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Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups [W:165]

Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
After two years in Iraq and 10 years in the military, I get collateral damage. I don't believe we should fire off a missle from a unmanned drone if we are not willing to take the same amount of precision as we did when we put a team on the ground to get Osama Bin Ladin.
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No one cares about such an ignorant terrorist apologist opinion. It's stupid.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

ecofarm said:
No one cares about such an ignorant terrorist apologist opinion. It's stupid.
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You lack so much integrity it hurts.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
You lack so much integrity it hurts.
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Too bad.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
After two years in Iraq and 10 years in the military, I get collateral damage. I don't believe we should fire off a missle from a unmanned drone if we are not willing to take the same amount of precision as we did when we put a team on the ground to get Osama Bin Ladin.
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Why? Using drones is safer for the US, and very nearly as effective.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

OldWorldOrder said:
Why? Using drones is safer for the US, and very nearly as effective.
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I understand that. It is the commitment to putting people on the ground to go after a valuable target. I feel it is too easy to fire a missile at a target and watch a video screen. Before they fire that missile they should be willing to put people on the ground for the target. Is it worth them the collateral damage if they wouldn't be willing to put people on the ground to do the mission?
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
I understand that. It is the commitment to putting people on the ground to go after a valuable target. I feel it is too easy to fire a missile at a target and watch a video screen. Before they fire that missile they should be willing to put people on the ground for the target. Is it worth them the collateral damage if they wouldn't be willing to put people on the ground to do the mission?
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People/states/organizations/whatever are going to go for what's "easy". It'd be harder and more fair for NATO forces to not use helicopters or up-armored Buffalos but they do, because it makes it easier. Do you think they shouldn't, just so they have to pause more before conducting an operation? You're basically proposing the same thing: hamstring military forces, in order to make it more difficult for them, so that their risk-reward analysis is skewed to being more conservative, conducting fewer missions.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

OldWorldOrder said:
People/states/organizations/whatever are going to go for what's "easy". It'd be harder and more fair for NATO forces to not use helicopters or up-armored Buffalos but they do, because it makes it easier. Do you think they shouldn't, just so they have to pause more before conducting an operation? You're basically proposing the same thing: hamstring military forces, in order to make it more difficult for them, so that their risk-reward analysis is skewed to being more conservative, conducting fewer missions.
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Nothing against easy. The weight of the decision is different. That is my point.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
Nothing against easy. The weight of the decision is different. That is my point.
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Easier things are easier to decide to do, of course. It's quite easy to have this conversation with you, but unless you live down the street from me, this same conversation would be virtually impossible 30 years ago, and we almost assuredly wouldn't have engaged it (*ring ring* "Hello, stranger, let's talk about current events").

The only way to make the decision a more arduous one to make is to make the operation harder.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

OldWorldOrder said:
Easier things are easier to decide to do, of course. It's quite easy to have this conversation with you, but unless you live down the street from me, this same conversation would be virtually impossible 30 years ago, and we almost assuredly wouldn't have engaged it (*ring ring* "Hello, stranger, let's talk about current events").

The only way to make the decision a more arduous one to make is to make the operation harder.
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There is human morality involved when attacking a target that may have innocents in the vicinity. That shouldn't get easier depending on the weapon of choice. To your analogy, morality doesn't come into play, just that technology is great and makes life better. I agree, technology is great and makes life better.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

OldWorldOrder said:
In the 20th century, led by Wilsonianism, many Westerners started to believe that the only acceptable purpose of war would be to stop further war. That's the mindset that many people go into state-sponsored violence embracing.

Other people see state-sponsored violence as what Clauswitz called "politics by other means": a way for nation-states to exert their influence and further their interests.

If both sides don't recognize these fundamental differences in how other people see things, lots of parts of these kinds of discussions are entirely fruitless.
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The two are inextricably linked. It is in our interests to prevent the spread of inter-state conflict and cement a liberal democratic world order.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
The troop surges have a direct effect on the ability of enemies to operate. How is his confusing? I brought Iraq in as a counter point.
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A counter point to what though? This was a conversation about drone strikes. Please elaborate.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
I don't believe we should fire off a missle from a unmanned drone if we are not willing to take the same amount of precision as we did when we put a team on the ground to get Osama Bin Ladin.
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Why must we subject ourselves to such defeating and punishing standards? The alternative to the course we have chartered is to surrender our aggressive pursuit of these enemies or to flood their regions with legions of American troops so we can adequately conduct the sorts of raids and operations you envision. This is foolish absolutism.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
I understand that. It is the commitment to putting people on the ground to go after a valuable target. I feel it is too easy to fire a missile at a target and watch a video screen. Before they fire that missile they should be willing to put people on the ground for the target. Is it worth them the collateral damage if they wouldn't be willing to put people on the ground to do the mission?
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The only time a military operation is valid is when we have to put one of our soldiers in harms way? That is morally indefensible. We don't put soldiers at risk of death so that you can salve your own conscience. Using this standard we might as well do away with missiles and air power altogether.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Northern Light said:
The only one waging war here is the United States. We started this "intervention", because our military-industrial complex demanded it. We are a warring nation whose government, economic expansion, and culture are all predicated upon conflict. If there's no conflict then the U.S. can't function in the world; our vast empire of bases in most countries and military treaties become redundant.

