The drone war in Pakistan • Hacker News Board

Re: The drone war in Pakistan

#11

Post by rdtsc » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 12:13 AM UTC

cache87 wrote: post #3

"that mentality is what drives it all: if only we can get enough of these bastards, we’ll win the war" You would have thought they would have learned something from the last couple of failed invasions - you don't win a war with technology. You win it with troops on the ground. This is the Rumsfeld Doctrine in action, and again we'll see it fail.

> You would have thought they would have learned something from the last couple of failed invasions

There are multiple entities involved in the war campaign. Our country's military establishment, our country's military contractors, our citizens, our civilian government. The other country's civilians, military and goverments, Warisitan warlords.

Even on the same "side", a win for one entity doesn't necessarily mean a win for the others. The parties that are immediately controlling the war campaign win by prolonging the war. Imagine the billions spent on drone warfare, on training pilots, software, components, whole careers civilian and military and whole divisions of large corportations devoted to supplying and maintaining the "War on $X" (here $X is "Terror" but replace with "Drugs", "Communism" whatever).

Remember Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner from his visit to USS Abraham Lincoln during Iraq War is often criticized as the dumbest thing, since for the civilians and those not involved in the war directly it obviously wasn't accomplished. But it was accomplished for those involved in the war because it would ensure increased spending, activity, involvement and churn for years to come.

Going back to the story -- "if only we can get enough of these bastards, we’ll win the war". There is probably not a concerted rational effort to target civilians with the purpose of ensuring a steady future stream of extremism. But I think due to payoffs and contraints existent across the system, that is effectively what is happening. Everyone in the chain has no incentive to stop. They do what they do, everyone is "doing their job". People on the ground get bombed. Children see fathers, sisters, mothers, grandmothers blown to pieces, by drones. They vow to avenge their blood. Drone operators get reports of extremist activities, the do their job. Drones get old, wear out, those that make those, get orders for more drones. Etc.

Imagine a fantastic scenario. You are a CIA drone operator. You've been "flying" and blasting away goat herders for 10 years. That is all you know. You are good at it. That is your life. All of the sudden, all terorists are finished. They just pack up and go home. No more extremism. What does that mean for you? What's next? Go study Hungarian to hopefully get post as "a cultural attache" at the embassy there. Start cutting grass around Langley's HQ?

Re: The drone war in Pakistan

#12

Post by Evolved » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 12:39 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #11

cache87 wrote: post #3

"that mentality is what drives it all: if only we can get enough of these bastards, we’ll win the war" You would have thought they would have learned something from the last couple of failed invasions - you don't win a war with technology. You win it with troops on the ground. This is the Rumsfeld Doctrine in action, and again we'll see it fail.

> You would have thought they would have learned something from the last couple of failed invasions There are multiple entities involved in the war campaign. Our country's military establishment, our country's military contractors, our citizens, our civilian government. The other country's civilians, military and goverments, Warisitan warlords. Even on the same "side", a win for one entity doesn't necessarily mean a…

In short, you move more product by selling treatments than cures and it behooves you to maintain the illusion that the disease still exists and is worth fighting at any cost.

Re: The drone war in Pakistan

#13

Post by gizmo686 » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 2:12 AM UTC

cache87 wrote: post #3

"that mentality is what drives it all: if only we can get enough of these bastards, we’ll win the war" You would have thought they would have learned something from the last couple of failed invasions - you don't win a war with technology. You win it with troops on the ground. This is the Rumsfeld Doctrine in action, and again we'll see it fail.

>You win it with troops on the ground.

This approach has a long history of being insufficient when you are fighting against locals (unless you have a relatively specific tactical objective). You win this type of war by gaining popular support of the locals. This normally requires boots on the ground, but most of them should be work boots, not combat boots.

Re: The drone war in Pakistan

#14

Post by waps » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 8:00 AM UTC

gizmo686 wrote: post #13

cache87 wrote: post #3

"that mentality is what drives it all: if only we can get enough of these bastards, we’ll win the war" You would have thought they would have learned something from the last couple of failed invasions - you don't win a war with technology. You win it with troops on the ground. This is the Rumsfeld Doctrine in action, and again we'll see it fail.

>You win it with troops on the ground. This approach has a long history of being insufficient when you are fighting against locals (unless you have a relatively specific tactical objective). You win this type of war by gaining popular support of the locals. This normally requires boots on the ground, but most of them should be work boots, not combat boots.

Sadly that's only accurate if you're not massacring the locals using said troops. Ergo, it doesn't work for the US, but is working for China, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, ...

I would argue that you're entire premise is wrong. You assume only the US is doing the killing here. That these terror organisations are just the friends of the locals. In reality, terror has 2 legs, one of which the US supports and the other the US bombs. That won't work, and everybody realizes that. That's not what they're doing. Locals, especially mothers, are perfectly aware of what these terror organisations are trying to do and would like nothing better than keeping their kids and husbands away from them. Yet that's not happening. Why not ? Well ...

Terror organisations, like Hamas, ISIS, ..., mainly do "social" work. Unemployment benefits, scholarships, marriage subsidies (and arranging marriages in the first place, in islamic societies there's a huge need for this for obvious reasons), jobs, resolving conflicts, policing, food aid, child subsidies, ... They use the power they get through this to commit acts of terror, massacres and, if possible, invasions. In the case of Hamas, it's social work is subsidized by the UN, paid for mostly by the US (because most UN member states don't actually pay their dues).

Needless to say, these organisations need to be replaced. But they make it impossible to get to the local population, to offer them an alternative. You want an education and had the bad luck to be born in Gaza, Hamas can give it to you, no one else can. Needless to say, it comes with conditions. Getting married is the condition if you're lucky, getting a family member to ... if you're not. They are like the mafia, and will bomb anyone who tries to help locals outside of their system (they have bombed UN kindergartens, for instance).

In this way, the current islamic terror organisations are not all that different from their Soviet equivalents of 3-4 decades back. There is one company in Gaza : Hamas. There is one hospital in Gaza : Hamas. There is only one landlord in Gaza : Hamas (and nobody owns an apartment aside from Hamas leadership). There is one school in Gaza : Hamas. There is one university in Gaza : Hamas. There is one marriage organizer in Gaza : Hamas. There is one supermarket in Gaza : Hamas ... I don't know, but I imagine the situation is similar in Iraq and other places. They are mafias that are a state, effectively.

This is why the problem is so hard. You have to kill these organisations, prevent their functioning, and then offer an alternative to locals. This is what they're trying to do : kill off the top of these organisations. Give their lieutenants and middle management the chance to run away with the school money of half of Gaza, to give the UN a chance to open a fair school system without those conditions (for example).

More generally what needs to be done is to give the local population a real alternative for a life ("a career", plus a few things) other than the local terror organisation. If you have better options available, I am positive everybody is itching to hear them. Today we are seeing that these organisations are moving into and establishing colonies in large European cities (though at the moment their "net" is very leaky, but still tight enough to make them grow anyway). Literally everybody wants to hear your solution for this. From the US, Western European states, China, to the Pakistani state and everybody in between. Please, please give them another solution, because, frankly, there are places, outside of the middle east, where this war is not going very well at all.