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If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

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Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#51

Post by lmm »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #32
gaius wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably easier to get pilots to bomb civilians with a Playstation controller in what looks and feels like a video game, than an actual person present.

It's not a question of "ease". Military pilots take orders; COs tell them how high to jump, and that's what they do. Either they follow orders or they are relieved of duty (and possibly face court martial). Some drones are operated by a division of the CIA and are out of military control, however. This is probably the most worrisome aspect of the program. However, as long as 99% of their targets are bad guys, America…

> Military pilots take orders; COs tell them how high to jump, and that's what they do. Either they follow orders or they are relieved of duty (and possibly face court martial).

Even so, and despite all the training, some do refuse orders. They're also at least theoretically obliged to refuse illegal orders (i.e. war crimes), at least in my country.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#52

Post by viraptor »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #32
gaius wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably easier to get pilots to bomb civilians with a Playstation controller in what looks and feels like a video game, than an actual person present.

It's not a question of "ease". Military pilots take orders; COs tell them how high to jump, and that's what they do. Either they follow orders or they are relieved of duty (and possibly face court martial). Some drones are operated by a division of the CIA and are out of military control, however. This is probably the most worrisome aspect of the program. However, as long as 99% of their targets are bad guys, America…

> Military pilots take orders; COs tell them how high to jump, and that's what they do.

Do you really think that the disconnection doesn't have an effect on some level? Whether it's the number of people signing up at all, being ready for a mission, or actually following orders?

How many people would follow the order of shooting from a controlled plane to unsuspecting people in a convoy -vs- an order to take a knife and kill an unarmed not resisting person in front of them? The end result is the same. Giving them enough distance just makes it much much easier.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#53

Post by xradionut »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #5

Not all that surpising. As was made clear during the Snowden leaks the USG doesn't consider human beings who aren't US citizens to have the same rights as Americans.

It's not all US citizens. Only well-connected, wealthy US citizens have rights. The rest of the US citizens are semi-disposable like the rest of the world.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#54

Post by golergka »

Killah911 wrote: post #28
forktheif wrote: post #10

It continues to baffle me why the fact they're drones matter in the slightest. They're not autonomous, they're flown by pilots who just happen to not be sitting in the aircraft they're flying. Manned aircraft have killed huge groups of innocent civilians more than once, but apparently that's fine because the pilot was sitting in the aircraft.

It matters because it changes the fundamental nature of combat. If a pilot is in the plane you're risking an American life, not to mention a very expensive piece of equipment with numerous safety features etc. Now take away the risk to American life and lower the cost of the attack significantly, and viola, you've got a much itchier trigger finger now. If you've played MW3, which would you rather do, use the drone to…

Also,

> If you've played MW3

doesn't have "civilians" as a game mechanic (unlike Counter-Strike or a lot of arcade shooting games, for example), so the comparison doesn't really work.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#55

Post by threeseed »

gaius wrote: post #22
forktheif wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of dead from WW2 strategic bombing, disagree with you.

Wholly different scenario, fighting a real war against a tech-equivalent enemy.

Tens of millions of civilians died during the two wars.

Tech equivalency is a meaningless concept and it is completely stupid to apply it in particular to WW2 where the majority of civilians never asked or wanted a war to begin with.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#56

Post by Zigurd »

almost wrote: post #38
[deleted] wrote: post #36

[deleted]

I think it meant if an american drone strike hit an american wedding.

And that's where both the press and government seem to have a blind spot. Flying a drone autonomously for thousands of miles has been done in university-level projects, years ago. How long before some cheap drone launched from heck knows where drops a small explosive on a government building in the US? What will we do? Launch a global war, lashing out against an unknown assailant? Put drones over our skies to hunt unknown Bad Guy drones?

Drone warfare is the worst kind of undeclared war: It's highly prone to backlash, but so cheap it is irresistible to politicians and military leaders.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#57

Post by nraynaud »

And just to make drive a little bit the point home: there are quite a few people suspected of terrorism in the US, like one French spy who blew the rainbow warrior, quite a few people from Viña del Mar, US citizen who passed through ESMA in Bs As, probably a few assassins from the mossad etc. And if a pressure cooker is a weapon of mass destruction, I'm pretty sure a hellfire is, too.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#58

Post by zacinbusiness »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #46
zacinbusiness wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really good point, and I think that it come in the name "drone." These aircraft are NOT "drones." They do not perform menial labor and they are not "thoughtless." They do not perform automated attacks. These are units of force projection that the U.S. military uses as part of a psychological warfare campaign against citizens that it deems to be a threat (or, in other words, pretty much the entire planet).

I'm glad we can argue semantics while the world burns.

No I'm not arguing, my point is that the terminology is what makes people so comfortable with it. It's a lot easier to be angry about a pilot or a gunner accidentally killing someone than it is to get angry about a drone, because I think a lot of people believe that drones are autonomous craft that fly around without being piloted. It's in the name "drone."

I think that's why the U.S. military popularizes the term drone over "unmanned aircraft" which even then isn't true - it's a remotely manned aircraft.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#59

Post by bluedino »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #32
gaius wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably easier to get pilots to bomb civilians with a Playstation controller in what looks and feels like a video game, than an actual person present.

It's not a question of "ease". Military pilots take orders; COs tell them how high to jump, and that's what they do. Either they follow orders or they are relieved of duty (and possibly face court martial). Some drones are operated by a division of the CIA and are out of military control, however. This is probably the most worrisome aspect of the program. However, as long as 99% of their targets are bad guys, America…

>> It's not a question of "ease".

I think the previous commenter was speaking on the level of disconnect between a drone pilot and their intended targets. It's much, much easier for someone to go through with clicking a button and watching an explosion on a screen than it is to say, murder each of those people if they were in the same room.

Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet

#60

Post by ck2 »

I think it is time for a world-wide ban on armed drones, period.

Just like we have international treaties for other horrible things like mustard gas.

Do all the reconnaissance you can get away with. But I don't want a tired, overworked, morally disconnected 20-something sitting in a trailer somewhere in the US, pulling a trigger to kill unquantifiable targets anywhere in the world. Or any other country doing it to anyone else for that matter.

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