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Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

nytimes.com

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Re: Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

#31

Post by JackFr »

spingsprong wrote: post #5
seren wrote: post #2

What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision a…

Sure, if by similar you mean completely different. If a group did attack a military convoy with a remote controlled IED, it wouldn't be an act of terrorism. Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians. A remote controlled IED isn't indiscriminate, and a military convoy isn't civilian.

Are you willing to hold Churchill and the RAF to the same standard?

Re: Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

#32

Post by dmix »

dragonwriter wrote: post #29

That's a silly conclusion, since the US has been engaged in essentially non-stop war since at least WWII (with a developing national security state based on that permanent war footing), most of which didn't involve drones. Drones certainly lower the political cost of war, but they aren't something that "risks" war without end, they are something developed and deployed in an environment where "war without end" was alr…

There is plenty of unique things about this new type of long-term warfare:

a) every operation is conducted in total secrecy

b) most of it is executed remotely, or occasionally via Special Forces commandos on the ground when drones can't get the job done

c) they are (apparently) based off of a 'kill-list', which is essentially an assassination list

This is very different than the decades of conventional warfare the US traditionally engaged in, using troops and engagements openly talked about to the public (even if it's after the fact).

It is only comparable to the CIA operations in latin america in the 1980s.

Re: Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

#33

Post by rational-future »

JackFr wrote: post #30
seren wrote: post #2

What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision a…

In particular the 2008 terrorist attack at the Taj hotel in Mumbai, wherein the attackers were directed by controllers in Pakistan via cell phone and VoIP always struck me as the horrifying equivalent of a terrorist poor man's drone.

The drones are taking poor man jobs.

Re: Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

#35

Post by rational-future »

eevilspock wrote: post #19
rbanffy wrote: post #3

Endless war is exactly what military contractors want. On an interesting digression, "War Without End" is a two-part Babylon 5 episode that won a Hugo award.

A good time to listen to or reread Eisenhower's 1961 speech warning of the Military-Industrial Complex. "Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast…

Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex in the speech draft.

Pretty much `they` have won and we - the 99% - have lost. Queue the downvotes ;)

Re: Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

#36

Post by kaybe »

lukifer wrote: post #23
seren wrote: post #2

What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision a…

I wish I could remember who made this comparison (I'm guessing it was Jeremy Scahill?), but I agree with the idea that the primary hallmark of terrorism is the feeling of utter powerlessness to respond or defend yourself, making drone warfare just as terrorizing as a suicide bomber. I remember when Maryland residents lived in constant fear of going outside for a few weeks in 2002, due to a pair of uncaught snipers [1…

I find the official phrase 'counter-terrorism' quite fitting in this context.

Re: Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

#37

Post by AJ007 »

seren wrote: post #2

What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision a…

In World War II bombings targeted civilians, and were designed in such a way to inflict firestorms and terror. By body count alone drones and IEDs are quite tame.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bombers-Bombed-Allied-1940-1945/dp...

Re: Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

#39

Post by sanderjd »

spingsprong wrote: post #5
seren wrote: post #2

What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision a…

Sure, if by similar you mean completely different. If a group did attack a military convoy with a remote controlled IED, it wouldn't be an act of terrorism. Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians. A remote controlled IED isn't indiscriminate, and a military convoy isn't civilian.

> Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.

Source? Debating the definitions of words is often silly, but I think it's worth pointing out that 1) the definition of "terrorism" isn't broadly agreed upon, and 2) the definition you're using is more narrow than peoples'. The definition that searching google gives is "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims", which drone attacks certainly fit into.

More generally, it seems that condemning vague things like "torture" and "terrorism" accomplishes very little, because people will simply use different definitions of the terms to skirt the condemnation. So we have to condemn specific things that are wrong, like waterboarding and drone strikes.

Re: Use of Drones for Killings Risks a War Without End

#40

Post by seren »

AJ007 wrote: post #37
seren wrote: post #2

What I find really odd is how similar a drone strike is to a terrorist attack. A military convoy is being attacked by a remotely controlled IED, you can retaliate by sending a drone to blow up some pre-defined target. Maybe it is a fitting weapon for the twenty-first century, to put back some symmetry in asymmetric wars. The next logical step is the use of drones to perform terrorist attacks. It is easy to envision a…

In World War II bombings targeted civilians, and were designed in such a way to inflict firestorms and terror. By body count alone drones and IEDs are quite tame. http://www.amazon.com/The-Bombers-Bombed-Allied-1940-1945/dp...

It is true that if you consider Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the situation has much improved since then.
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