Four drone operators have turned into whistleblowers, calling for an immediate end to the drone war

I agree that it is disingenuous and wrong to keep pouring oil money into horrible regimes.

 

That requires taking a stand on Saudi Arabia, beginning with ending arms sales. To my knowledge, no one has done that besides the Swedes. Maybe Trudeau II will surprise us.

 

The puppet Obama has his instructions... They are writing a letter to the wrong person.

 

Let's not pretend this is all on Obama. He is currently at the helm and we should point the finger at him. However, no matter who is leading the pack, the American war machine will find on. We are currently dealing with the quagmire created by the Iraq invasion and there is absolutely no smooth way out of it without just ceding defeat/control of the region to whatever group.

It all makes for fun D&D cheerleader games, but really, this is all jacked up. And the constant wars just further feed the machine. The machine is ahead of Obama on this. Eisenhower warned us.

 

Probably a rhetorical mistake to start with the execution of al-Awlaki. The drone operators are talking about their interpretation of the Constitution there, an area in which they are my peer. I don't agree with how they understand the Constitution. But, all the stuff they have to say about the risk of civilian deaths and the dehumanization of drone warfare is something they'd know a lot about, and I'm very concerned about that. I don't think we should be using weaponized drones at all. Probably, that should be added to the Geneva Conventions. Even without the drones though, our ability to hit someone with a missile from a battleship a few miles offshore bears the same problems -- lack of precision, dehumanization, and easy oppression. As a rule of thumb, I don't think anyone should be killing others without standing in harm's way themselves, at least when fighting a weaker enemy. Would the US citizen approve of killing all these people in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen if it meant sending our sons over there with AR15s? It's too easy to discount the lives of others when we're not at risk ourselves. I generally like Obama as a president, but I'm not too pleased with his leadership here.

 

Well at least these quagmires are a great way to transfer trillions (!) of taxpayer dollars to the military industrial complex.

They should make it like election contributions on the tax forms: "Check this box if you want any of your tax dollars to be spent on warfighting."

Ironic that the people who hate "big government" want to give the big government trillions of dollars to buy weapons. Seems like the very thing they should fear most.

 

Why should the U.S. military go the step to put people in harm's way? American troops in Iraq were subject to ambushes while on patrols or responding to orders. If the job of killing these people can be done with a drone campaign then I don't see what benefit there is to putting people in a battle zone.

 

If its not so important to kill someone that you'd risk you own soldiers to accomplish it, then maybe you shouldn't be killing those people in the first place. Obviously, it's a bit irrational to let someone shoot at you if you don't have to, but resolving the disconnect with drones causes all the problems the operators talk about -- collateral damage, disregard for human life, passive acceptance by the American public, and growing resentment and radicalization of targeted populations.

 

To address your fair fight pleading: should police give up the use of guns to make their job more fair? A drone is a tool much like a gun. The U.S. works with its allies - which includes what we may refer to as "spies" to feed them information. Therefore, if the drone strikes are tactfully accurate, then any resulting collateral damage must be due to intelligence from those on the ground.

I think it is also worth mentioning that U.S. soldiers are not the only victims in the ambushes against them. I would think that by putting soldiers on the ground there is actually a greater chance of there being collateral damage. Do these people have any regard for who their IED's hit? Who their bullets hit? And who knows who may be hit by American fire in such a situation.

With effective ground intelligence (local spies and such), the drone program can be a big success. Although that may leave some locals in a position to defend against accusations of their involvement.

 

Police don't roll up on people and start firing machine guns or rockets, do they? Maybe I'm wrong.

 

Too little, too late.

A bunch of Belgian guys just renewed the drone war for another 5 years last week.

 

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite so it makes sense.