Killing by a drone - one story

[SamurAchzar]

Have I said lately you are an immoral sociopath and son of a bitch?

I guess it's good then that our leaders back in WWII were such immoral sociopaths. Sure saved alot of American lives.

 

[Darwin333]

Have I said lately you are an immoral sociopath and son of a bitch?

I did now. And you're wrong, on top of it. You are clueless about how to have peace.

While I have already agreed with up in this thread, I must agree with Zebo as well.

That IS how you win a war. You fuck up the other side, including anyone that assists or comforts them, until they quit.

I don't recall, in modern history, a war that has been "won" by killing a few people. They are usually won by killing enough and destroying enough that the people you are killing give up to the point that they are willing to kill the bastards you are after too.

As horrible as that sounds, I am not sure that the type of war you are talking about is any better. The fact that war is absurdly horrible is a big part of why we don't do it more. If it is rather painless (for us) and doesn't kill too many women and kids then it becomes very easy for a nation, such as ours, to stomach.

 

[Zebo]

Have I said lately you are an immoral sociopath and son of a bitch?

I did now. And you're wrong, on top of it. You are clueless about how to have peace.

Whatever from you that's a compliment - Germans and Japanese are pretty peaceful these days after annihilating their population centers until they had a real change of heart and mind.. I would have never gone to war in the first place. Same ole 10 yr old debate. War should not be taken lightly because of what's necessary to win. Don't like it? Don't go. The moral failure is young boys dying in vain to protect people like your sensibilities of what war is about which is totally shifting culture and world view. We have been successful at this in the past however today we are focused on the weapons rather than instilling fear of annihilation if they continue along that path. Weapons don't care if they die, they volunteer for it usually, people who support them don't, and they should be target #1. Anyway, speaking objectively we will keep losing until we re-learn lessons of old which is kill until they sue for peace, that's real peace..

 

[squirrel dog]

how do you KNOW an ied did not blow the car up ?

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

While I have already agreed with up in this thread, I must agree with Zebo as well.

That IS how you win a war. You fuck up the other side, including anyone that assists or comforts them, until they quit.

I don't recall, in modern history, a war that has been "won" by killing a few people. They are usually won by killing enough and destroying enough that the people you are killing give up to the point that they are willing to kill the bastards you are after too.

As horrible as that sounds, I am not sure that the type of war you are talking about is any better. The fact that war is absurdly horrible is a big part of why we don't do it more. If it is rather painless (for us) and doesn't kill too many women and kids then it becomes very easy for a nation, such as ours, to stomach.

Your major flaw is that this isn't a normal war. There is no defined enemy, there is no territory to occupy, no government to capture. No way to win.

We are at "war" with a concept, which is impossible to win. IF if it was possible to kill every terrorist, all it takes is one random person anywhere in the world want to do something, and guess what? There's a terrorist.

Why don't you try and stop murders in the US? Or rape? Good luck with that. Or stop all drugs, since we have a "war" on drugs.

Since there is a small group of people that don't mind dying, they don't care if we kill them with a bunch of innocent people, in fact, they probably think it helps them since we are creating more people that hate us. YOu adovocate blindly killnig everyone, all that will do is keep creating people taht hate us and wil turn to terrorism to hurt us, since we hurt them (or their family).

If you had read your history, you would learn that Vietnam had some analogies, in that capturing a town meant jack, and killing the people you are protecting is a great way to make lots of people fight against you.

 

[cwjerome]

Whatever from you that's a compliment - Germans and Japanese are pretty peaceful these days after annihilating their population centers until they had a real change of heart and mind.. I would have never gone to war in the first place. Same ole 10 yr old debate. War should not be taken lightly because of what's necessary to win. Don't like it? Don't go. The moral failure is young boys dying in vain to protect people like your sensibilities of what war is about which is totally shifting culture and world view. We have been successful at this in the past however today we are focused on the weapons rather than instilling fear of annihilation if they continue along that path. Weapons don't care if they die, they volunteer for it usually, people who support them don't, and they should be target #1. Anyway, speaking objectively we will keep losing until we re-learn lessons of old which is kill until they sue for peace, that's real peace..

Not gonna happen, move on. The Law of Land Warfare and Just War concepts don't jive with scorched earth annihilation. Besides, what you say is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Times have changed, we don't fight the type of wars we used to, it's a different animal requiring different tactics. We took down Iraq in less than 3 months, that wasn't the problem. We have not been fighting against Iraq or Afghanistan, we've been helping them to fight an asymmetric battle against insurgents. How can you possibly go into WWII mode in that situation?

As a longtime critic of many of our battle strategies and policies, I'll be the first to say we can/should do things different when necessary. But a total war in these situations is out of the question. That's not how we do business... and for good reason.

