How about this: I don’t give a fuck if so-called (and likely indoctrinated) civilians die in an attempt to slay people that would otherwise be plotting the next 9/11? Or even a low-level terror attack against civilians in their locale?
Seriously: I don’t care. I don’t wish death upon these women and children that these d-bags surround themselves with, but drone strikes are the best options for American lives AND civilian lives in every -stan we are operating in where we cannot for political reasons have a troop presence. It’s been proven time and again that these nations without a strong national government harbor and allow these guys to not only exist but to flourish. To hell with them and their shallow, deathly desires.
I’m also not buying into the “b-b-but it makes us more enemies!” argument either. If we have good intel on them as terror operators of ANY stripe, fucking kill them. Kill them all. Their decision to surround themselves with innocents is THEIR fault, not ours.
I admire the honesty. Someone who happens to be born in the same country as you has a life that is much more valuable than some sheepherder or his children in some country that you can’t be bothered to know more than naming it -stan.
But, even beyond your ranking of the importance of lives based on geographical location, I find the idea that real, actual deaths are less important than hypothetical deaths in some future that may or may not even happen. If you can show me, with even a reasonable bit of surety, that these civilians are dying in order to stop a terrorist attack on American soil, I’d certainly be much more willing to be swayed to your side. But given the scarcity of actual leaders killed in these raids, and the inability of our enemies to actually successfully kill more Americans on American soil since 9/11, and I’m simply not buying the necessity of it all.
Again, I admire the honesty. Not sure about the conclusions though.
You know whose fault it really isn’t? The fucking dead innocents. They didn’t kill anyone, or plot to kill Americans, or think bad things about America, or happen to be a male of adult age in a bomb radius (MILITANT!), or drop bombs on themselves. Let’s not wash our hands of their deaths and pretend our dropping bombs on them is some kind of natural occurence without any agency making a decision.
So his data says a 16% collateral damage rate under Obama, a huge improvement over the 41% under Bush. I don’t know what the collateral rate is with ground troops when they take an area. I would assume that drone pilots don’t shoot people in revenge or out of anger though.
the problem with the stats is depending on which set you look at, you get pretty wildly disparate results.
the CMC (local Pakistani reporting) has a much MUCH higher reported civilian death rate than NAF or the BIJ.
the Post has a set of stats and NYU/Stanford have their own stats. so does the brookings institute.
meanwhile, the actual government–the CIA–isn’t giving any official information.
so it’s really hard to decide what is true or what’s not. i tend to believe the on-the-ground locals who are speaking with the families of actual dead people directly over the NAF. NAF is left-leaning and it makes sense they would under report anything making the administration look worse.
Many of the dead were seen to be wearing Aaron Rodgers jerseys, though. What, you didn’t believe Omni when he said he was an agent of the government and that he couldn’t talk about it?
Seriously though, I was being semi-hyperbolic. I don’t want innocent people to die. I don’t want bad guys that would blow up other innocents on a small or grand scale to live, either.
I do think that in the current climate that drone strikes, which are based off actionable intel, offer the best opportunity of all worlds (no troops committed, relative accuracy, minimal civilian deaths, impunity).
Except the intelligence is worthless an there’s lots of civilian deaths, which brings us back to “the only way to defend this is to keep repeating horseshit talking points that were long debunked.”
not getting into your previous post, but making claims about the veracity and legitimacy of the intelligence being used is purely speculative.
again, the CIA is hush-hush on all aspects of this matter, except for when they deliberately lie and say shit like collateral casualties are in the single digits.
most of your position seems to be summed up in the statement “i’m simply trusting that the government knows best and is doing what is best.”
Terr’s side of the argument can be summed up just as succinctly, but he is extremely ironic about it because he’ll turn away from that first time something happens he doesn’t like.
there’s nothing wrong with a blind faith in your government, but it’s dogmatic, and it certainly has nothing to do with what is actually happening in the real world.
No, I don’t trust the government. I don’t trust you either, especially when you bring into the discussion inflated numbers that you know are wrong.
What I do not accept is this silly idea that our military has spent multi-billions on development and maintenance of the remote drone systems, and uses them in order to hunt innocent civilians out there in hinterland.
also,i touched on this before, but i think people have a gross misconception about the accuracy of drones. a myopic point of view of a situation doesn’t account for bystanders. the Jaber case is exactly the point: they see the bad guys talking to (whoever) and consider the group “cohorts.”
as i said, video uplinks are limited by satellite capabilities–and these drones are able to literally outmanuever what the uplinks can sustain. so there are times they are flying blind. they do not know where outsiders are coming from, as they only monitor targets. they cannot account for external factors or elements outside the scope of the target.
for this reason, no commercial aircraft will EVER be drone-piloted remotely. the simple ability to turn your head and look over there and that-a-way then back at whatever you are focusing on is invaluable to the scope of what is actually happening in the situation.
…actually, just watch this. maybe someday drones will be much, much better than they are. but currently they are only marginally better than missiles.
i’m sorry, can you please repeat the direct quote, verbatim that you consider “me inflating numbers?”
…exactly how do you determine which stats are the most worth consideration?
how are you independently verifying which stat set is the one most accurate?
i simply repeated what some other investigator reported. i also gave links to every single other data set currently available.
