More People Joining the Terrorists Thanks to Continuing Indiscriminate Drone Attacks

1) Let's get a few things straight: The United States is a war mongering country. It has a prolific history of going to and being at war. This is a fact. The country has been at war for most of your life and my life (if not all of it). It has been at war for almost 80 years straight. It spends decades in invasion of other countries. It produces, sells, consumes and funds weapons more than anyone in the world. Its military budget is equivalent to about half of the rest of the world. It is the most aggressive country outside its borders, it has the most military people working abroad, it has virtually all of the foreign bases in the world (about 100 times as much as anyone else now or ever), and it does not and has never seen terrorism towards it which would be disproportionate to its relationship with people/countries in various parts of the world.

Make no mistake about it, America is the country of war. This doesn't blind me from seeing all the great things about America, and it doesn't blind me from other factors which contribute to these outcomes. But it's safe to say that being at war for most of a country's long lifetime and welcoming it, makes a country loving of war.

2) We have no evidence they are members of Al Qaeda. All we have is claims from the person(s) being accused of murdering people with drones. Even if they were, they could very easily be people who were literally dying of hunger and are now serving tea for Al Qaeda. Let's say that the President of China considers Dick Cheney to be a terrorist - can he legitimately murder Dick Cheney's driver with evidence he/she collected by himself?

3) You could not wipe out the entire country of Yemen without reprucussions. This is the whole point which seems to be escaping a lot of people. The natural peaceful state of the world = people may own some private property, and everyone agrees what to do with public property. That means, for example, America is largely self contained within what we call "borders", has no foreign bases and its involvement in the politics of other countries is the same as the average non-American country. That's natural, that's normal. In that situation, if America is attacked by terrorists, the whole world should (and IMO would) stand up for America.

However, here's another example. Let's say that to disrupt the theoretical natural state of things, some countries are extended outside their borders to steal land and other rights of both public and private property holders. Certainly these countries may have the power and tools to do it, but can any sane rational person expect nothing to happen as a reaction from the people being exploited? Not at all. The ones who do this are going to face reprucussions. Now imagine there was 1 country doing it literally 100 times more often and more powerfully than the second most externally active country. Is there any sane, rational person who wouldn't expect there to be violent reactions? How would you react if someone came and stole your free speech? What if someone came to take Texas, which you didn't own to begin with? What if someone came and said they want to send bags of cash to Obama on a monthly basis to pay his pocket expenses and they sent guards to protect him and to protect secretive state property? How would that make you react?

Similarly, you can wipe out Yemen, but it will just create more terrorists, and more risk of terrorism for US citizens. In turn this will create pressure on the US government from its citizens. It's just not a rational thought that you can just up and wipe a country out. It would require at least 6 months of media preparation, statements, arranging funding, bringing together lobbyists, etc.

4) Obviously the US is not killing for fun. It's killing for money. Why it kills people with drones is something on its own. First you have to realize that:

- We have no evidence about drone attacks except selectively from the people who are conducting them and also sometimes from survivors/residents.
- The media and the white house define casualties of drone strikes very differently. This link contains a lot of good sources, here's a snippet:

- Perhaps most importantly, even if they had ties and there was evidence to tie them to anything, they deserve a trial in Yemeni courts with independent judges. If catching these people was about justice, then justice was thrown out the window when they were murdered Taliban style.
- If these things are working, how come Al Qaeda seems to be appearing in more and more countries these days, with high ranking leaders in a whole bunch of them?

To summarize: it's not for fun. But it's not for protecting Americans either. It's done in order to secure the existing arrangements in the region, which benefit some or all of the people who make up the vast majority of funding for political campaigns and the like. I don't have any crazy illusions which says this behavior is good for most Americans. Unfortunately, I think it's just delaying the misery that will ultimately come with this unsustainable bubble which is going to bust if something is not done soon.

5) My solution is to use the last thing that worked: go home. Spend your money at home. Increase and improve your HOME defenses and your home benefits and reduce your need for taxes. Stop having so much foreign presence. Stop proliferating so many weapons. Stop arming all countries in the region to the tooth. Stop paying military leaders of other countries. Stop sending foreign aid (I know this is well intentioned, but usually ends up in wrong hands). Send everyone who committed terrorism to a court of law, give them their due process, then give them what they are fairly deemed to deserve.

Muslims/Middle Easterners weren't coming over there to kill you before you started befriending and supporting and aiding certain people in the Middle East (hint: not just the extremists). No one gave a **** before. This is factual. Ever since then, the US has become perceived as the #1 threat to security in the region. This has resulted in more risks to the US. It makes absolutely no sense that you have to or have the right to respond with violence just because people whose back yard you've set up permanent tent in are non-welcoming to your heavily armed presence and inappropriate political connections. You would hate anyone who did it to you. If you were facing the same thing in your country (from another country), you would hate that country too, and some Americans would engage in terrorism against them. You have before, and you would again. If Russia was setting up a heavily armed, Russian influenced country near the border of the US >> how would you and your country react? Luckily we have a good real life comparison. People aren't so different.

All this requires is for America to behave normally, like any other country. Treat others like you want to be treated. Think about what you're doing long-term. What if the person we're looking for is an American in America being sought by the Chinese government for mass terrorism (the Chinese claim that evidence can't be presented due to national security issues) and the US government has not acted responsibly in trying to find and arrest that person. Should China send a plane over and murder that guy without a trial? Should we be ok with that just because China promises the evidence is ok? Are Americans NOT going to be pissed that China is interfering in their sovereignty? Won't some Americans start supporting violent attacks undeclared by congress which may predictably though unintentionally kill a lot of Chinese civilians?

Most important of all, and to all:

Stop this BS about "we don't target civilians, they do." Their target IS the WTC, it IS the Pentagon, it IS the White House. To them those are terrorist strongholds. Does that excuse the murder of civilians? Of course not.

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PREDICTABLE OUTCOME OF YOUR ACTIONS.

So if you know that by killing one terrorist, you are certainly going to kill at least one innocent person... and you know this before pulling the trigger... then you made the conscious decision to murder that second person. You decided that it is so important to murder a human without a trial, that is is worth the tax money and the life of another person who didn't know the internal plans of the US government.

If you fly a plane into the white house, pentagon, whatever... I don't care that those are military targets, your actions murdered all those civilians too.

There is no excuse. It's war. This is war. You can try to sugarcoat it, but at the end of the day we can't excuse casualties that were avoidable before they happened.

 

Not sure what you are asking. Are you asking what the political situation would be in the ME if American presence in the ME went away?