Editorials & Other Articles

n2doc

(47,953 posts) Fri Apr 24, 2015, 01:14 PM Apr 2015

Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die

Barack Obama inherited two ugly, intractable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when he became president and set to work to end them. But a third, more covert war he made his own, escalating drone strikes in Pakistan and expanding them to Yemen and Somalia.

The drone’s vaunted capability for pinpoint killing appealed to a president intrigued by a new technology and determined to try to keep the United States out of new quagmires. Aides said Mr. Obama liked the idea of picking off dangerous terrorists a few at a time, without endangering American lives or risking the yearslong bloodshed of conventional war.

“Let’s kill the people who are trying to kill us,” he often told aides.

By most accounts, hundreds of dangerous militants have, indeed, been killed by drones, including some high-ranking Qaeda figures. But for six years, when the heavy cloak of secrecy has occasionally been breached, the results of some strikes have often turned out to be deeply troubling.

Every independent investigation of the strikes has found far more civilian casualties than administration officials admit. Gradually, it has become clear that when operators in Nevada fire missiles into remote tribal territories on the other side of the world, they often do not know who they are killing, but are making an imperfect best guess.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/world/asia/drone-strikes-reveal-uncomfortable-truth-us-is-often-unsure-about-who-will-die.html

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Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die (Original Post) n2doc Apr 2015 OP

Of course they are sharp_stick Apr 2015 #1

Drone strikes are only as good at HUMINT allow them to be... Blue_Tires Apr 2015 #2

and, apparently, unsure about who DIED. dixiegrrrrl Apr 2015 #3

"Let’s kill the people who are trying to kill us"? no wonder he likes Reagan so much MisterP Apr 2015 #4

Bush term four. Doctor_J Apr 2015 #5

sharp_stick

(14,400 posts)

1. Of course they are

Reply to n2doc (Original post)

Fri Apr 24, 2015, 01:43 PM

Apr 2015

ever since the age of bombing began the people doing the bombing are unsure about who will die. The Times using a term like uncomfortable truth pisses me off. The Times along with the rest of the media helped foster the idea that we could take out individuals at will.

The people they are trying to kill don't hang out in military barracks with other soldiers. They stay in towns and villages, in houses with kids and wives. They do that on purpose, if they were to stay in barracks they'd be wiped out in a single B2 mission.

The only thing that keeps them alive for any length of time is the availability of civilian shields. They don't have any kind of air defense, shit, other than their wives and kids they have no defense period.

The Pentagon along with the media have lulled us into a false sense of what war is. I remember watching the bombing in 1991 and they were touting missiles that could enter the window of a building before exploding. They kept telling us how pinpoint these smart munitions are and they are pinpoint, the problem is that they blow up a much bigger area that the guy they want to kill. They rely on shaky intelligence to tell us where they guy they want to kill is and then they hope that he isn't sleeping in an orphanage or hospital when they launch the strike.

Using manned missions wouldn't make any difference either although the increased cost might make them think twice about really questionable intelligence but I doubt it.