…and *you *know that. you really wanted the case to be i just made it up, and you simply seized on a single point instead of the others i linked to and cited…because you really just wanted to call me on a lie. but since you know i didn’t, you can’t admit you were wrong in your assumption and have to keep trying to create some problem with it.
exactly what is your basis for dismissing the numbers? you clearly do not want to treat that particular dataset as potentially relevant because you simply dogmatically like the drone program. you don’t like it based on the rational facts or statistics, you just like it because you do. like how a person likes the color blue.
and if you don’t trust the government, what exactly are you basing your assumptions on? if you do not trust the government, why do you believe their low-civilian loss stats but not the on-the-scene-reports of actual people in the actual countries with actual family who they know, personally, and know their “terrorist” ties, and know how they died?
why do you presume they are lying but believe the government–who you already don’t trust? it sounds like the only thing you believe is what you like, and what you like isn’t based on any facts of the case or situation. only based on your totally decided disposition.
everything you just said is illogical and beyond the scope of rational thinking. if it’s not, show me the data you agree with, and show me how that data is trustworthy based on a government you cannot trust.
and “what you do not accept” is a strawman you just made up.
no one is claiming that is the goal of the drone program. we are merely pointing out it seems to be the by-product of the program.
…unless you count the funerals they blew up.
…or all the first-responders.
I showed upthread, repeatedly, that your “ten civilians killed for one militant” is a fantasy. I don’t care to do that again.
Because drones cost money. A LOT of money. Their ordnance costs money, their manufacture costs money, their maintenance costs money and their operation costs money. Billions. There is absolutely no reason for the US military to use these billion-dollar machines to go and hunt civilians.
The “actual people in actual countries” who are related to those who are killed are very interested for propaganda purposes to portray those killed as “innocent civilians”.
it’s a direct quote. is it the author’s fantasy?
…what bout other stats who say it’s 50-to-1?
do you realize the 10-to-1 isn’t even the worst-case-scenario statistic? there are even worse ones out there.
who ever said the goal was to hunt civilians?
repeated, you bring up that strawman because you cannot find any actual points to gain traction.
repeated, we tell you over and over it’s that TOO MANY COLLATERAL DEATHS ARE HAPPENING WITHOUT MUCH JUSTIFICATION.
re-read the copious amount of articles linked in this thread. the rules of war dictate collateral death needs to be proportionate to the value of the target. the CIA has been extremely secretive about how they determine their kill list and to that end have been even more secretive about the actual amount of danger these “bad guys” pose.
independent sources are providing relevant information, over and over, that tends to prove these targets are not even remotely valuable enough to warrant this kind of collateral damage.
so, for the billionth time, no one claims they are hunting civilians. we are arguing the value of the intended targets are disproportionate to the lives lost.
we are also arguing this is not the only solution, nor is it a choice between this or Captain America being shot in the face because we dropped him in the same hotzone. there are numerous examples of cases where we didn’t have to blow anyone up, we could have captured them and processed them. there is no explanations as to why we didn’t.
if you want to continue this debate, DEBATE THESE FACTS, NOT THE BULLSHIT ONES YOU STRAWMAN FROM THIN AIR TO MAKE YOURSELF FEEL LIKE YOU’RE RELEVANT.
give me some cites or examples that corroborate this theory.
…because i’m pretty sure that is just another dogmatic rationalization that makes you think it’s ok.
i think it’s the same mentality to you apply to black kids being shot for looking suspicious and how they probably just deserved it.
so far you have provided no veracity to why you believe what you do.
we get it: you simply love it when people you think ought to die get killed.
but until you provide a cite, some statistics or some other shred of credulity as to why you believe these drone strikes are optimal and the damage is proportionate to the target, be aware it’s still just dogma.
Just to be really finicky here, no one needs to provide statistics or cites as to why they have a personal belief. If someone believes that the rate of casualties is acceptable, that’s an individual value judgement.
For my part, I hold that part of the high rate of civilian casualties is due to the targets’ deliberately staying in areas where there are many civilians. We’ve seen this in the launch-sites of rockets from Gaza, and we see it with the targets of the drone strikes.
I don’t know which set of statistics is closest to correct, so I can’t say, at this point, whether I feel the civilian casualty rate is acceptable or not. Once I’m more confident of what it actually is, I’ll be better able to judge.
yeah, but that means you’re being honest in how you assess the situation. you correctly explain belief and because you do, it doesn’t step on what people like me might believe.
which is why i can’t really rail against anything you’ve said. but that is a far distant stance than XT or Terr, who claim the drone program is totally inside the boundaries of ethical, legal and constitutional action. they are not saying “i understand you believe it based on the reports and data you can glean.” they instead call me a liar because they missed the real stat then want to pretend the stat is irrelevant and not worth consideration without explaining any logical reasons as to why one stat is should be considered more honest than the next (other than “i believe middle eastern people are liars,” which is just more dogma).
you’re correct; there’s a lot of data. deciding what is right is difficult. my stance is if the worst of it is true, that’s crazy-bad. if the best of it’s true, there needs to be way, way more oversight and accountability to improve such things. and investigations and whatever else. instead we get CIA black-outs and extremely rare public statement on the policy. the whole ordeal is so clandestine in every way that we are kind of forced to just wonder about it all.
none of the data, not even the best-case stuff really justifies the action, as much as i understand it.
so far, i 've not seen any reputable or considerable data suggesting the high level of civilian death is based on the fact the bad guys are mobbing into innocent groups in some attempt to be sure needless lives are lost if they are pursued. maybe that is the case, but not even the CIA is claiming that so far. because i’m fairly certain that contradicts one of their weak, but at least written down, policy aspects. i think stating that was the case would illicit the response “then wait to strike them until they are more alone…”
again, there’s a great case in Yemen where locals could have apprehended the guy. all we had to do was say “go do that.”
so strikes are not the only solutions. just the easy one.
Yours and the ONE author you found that shares it with you.
Your claimed 10-to-1 ratio of civilians to militants does. In the areas in question, if your goal is to hunt civilians, you will get some militants as “collateral damage” - around 1 in 10.
