America is exceptional!

..when there is a Republican in office that we're allowed to criticize for overseeing and maintaining this drone program.

You might upset somebody around here! Too much common sense! Shush!

Obama made it extra clear that males who are in war zones are not civilians and are, therefore, bad. So once a republican takes over and starts killing civilians again, THEN I'll be upset.

Sorry about your civilians, but there may be an Al-Qaeda number 2 in your midst.

Using our technological advantage to insure that, should an aircraft be shot down, all we lose is equipment instead of risking a pilot's life.

Nothing at all wrong with that.

I have come to the conclusion that we are never going to just get along. There is something in humans to always want what the other guy has. I would prefer we didn't need this sort of technology at all, but since I am being realistic, I want our defenses/offenses to be the best.

Conflict was a way of life. It was how one tribe was able to survive by insuring another tribe was not.

Brutal, but it was how things had to be.

We have yet to outgrow that.

Well, that is paraphrased, but I think it is the basis for war. Going deeper than resources? I am not sure that as long as we are physical beings, that you can go any deeper.

Why do we want more than we can use? Some believe it is the desire for immortality.

Maybe I answered more in a technical sense, but I haven't gotten much further than that in my thinking.

It sends a message that we are technologically superior so we do not have to risk a highly trained person.

It terrifies the terrorists.

Drone strikes don't deter terrorism. In fact, the policy radicalizes local populations and increases their numbers. See Pakistan and Yemen since the drone campaign ramped up.

It does not terrify the terrorists, it terrifies the civilians into hating the US.

develops an effective emp bomb.

You gotta look for the weak points in any system, the stuff nobody thinks about.

Remember this version? There are probably still people living in London that do.

The V-1 flying bomb (German: Vergeltungswaffe 1,[3] Fieseler Fi 103) — also known as the Buzz Bomb or Doodlebug — was an early pulse-jet-powered predecessor of the cruise missile. The V-1 guidance system used a simple autopilot to regulate altitude and airspeed, developed by Askania in Berlin. With the counter determining how far the missile would fly, it was only necessary to launch the V-1 with the ramp pointing in the approximate direction, and the autopilot controlled the flight.

Nice to know we have improved drones so much. Hitler would be proud, I bet.

That was a cruise missile. Two completely different weapons systems.

Drones require pilots on the ground. Cruise missiles rely on internal guidance systems. Drones carry weapons and return to a base after encountering targets. Cruise missiles are fired and are destroyed when they encounter a single target.

Both are armed, unmanned flying aircraft.
Both are launched into "enemy" territory.
Both kill civilians.
Both create the feeling of being terrorized.

In a real war drones would be great to have. In the fake "war on terror" drone usage creates huge anti-American sentiment not only where the drones kill civilians but also at home as well. Simply put, killing civilians makes the U.S. look like terrorists.

Similarities? Yes.

It's not a matter of semantics of message board 'gotcha', they actually different things.

your comparison would be just about as accurate as comparing the V1 missiles to drones.

I can easily imagine several of those things buzzing into DC, coming from different directions, flying right on the deck below the radar, everyone sees them but nobody pays attention because our rulers have accustomed us to them, boom boom boom boom boom-- Capitol, WH, Pentagon, CIA, NSA, where else?

I'm not sure I like the new meme. But at least it's a cat.

And they're flying over U.S. cities ...

Bake

2 hellfire missles on the way to work today.