The entire domino effect of Muslim countries growing to hate us is because we started killing them first, not the other way around. We have more wars than ever right now because of the U.S. Even if we go back to the pre-text for all this war on terrorism, we find that 9/11 was caused by people that we trained.

If you want wars to end then you need to stop waging them. It's that simple. We weren't just targeted by terrorists in vacuo, we committed real atrocities against their societies over the course of decades, and we're STILL doing it now. The massive wars being fought right now were started by us. It's about our corporate interests, our natural resources, our socioeconomic way of life and colonization of other countries with our manifest destiny, and our ridiculous two-faced foreign policy. Don't delude yourself.

The war on terror and all our campaigns in the Middle East are based on damned lies.
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1. This war had nothing, and has nothing to do with the military industrial complex. Nor is this in any way predicated on the need to expand our market access or whatever pseudo world systems/marxist nonsense you are trying to put across.

2. What 'entire domino effect' what are you talking about? Nor were the 9/11 hijackers, or Osama Bin Laden, or their fighters trained, funded, or equipped by the United States.

3. Obviously you can choose to not fire a gun and then the gun won't be fired. In the adult world we recognize that there is more to the story than the mechanics of pulling the trigger. Why you pull the trigger, who it is being aimed at, and what the consequences for doing so are what matter. The same with war.

Try and claw your way out of the conspiratorial swamp of the internet, it'll do you some good.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Moderator's Warning:
There is a ton of baiting going on in this thread. It needs to stop now.

Stick to the topic, stop focusing on each other, and refrain from using baiting rhetoric or action will be taken
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Sherman123 said:
The only time a military operation is valid is when we have to put one of our soldiers in harms way? That is morally indefensible. We don't put soldiers at risk of death so that you can salve your own conscience. Using this standard we might as well do away with missiles and air power altogether.
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Clearly you didn't understand the point. We need apply the same consideration when making a drone strike as we would to putting troops on the ground to get the target.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Sherman123 said:
The two are inextricably linked. It is in our interests to prevent the spread of inter-state conflict and cement a liberal democratic world order.
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There's a linkage only in that one is subsumed by the other.

Unless you want to prevent interstate conflict and cement a liberal democratic world order even if it didn't bolster American influences.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
There is human morality involved when attacking a target that may have innocents in the vicinity. That shouldn't get easier depending on the weapon of choice. To your analogy, morality doesn't come into play, just that technology is great and makes life better. I agree, technology is great and makes life better.
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Everyone's morality is different. Just ask Jerry Falwell. Nations should only fall back on whatever their leader's particular version of 'morality' is as a very last measure. Now, of course you think your morality is the best, but you understand others might not agree, and that doesn't make them wrong. Best to keep morality altogether out of the equation as much as possible.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
We need apply the same consideration when making a drone strike as we would to putting troops on the ground to get the target.
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The US makes more considerations for civilians in a drone strike than in putting troops on the ground.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

OldWorldOrder said:
Everyone's morality is different. Just ask Jerry Falwell. Nations should only fall back on whatever their leader's particular version of 'morality' is as a very last measure. Now, of course you think your morality is the best, but you understand others might not agree, and that doesn't make them wrong. Best to keep morality altogether out of the equation as much as possible.
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This is a question of morality. If the question is what is the most cost effective lowest risk operation we can run, then it is drone strikes. But the topic of this thread is civilian deaths, and that the US is under reporting that number.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
Clearly you didn't understand the point. We need apply the same consideration when making a drone strike as we would to putting troops on the ground to get the target.
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Why? You haven't defended this point adequately. They are two entirely different scenarios. We do not factor an air strike in the same way that we factor the deployment of troops. They are not related.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

ecofarm said:
The US makes more considerations for civilians in a drone strike than in putting troops on the ground.
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You think that we make more considerations about civilians, when we look at a computer screen of satellite shots and listen to a guy on the ground saying the bad guy in the building then the OBL raid? Why not just drone strike OBL? We needed visual confirmation and nothing does a better job of that then boots on the ground.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
This is a question of morality. If the question is what is the most cost effective lowest risk operation we can run, then it is drone strikes. But the topic of this thread is civilian deaths, and that the US is under reporting that number.
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You are more likely to have civilian deaths in repeated ground operations than the use of precision delivered small warheads. Moreover if we wanted to engage in these operations on a consistent basis you would need to deploy troops permanently to staging areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan and utilize CAS. Bin Laden's compound was isolated and had only 4 armed males in the entire facility. It is an outlier not the norm.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Sherman123 said:
Why? You haven't defended this point adequately. They are two entirely different scenarios. We do not factor an air strike in the same way that we factor the deployment of troops. They are not related.
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Because of the topic of this thread. Innocents on the ground.
 
Re: Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits - human rights groups say

Blue_State said:
You think that we make more considerations about civilians, when we look at a computer screen of satellite shots and listen to a guy on the ground saying the bad guy in the building then the OBL raid? Why not just drone strike OBL? We needed visual confirmation and nothing does a better job of that then boots on the ground.
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Drone strikes are often cancelled based on civilian considerations alone, ground operations not so much.
 
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