The redeeming quality is that it kills a lot of fuck heads that need to be killed.
The problem with the USA and war is that you never really warmed to the whole concept. Then you try to make yourself believe you go to war for all kinds of silly reasons, like democracy or so-called human rights, or whatnot, and when reality doesn’t quite measure up, the rest of the world has to listen to the endless gnashing of teeth and droning on about how awful horrible you think yourself are. As if you were one big nation of emos under God. How many innocent civilians do you think died in France’s recent military campaign in Mali? I don’t hear the French going on about how evil they are. I hear they’re pretty happy about the performance of their brand new Rafaele fighter plane and all the bombs it can carry. Not so much all the moaning. Perhaps you just want someone to hold your hand and tell you you’re not all bad, and yes you had an awful childhood, mother didn’t love you, - but meanwhile the rest of the world wish you’d shut the fuck up with all the self-blame, stick to the business at hand and get the job done, or else clear out at let those that don’t mind doing it without all the angst handle it.
I agree, the argument that the drone strikes violate the Procotol relating to Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts isn’t baseless, nor is it all that strong; it’s a hazy gray area.
It’s made especially difficult by the fact that calculations of ‘concrete and direct military advantage’ require information about the drone targets that is not public.
I argue, on balance, that the strikes are legal. Whether they are effective at preventing future terror attacks on the U.S., the stated aim of the AUMF, is much less clear.
The intelligence is worthless, the strikes are just a grade above random in terms of how often they hit anyone who is even plausibly a “militant,” I’ve already shown you mainstream newspaper sources about the staggering number of children and other civilians killed. The reasoning above – “I don’t believe your evidence about Obama killing civilians because Obama wouldn’t kill civilians” – reminds me of nothing more than the infamous “all of the racist things that Ron Paul said don’t count because Ron Paul isn’t a racist” defense. You can’t just keep arguing some essential character of your guy that you know because you have a mystic connection to his soul, in the face of actual evidence about his statements and behavior. The fact that Obamabots are so disconnected from reality that they actually get offended at the concept of facts is disconcerting on many levels, with perhaps the worst manifestation right now being how many people in South Asia are dying as a result and how little professed “leftists” care.