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US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

theguardian.com

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Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#71

Post by Justsignedup »

tl;dr this is a gruesome but targeted missile that doesn't explode and thus reducing collateral damage.

Overall a good thing.

Overall wars are terrible and so are "police actions" that we often do.

So my opinion is still that we need to figure out how to combat misinformation, propaganda, and radicalism rather than figuring out better/more efficient ways to kill each other. But that requires going after both social media companies, and stabilizing governments by providing spreading of wealth in poor countries, and relief to natural disasters.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#72

Post by csours »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKsDjpKr2Mk

The world is grey, Jack. - Clear and Present Danger

Was WWII a more acceptable war because one side was clearly more morally reprehensible? Even then, it seems to often be a difference in degree, not in kind. Please do not take this as an excuse or lessening of severity for any group.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#73

Post by [deleted] »

liability wrote: post #49
rayiner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re certainly bothering people and threatening peoples’ freedom. Thanks to the export of fundamentalist Islam from certain countries, my home country of Bangladesh is a more dangerous place today then when we left 30 years ago. (And it was under a military dictatorship then!) Unsurprisingly, we take harsh measures to crack down on fundamentalism, including banning Islamist parties and executing terrorists: https:…

If radicalization in these countries works anything like it does in the west, then the missiles would be more effective at preventing radicalization if pointed at social media tech executives.

[deleted]

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#74

Post by bdamm »

nine_k wrote: post #52
wongarsu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extrajudicial targeted assassinations are pretty far on the bad side, no matter how few other people get killed in the process. Sure, if you are doing it, killing fewer bystanders is preferable on the surface. But if individual assassinations are less likely to cause an international outcry since fewer people died that likely leads to more assassinations.

Isn't the US is, like, at war in Syria? Wars being a terrible thing and all, one won't expect a speedy and fair trial on a battlefield.

The US is not at war in Syria. ISIS is deemed to be a threat to stable governments in the area including Israel, Iraq, and even Turkey, and US is assisting those governments in fighting ISIS back. The seemingly endless civil war in Syria is still a civil war although US had at one point been supporting certain groups.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#75

Post by adamsea »

wongarsu wrote: post #46
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more along the lines of you can hit a car or a meeting without decimating everything nearby. It's the difference between sending an assassin and a suicide bomber.

But usually we despise both suicide bombers and assassins, not congratulate the assassin on killing so few bystanders. The question by GP is more along the line of "what if instead of spending lots of money to kill fewer bystanders we spent that money to reduce the number of people that are so dangerous to us that we kill them". Of course we know that won't happen because building weapons helps US companies and build…

I agree. Or to take it further, if the US had even made a serious effort to help the country / people of Afghanistan live a better life, and build up some sort of institution, instead of invading Iraq.

Or, after even the terrible decision of invading Iraq, if the US had been halfway competent / invested in post-invasion administration...

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#76

Post by [deleted] »

departure wrote: post #56
rayiner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re certainly bothering people and threatening peoples’ freedom. Thanks to the export of fundamentalist Islam from certain countries, my home country of Bangladesh is a more dangerous place today then when we left 30 years ago. (And it was under a military dictatorship then!) Unsurprisingly, we take harsh measures to crack down on fundamentalism, including banning Islamist parties and executing terrorists: https:…

> Thanks to the export of fundamentalist Islam from certain countries, Yes Saudi Arabia which we continue to sell weapons to and blindly support. This administration is even more willing to bend to SA, as seen with Trump's visit and subsequent veto the bipartiston resolution to end US military assistance in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. > while America has been fortunate to be spared from a major terrorist attack sinc…

[deleted]

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#77

Post by kipchak »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #28
hirundo wrote: post #5

How long until the US is subject to this kind of targeted assassination? It doesn't seem that this tech is so inaccessible to state actors with billions to invest. There are sufficient such enemies. Is the Secret Service really confident that it can protect its charges from this kind of attack? I think they'll find that a drone missile can also be a boomerang. EDIT: The objections to this scenario are taking it more…

Let's analyze what it would take to make your scenario work: some state actor is going to fly a drone or aircraft with the range to reach the US (launched from where?), past any radars and other sensors that the continental US has without being detected (and then fly back out even), drop a specialized munition that leaves large, analyzable debris behind, and somehow not be identified to face reprisal. That is exceedi…

Why not just launch the drone from inside the US and use a generic explosive? Unexplained drone swarms near sensitive targets have been fairly common.[1,2] Them not being weaponized seems like more of a choice for reprisal like you said than a lack of capability.

[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/07/30/drone-...

[2]https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34662/faa-documents-of...

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#78

Post by Joker_vD »

nine_k wrote: post #52
wongarsu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extrajudicial targeted assassinations are pretty far on the bad side, no matter how few other people get killed in the process. Sure, if you are doing it, killing fewer bystanders is preferable on the surface. But if individual assassinations are less likely to cause an international outcry since fewer people died that likely leads to more assassinations.

Isn't the US is, like, at war in Syria? Wars being a terrible thing and all, one won't expect a speedy and fair trial on a battlefield.

With whom exactly? With Syria? Then why have the Congress never declared war on it? With some terrorists who happen to be in Syria? Then why is the US fighting them there, not the Syrian government? What's that? The Syrian government is actually fighting them too but demands the US forces to leave the Syrian territory, which demand the US ignores because why wouldn't it? It can't be declared to be engaging in a non-provoked aggression against a sovereign state since it has veto in the UNSC, after all.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#79

Post by colinmhayes »

mercurysmessage wrote: post #66
3131s wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re certainly bothering people and threatening peoples’ freedom. All of them? What percentage of the dead were terrorists? Because "they" in this case is referring to around 1 million people now.

People fail to notice that many who are killed are innocent, and this actually creates more people willing to fight back. It's a vicious cycle, and the murdering of innocent people only makes it worse.

I don't think people are failing to notice. That's one of the most common complaints.

Re: US military increasingly using drone missile with flying blades in Syria

#80

Post by aphextron »

Justsignedup wrote: post #71

tl;dr this is a gruesome but targeted missile that doesn't explode and thus reducing collateral damage. Overall a good thing. Overall wars are terrible and so are "police actions" that we often do. So my opinion is still that we need to figure out how to combat misinformation, propaganda, and radicalism rather than figuring out better/more efficient ways to kill each other. But that requires going after both social m…

> Overall a good thing.

I wouldn't be so sure. The ultimate issue here is the casual use of cold blooded extrajudicial assassination via drone. Anything which makes the decision to do that easier is a net negative. The whole reason we got to the point of regularly doing this over the last 20 years is because the technological means to do so have become commoditized and extremely "hands off". Colatteral damage is not what we should be worried about, but whether the act is even just in the first place. These are not battlefield commanders engaged in tactical decision making against our front line troops we're killing. They are strategic level beaureaucrats. The argument that this is just warfare doesn't apply. And if those people we were targeting had the means to do this to our own military officials driving down the street in Washington, we'd be hauling them into war crime tribunals.

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