and honestly isn't much of a threat to us or our safety!"

Can't ignore the constitution just because it's convenient.

You think drone strikes are conducted based on someone making anti-American comments? We'd be losing forum members left and right.
 
You think drone strikes are conducted based on someone making anti-American comments?

I think that they can be conducted for rather flimsy reasons. We went to war on lies and propaganda, is it not then reasonable to assume that we can use our drone planes on similar conditions?

American citizens are American citizens, regardless of where they are at. You may not assassinate them through any means less the pose an immediate risk to you or you obtain a letter of reprisal from Congress.
 
Who's a terrorist?
 
So, we bomb first base.

Apparently we can bomb whatever or whoever we want at any time we want; just gotta use the magic words.
 
Apparently we can bomb whatever or whoever we want at any time we want; just gotta use the magic words.

What's not a terrorist.
 
What's not a terrorist.

That's the problem, isn't it. There's no restriction, no check, no proof necessary. He's a terrorist. That's it, that's all. We've already assassinated our own citizens without trial for things of this nature, have we not? I think that's a problem.
 
What's a terrorist?
 
I don't like the use of violence outside of extreme circumstances, which very very little in the war on terror actually is. However, I recognize that drones are a marked improvement over invasions. I would rather we kill a few specific targets with drones than send thousands of soldiers overseas to invade any other countries. I'd rather we did neither, but drone strikes are clearly a lesser evil.
 
Pardon me, I was quoting the state from memory. I can't remember where I originally read it, so here is a figure from a study conducted by Stanford and NYU.

"[P]ublicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best. The strikes have certainly killed alleged combatants and disrupted armed actor networks. However, serious concerns about the efficacy and counter-productive nature of drone strikes have been raised. The number of “high-level” targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low—estimated at just 2%."

So, the hit rate of high level targets is actually lower. The point is that, as awful as Bush's foreign policy was, Obama's is actually worst - he is more of a warmonger than Bush ever was. Noam Chomsky, of all people, agrees with me.

Interesting article there. So the way this article tallies things is, they take the total casualties and then count only Al-Queda top leaders as hits. This presumes that there are only chiefs and no indians at all. What about the middle leaders? The lower leaders? The common soldier? The Taliban, in Pakistan? Oh yeah, they are treated as "civilians" for purpose of this calculation. It's through this "new math" that this astoundingly, unbelievably, low number is achieved.

Here is an alternative source, a non-military source from CNN, who is actually located in the region where strikes are occurring.

120703074500-bergen-drone-pakistan-story-top.jpg
Drones decimating Taliban in Pakistan - CNN.com

Not everyone agrees with this. A perfect record is hard to come by especially when targeting a group that specializes in the use of human shields. Here's a dissenting voice, arguing against drones, that STILL does not agree with the ridiculous hatchet job that you have linked (bold is mine).

Perfection is rare in life; in war, rarer still. Yet the Central Intelligence Agency says it has a yearlong perfect record of no civilian deaths from its campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan. We find that hard to believe.
[...]
According to The Times’s Scott Shane, the C.I.A. says that since May 2010 drones have killed more than 600 militants in Pakistan and not a single noncombatant. Since 2001, the totals are almost as striking: 2,000 militants, and 50 noncombatants.

A new report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism at City University in London tells a different story. It says that most of the 1,842 people killed in more than 230 strikes ordered by President Obama in Pakistan since 2008 were militants, but at least 218 may have been civilians. And while “civilian casualties do seem to have declined in the past year,” the bureau still found “credible evidence” of at least 45 noncombatants killed.
[...]
There is no question that the drone program has been successful, enabling the United States to disrupt Al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan’s lawless border region. It is true that the precision technology and American efforts have kept noncombatant deaths to a minimum. And in the remote region of North Waziristan, where most strikes occur, it is hard to find the truth. But no civilian casualties?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/the-cia-and-drone-strikes.html?_r=0

If you disagree with drones, then fine do so. But do so with useful, valid data.
 
Well since they ain't here, it doesn't seem like it's that much of a concern. Let them bitch in a cave if that's what they want to do.

The drone strike policy is reserved for targets that are deemed a threat, not cave-bitchers.
 
The drone strike policy is reserved for targets that are deemed a threat, not cave-bitchers.

I think the question for him and myself is if we can trust this criteria and those making these decisions. There is evidence among what little we know that we have on occasion gotten it wrong. I don't pretend we know how often, but that too is part of the problem.
 
The drone strike policy is reserved for targets that are deemed a threat, not cave-bitchers.

Well that's the crux yeah? How is some jackass in Iraq a threat to us? Perchance if he were here...or even Canada; maybe. But less he has access to intercontinental missiles, he ain't got ****.
 
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