Drones

jmc wrote:

archer wrote: I disagree jmc....given a choice of letting terrorists like bin laden roam free, and taking measures to eliminate them without engaging in a major war, I'll take the surgical operation. There is never an ideal way to go after your enemies......but I believe this is a better way than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How would you feel if Cheney was deciding the fate of thousands of civilians? I may think the Pres, is ok making that decision but what if ?
I am not anti-drone but we need a better way to do it. I have no good answer, but I'll try to come up with something for discussion.

That is always a good litmus test about the power of goverment. Is it OK for Bush to have the line item veto, how about Obama?

Would you trust Reagan to suspend habeus corpus that Lincoln was able to get away with?

FredHayek wrote: The world is upside down. The Left are the hawks and the GOP are the doves. But they are some lefties who are concerned too about Obama's Drone War.

So waterboarding is bad, but blowing them up is good? Maybe we should have the military leave the gates unlocked at Gitmo one night and we can launch drones on KSM and the others as they escape the base.

Let's be clear here...The GOP aren't "doves"...They're against ANYTHING Obama does, (even if they're FOR it), because it's Obama. If Obama had had the chance and didn't take it, the GOP would be "hawks" and blasting him for NOT doing it.

Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP...

LadyJazzer wrote: It didn't seem to bother anyone when they were bombing villages n Viet Nam... (The picture of the little girl running, covered in napalm is etched into my mind...)

It hasn't seemed to bother anyone in Iraq...Afghanistan...

As opposed to wiping out whole villages, surgical strikes by drones seem to keep the "collateral damage"--(a phrase only a neo-con could love)--to a minimum.

As opposed to wiping out smaller number of "collateral damage" otherwise known as "civilian casualties" - a phrase only Obama administration could love.

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. "Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization -- innocent neighbors don't hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs," said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world ... gewanted=1

"posthumously proving them innocent" is rather a quaint term too!!! :can't hear

LadyJazzer wrote:

FredHayek wrote: The world is upside down. The Left are the hawks and the GOP are the doves. But they are some lefties who are concerned too about Obama's Drone War.

So waterboarding is bad, but blowing them up is good? Maybe we should have the military leave the gates unlocked at Gitmo one night and we can launch drones on KSM and the others as they escape the base.

Let's be clear here...The GOP aren't "doves"...They're against ANYTHING Obama does, (even if they're FOR it), because it's Obama. If Obama had had the chance and didn't take it, the GOP would be "hawks" and blasting him for NOT doing it.

Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP...

I agree. But is it any different than the House Democrats who approved "W"'s war on Iraq when the polls were for it, but went against it when the war became unpopular. Voting by opinion poll is flip-flopping like a largemouth bass.

FredHayek wrote: The world is upside down. The Left are the hawks and the GOP are the doves. But they are some lefties who are concerned too about Obama's Drone War.

So waterboarding is bad, but blowing them up is good? Maybe we should have the military leave the gates unlocked at Gitmo one night and we can launch drones on KSM and the others as they escape the base.

Did you protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

As a liberal I was against both the Afghanistan and the Iraq wars....I believed then, as I do now, that these were operations for special forces not our entire military might. I didn't know about drones back then, but I would have approved their use over invading two nations.

Using drones is alot safer for our men and women in uniform. No matter what we do, collateral damage is a fact of war. We try to minimize it, they could care less, we are condemn for it, they blame it on everyone but themselves.

Its a no win situation with either side. The fact that it does not put our troops in harms way to get something done, I am for it. As for any president making the call, I do have an issue with that. That is why we have military intel, the talk(spelling for a reason) and some other places that should be allowed to make that decision. They should also be held accountable for thier decisions. Those places have more up to date info than the president.

FredHayek wrote: I agree. But is it any different than the House Democrats who approved "W"'s war on Iraq when the polls were for it, but went against it when the war became unpopular. Voting by opinion poll is flip-flopping like a largemouth bass.

Do you think, JUST ONCE, you could make a comment that doesn't involve a digression into some "They did it too" bullsh*t?

Is it any different?..YES, it's different. But that's irrelevant right now.

Military technology is becoming dangerously game-like. Drones bug me --- primarily because they make a video game of killing real people. Truthfully, I don't know what differentiates drones from - say a stick-controlled F-16 (arguably a video game, as well) - or a fly-by-wire missile.

My objection has less to do with who's President - than how it's done. I suppose it got the job done, and it gets the job done without putting our troops in danger, and reduces collateral damage.

Even so, I simply don't like the idea of the job being like a game for someone, and I worry about the relative ease of operating our killing machines.

I'm also bothered by the culture that would sing "Another one bites the dust" - even at the death of an apparent terrorist. I didn't like it when John McCain sang "bomb bomb Iran" tune, either.

archer wrote:

FredHayek wrote: The world is upside down. The Left are the hawks and the GOP are the doves. But they are some lefties who are concerned too about Obama's Drone War.

So waterboarding is bad, but blowing them up is good? Maybe we should have the military leave the gates unlocked at Gitmo one night and we can launch drones on KSM and the others as they escape the base.

Did you protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I didn't protest them, but I didn't support either war. I thought Afghanistan was going to be a much nastier, bloodier action than what actually happened. I think our state department and military did a awesome job settling this action, much better than the Russians or Brits or even Alexander the Great had done.

Iraq, I thought should have been much more an anti-Saddam action than a occupation. But it is good that the man is dead and buried.