Sorry, no. My political ideals are farther to the left than most of the policies Obama has been able to enact. What might he do without 100% opposition from the Republicans? But I won’t vote for the worse man, even though you ensure me my vote won’t count here in Texas.
How much did those Nader voters help Democrats “start doing the right thing”? How many more people died because Bush II weaseled his way into office?
US Drone Strike statistic based on research by a team of journalists of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism:
In my opinion, given the workability of other options, ratio of terrorist kills and civilians casualties is very acceptable for drone strikes. And as I wrote in other the thread, the world should actually be thanking the US for this world service.
Care to make some of this evidence known to the rest of us? Instead of, yknow, just asserting it?
I don’t see a statistic for “terrorists killed”.
You honestly think one in every two drone strikes killing a child is “very acceptable”?
what are you supposed to think of the people killed who are not categorized as civilians.
Given the workability of other options, a definite yes. Just imagine how much damage the approx 3000 taliban killed by drones would have caused if they were alive.
You’re “supposed” to think they’re terrorists - that’s the whole point of defining any adult male as a “militant” unless you have specific evidence to the contrary.
Don’t really need a 100% fool proof evidence. Even if you say ‘x’ percentage chance of the person being a militant, one should go for the kill in a war.
‘x’ should be sufficiently high which in my opinion it is, in case of a drone strike. Drones would be observing something suspicious on the ground or would be given the coordinates of taliban hideouts by spies on ground, dont you think? Or they would be bombing without a clue.
Hopefully more damage than we’ve actually caused by blowing up households and killing thousands of people. Because, if not, then we look pretty silly.
Of course, we have no idea how dangerous or culpable the non-civilians are that we’re killing.
Instead of hopefully, I would think almost certainly because we know what Taliban stand for, and read about their acts (beheadings, suicide attacks etc) on daily\weekly basis.
Need not have the absolute idea. A rough idea is good enough in a war.
Wow, haha
That they are currently uncategorised.
…or invent the personal shield a la Dune
That argument assumes that the drone attacks are making them weaker and not stronger. And that it’s the Taliban we are killing.
They are very far apart on a lot of issues. This isn’t one of them. The drone program was certainly controversial and it’s expanded a lot under Obama. I think there are a couple of different reasons: the public is used to the idea at this point; after almost 20 combined years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan people don’t want larger military commitments; there’s some evidence it’s been very effective (when the Taliban try to take whole regions hostage by saying they’ll block flu vaccination if the drones are not called off, that’s a good hint); and given the low cost of the drones to the U.S. it is probably politically difficult to oppose them.
Where?
Do you have a cite that it’s making them stronger?
No; but I didn’t say it was, although I wouldn’t be surprised. I was questioning the assumption that it was making them weaker.
With those kill numbers (assuming them to be true for the sake of argument) I don’t see the drones as being likely to do anything but create martyrs and anger the local populace into supporting them, while not doing anything but easily repairable damage to the organization.
I’ll clarify this: it’s not the UCAVs that are the problem. An Apache dropping an airstrike on first responders is just as much a war crime as a drone dropping an airstrike on first responders. The UCAVs just make it easier.
Or to put it another way: drones don’t kill people, CIA assassins kill people.
Seems a little hair splitting to me.
Like the outrage over Asian’s eating dogs. Like the dog cares whether it’s killed to eat or killed at the pound?
Kill people without putting US troops at risk, sounds like a war advancement to me. But in the end we’re still killing people so it’s somewhat hair splitting to me.
Indeed, there is no doubt that the people cheerleading for drones would not object to U.S. soldiers marching through Pakistani villages and killing the same number of civilians through gunshots to the face. This is a failing of humanity on the part of the Obama supporters and other drone fans, not a failure of the anti-drone argument, which focuses on the reality as it exists now (i.e., that the arbitrary murders are, in fact, being committed with drones).
I gave you a mod note about this kind of rhetoric in the other thread. Personal remarks don’t belong in this forum and this kind of over-the-top language is (at best) close to trolling.
This election is screwed, there are no real choices on issues like human rights and drone strikes. So what you do is, you vote for Obama, cause he’s not as bad as Romney (whose advisors have ALREADY come out in favor of re-instituting torture) then you start working on developing a viable progressive party to oppose the Dems because they are just Republican-lite now. If we want a choice we will have to make one, the Dems no longer represent a choice.