Check out the book "The Sling and the Stone." It has some good insights into why we "lose" wars now and what might we do to deal with the modern realities of our enemy situation.

 

[Nebor]

Whatever from you that's a compliment - Germans and Japanese are pretty peaceful these days after annihilating their population centers until they had a real change of heart and mind.. I would have never gone to war in the first place. Same ole 10 yr old debate. War should not be taken lightly because of what's necessary to win. Don't like it? Don't go. The moral failure is young boys dying in vain to protect people like your sensibilities of what war is about which is totally shifting culture and world view. We have been successful at this in the past however today we are focused on the weapons rather than instilling fear of annihilation if they continue along that path. Weapons don't care if they die, they volunteer for it usually, people who support them don't, and they should be target #1. Anyway, speaking objectively we will keep losing until we re-learn lessons of old which is kill until they sue for peace, that's real peace..

A big :thumbsup:.

 

[DrPizza]

Let's see, the author, clearly biased against the drones before this article was ever written, met with and spent much of the day with a 16 year old who was killed 72 hours later by a drone. What are the odds of that?

Anyone else raising an eyebrow?

 

[Matt1970]

Let's see, the author, clearly biased against the drones before this article was ever written, met with and spent much of the day with a 16 year old who was killed 72 hours later by a drone. What are the odds of that?

Anyone else raising an eyebrow?

Yep. I wonder how much else in the article is BS.

 

[Craig234]

Let's see, the author, clearly biased against the drones before this article was ever written, met with and spent much of the day with a 16 year old who was killed 72 hours later by a drone. What are the odds of that?

Anyone else raising an eyebrow?

You're clueless about it. Every organization that puts out any information is lying, because they are all liars for their 'agenda'. Good work, Sherlock, they can't fool you.

 

[PeshakJang]

You're clueless about it. Every organization that puts out any information is lying, because they are all liars for their 'agenda'. Good work, Sherlock, they can't fool you.

That's been your MO to the T for as long as I've been here. You call everyone else liars because they don't agree with your pseudointellectual viewpoint. Once you stop stomping your feet and crying, you can begin to accept the facts of the world instead of trying to live in your own.

 

[Nebor]

You're clueless about it. Every organization that puts out any information is lying, because they are all liars for their 'agenda'. Good work, Sherlock, they can't fool you.

Well, any organization that puts out information that supports continued feeding of our military industrial beast actually is lying.

 

[Darwin333]

Your major flaw is that this isn't a normal war. There is no defined enemy, there is no territory to occupy, no government to capture. No way to win.

We are at "war" with a concept, which is impossible to win. IF if it was possible to kill every terrorist, all it takes is one random person anywhere in the world want to do something, and guess what? There's a terrorist.

Why don't you try and stop murders in the US? Or rape? Good luck with that. Or stop all drugs, since we have a "war" on drugs.

Since there is a small group of people that don't mind dying, they don't care if we kill them with a bunch of innocent people, in fact, they probably think it helps them since we are creating more people that hate us. YOu adovocate blindly killnig everyone, all that will do is keep creating people taht hate us and wil turn to terrorism to hurt us, since we hurt them (or their family).

If you had read your history, you would learn that Vietnam had some analogies, in that capturing a town meant jack, and killing the people you are protecting is a great way to make lots of people fight against you.

Actually I advocate getting the hell out of there, largely for reasons that you list above.

As I said, war is hell. War is SUPPOSED to be hell and it is scary that we can wage war that isn't hell. It makes it very easy to go to war, especially against smaller less military advanced countries. There wouldn't have been half of the pushback over the Iraq war had our (not OUR not their) casualties had been 1/4 of what they were. War by remote control will allow that to happen very soon. Given the fact that the President can basically go to war (just not technically a war but still blowing the shit out of another country, war by any reasonable definition) anytime he wants without permission, that day concerns me.

But as you said, we are supposedly at war with no defined enemy. Which means that it is in fact impossible to win that war. In my opinion, we will be at perpetual "war" for quite sometime now. The day that war becomes "hell" for us is the day we say enough of that bullshit.

 

[Darwin333]

Not gonna happen, move on. The Law of Land Warfare and Just War concepts don't jive with scorched earth annihilation. Besides, what you say is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Times have changed, we don't fight the type of wars we used to, it's a different animal requiring different tactics. We took down Iraq in less than 3 months, that wasn't the problem. We have not been fighting against Iraq or Afghanistan, we've been helping them to fight an asymmetric battle against insurgents. How can you possibly go into WWII mode in that situation?

As a longtime critic of many of our battle strategies and policies, I'll be the first to say we can/should do things different when necessary. But a total war in these situations is out of the question. That's not how we do business... and for good reason.

Check out the book "The Sling and the Stone." It has some good insights into why we "lose" wars now and what might we do to deal with the modern realities of our enemy situation.

When we "won" wars we annihilated the people who fought against us until they submitted. Period.

While I don't agree with a scorched earth policy in the "wars" we are fighting now, it would still be very effective. When the other side fears an IED will get a large section of their town/city leveled they will actively prevent them.

Again, I don't think that we should actually employ that tactic because frankly I don't believe we should be there right now at all. If there is no "enemy" there is no one to beat and no way to win, that means their is no point to the war at all. Terrorism is rather easy to do, requires very little organisation, relatively little funding on a per attack/attempt basis, relatively little training, etc... It is something that we can't possibly eradicate.

You never play a high stakes game that you have absolutely zero chance of winning, it just isn't smart.

 

[Nebor]

You people are grossly misusing the term "scorched earth." I'm not sure the US has ever actually employed that tactic. Just because you're targeting your enemy's support structure does not mean "scorched earth."

Short of killing all the Afghans, we're not going to change the way they live. And for what? A crap country with no access to the ocean or anything of great significance. It's way past time to bail on that mistake. It should have been a drone\bombing campaign from the beginning.

 

[Darwin333]

You people are grossly misusing the term "scorched earth." I'm not sure the US has ever actually employed that tactic. Just because you're targeting your enemy's support structure does not mean "scorched earth."

You are correct but I couldn't think of a better term to use that most people here would understand. And I think one of the Brits Generals in charge of bombers used a limited "scorched earth" tactic in WWII but other than possibly the nukes, you are correct.

Short of killing all the Afghans, we're not going to change the way they live. And for what? A crap country with no access to the ocean or anything of great significance. It's way past time to bail on that mistake. It should have been a drone\bombing campaign from the beginning.

Again, I agree. We should do the same with Iraq. GTFO of both of those places and don't look back.

 

[cwjerome]

When we "won" wars we annihilated the people who fought against us until they submitted. Period.

Questionable. We did not raze towns and annihilate people in the Mexican American war. We did a few minor things to Spain, outside of Spain proper, to take the colonies of a dying empire... but it wasn't total war. They were both decisive victories. WWII was a different context, an all out winner takes all contest between major powers... you expect all wars to be fought like this? Why on earth? Germany and Japan were homogenous, coherent, stable nations with real governments. We are suppose to raze city blocks and kill en mass in Baghdad to break the will of a people... because some, may or may not be supporting insurgents?

I hate to break it to you but not only would that be ineffective, it would be highly immoral. Complete destruction may have been used in WWII, but why would that be the standard for any and all wars, regardless of context? Does making a people submit, or breaking their will only involve maximizing death and destruction? Once upon a time total war meant raping the women and pillaging towns. That has changed and now other ideas about war are changing. I think we're a little better than that now.

While I don't agree with a scorched earth policy in the "wars" we are fighting now, it would still be very effective. When the other side fears an IED will get a large section of their town/city leveled they will actively prevent them.

Again, I don't think that we should actually employ that tactic because frankly I don't believe we should be there right now at all. If there is no "enemy" there is no one to beat and no way to win, that means their is no point to the war at all. Terrorism is rather easy to do, requires very little organisation, relatively little funding on a per attack/attempt basis, relatively little training, etc... It is something that we can't possibly eradicate.

You never play a high stakes game that you have absolutely zero chance of winning, it just isn't smart.

Well, you are going to have to face some basic realities. The types of warfare that we can expect in the world for the next 50+ years revolves around local low intensity warfare, failed states and intra-state insurgencies, etc. Yes, guerilla/asymetrical operations, and as the sole superpower you can expect us to be involved, at some level, in many of these situations as they pop up, whether it be for SASO, humanitarian, or a variety of other reasons. Also, the nature of warfare has changed. The "enemy" has been thinking long and hard on how to fight against a superior military force for 50 years and they've gotten pretty good at it. It requires a different type of fighting, and I don't think we have the option to declare we have no chance at winning and shall never get involved. There will be future military actions and we must determine effective strategies. There's no way around it.

If, god forbid, we were ever to fight a conventional war with China or something, then we may have to pull out the total war card and run with it. Otherwise, get WWII out of your head.

 

[Nebor]

It requires a different type of fighting, and I don't think we have the option to declare we have no chance at winning and shall never get involved. There will be future military actions and we must determine effective strategies. There's no way around it.

Sure there is. We can do what we've done for the past 50 years and let the British handle it. We guarantee their security and our support in the event of a large conventional war and they've remade their military into a purpose built, asymmetric-styled fighting machine.

Most people are totally unaware of the counter-insurgency and various other "small wars" that the British have fought and won in recent years. It becomes obvious when you talk to some British soldiers and they list off the places they've done combat deployments.