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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It's not the drones themselves, it's how they are used. Guys with a live conscience, like ex-drone pilot Brandon Bryant, are the ones who should be manning the cockpits and calling the strikes (though obviously not at the same time; that's too much of a workload to ask from one man), not Bryant's anonymous commander who insisted that they had shot a dog (that somehow walked on two legs) rather than a child.
edited 4th Jan '13 3:43:10 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.Guys your missing the point.
The problem is not the lack of pilots with drones, the problem its the bombings themselves.
The bad thing about drones its that, for some reason, the United States feels like it can enter a country with or without permission(they could do that with pilots anyways but I guess they do it in places where they wouldnt want to risk the PR disaster of having a pilot captured) and bomb them at will.
The problem its also that the united states its carryng out signature strikes, and that they consider all adult male casualties enemy combatants.
Yemen is a country, as I have said before, with a lot of weapons. In that part of the world, at weddings, just as people might like to do in Kentuchy or who knows where, people like to take their guns and fire them (oh! celebratory gun fire, one of the liveliest, yet more unfortunate aspect of so many cultures!), but along comes a drone and, hey! they see a bunch of guys with guns, they must be bad! And thats how the United States endears itself with the local population. By bombing weddings , cutesy stuff.
edited 4th Jan '13 5:35:36 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.The ACLU is suing the Obama administration over the recordings of the bombings that have killed various American citizens in Pakistan and Yemen.
Also:
Also in the same vein here is the wishlitst the ACLU has for this year in regard to president Obama.
1.Close Gitmo 2.Stop abussive deportation 3.Stand up for abortion rights.
(all things Obama could do with his executive power...)
And to quote another part of the ACLU website on deporations:
“She had witnessed a shooting outside of her apartment complex…The police…interviewed her. One of the guys who was involved saw her talking about it…so he had someone go and threaten her family later that night, and they have not told the police because they’re scared to…[The family] didn’t feel safe. They never actually as a family went to the police and said, ‘We were threatened’…[Instead] they moved.”
This incident is but one of many examples of the erosion of public trust in law enforcement, and the consequent deterioration of public safety, caused by 287(g) and documented in the ACLU of Tennessee’s new report, “Consequences & Costs: Lessons Learned from Davidson County Tennessee’s Jail Model 287(g) Program.”
edited 4th Jan '13 6:04:32 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.Also here is a nice infographic on how the NSA and private companies spy on us.
and on drones:
edited 4th Jan '13 6:14:45 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.@ Dr Tentacles: I feel it too. It's been gone over in this thread, and numerous other threads in this forum. There's been no consensus, and there's hardly likely ever to be...
@ Baff: I hope this
article is of interest. And, Baff, while I remember, what are your views on Drone use during The Vietnam War?
edited 4th Jan '13 6:20:48 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
The article is indeed a very intersting piece on areal surveillance before satellites.
As for drones in Vietnam or in Iraq or in Yemen or Pakistan... they are just a piece of hardware. What's important its they way they are used. No technology is inherently good or evil...
Also, apparently the 112th congress had an approval rating of... 9%. [1]
edited 4th Jan '13 6:41:37 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.
Yes, but that is same sort of thing you'll find drones like the RQ-170 doing now (over Iran, for example)? Is that wrong, are you worried about UCAVs? When you talk about a "Drone", are you talking about a Target Drone, a Recce Drone, or a UCAV?
The trouble is, there are a lot of drones about, operated by a lot of countries in a fair few roles, and you need to be precise when referring to which type you mean, since you're presumably not complaining about UAVs like the RQ-11 Raven
...
edited 4th Jan '13 6:43:20 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
I am talking about the predator drones and those that are in operation and fufill a function akin to the one usually associated to that of predator drones. Thats the context of the discussion. Not drones but drone strikes.
As I said, this precissions are rather meaningless for the issue at hand because I dont really care if the bombing is done by helicopters or jet fighters, or drones, what I care about its the bombings themselves.
edited 4th Jan '13 6:47:09 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.As you just said, Baff, the drones are not themselves inherently moral or immoral; it is the uses of the drones that must be examined. Neither is surveillance by itself immoral; what matters is what is done with the information. So the simple fact that "OMG drones R watching us" is more or less irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. There is no escaping being watched and monitored in this society, whether it is by the government, by businesses, by your nosy neighbor with a smartphone, and this is only going to become more prevalent as technology progresses.
As for your argument that war fought with drones is somehow less moral than war fought on the ground with soldiers... I just can't see this bright line that you appear to wish to draw in the sand. When people are engaged in open insurrection against their lawful government and declared war against another country, when they use civilians as shields, when they employ terror tactics such as suicide bombing, then they forego any rights to be treated according to the rules of war as far as I'm concerned.
Regardless, whether they are killed by bombs dropped from manned aircraft or bombs dropped from unmanned aircraft is irrelevant.
Come to the light! We have cookies! And better food safety regulations.
edited 4th Jan '13 8:24:20 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"California Appeals Court Overturns Rape Conviction, Rules State Law Doesn't Protect Unmarried Women.
edited 4th Jan '13 8:28:50 AM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick@Fighteer
I never said that. If anything its worse to use ground soldiers. But still, the way the drones are being used its aweful. Why? I dont know. Maybe they feel they dont have anything to lose if they get a drone shut down, who know? As a COD quote said (itself quoting an army mannual):
"It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed."
The bombing itself its immoral if you do it in the present fashion, I dont know why, I dont know what is it about drones that makes the U.S military care less about collateral casualties.
edited 4th Jan '13 8:32:51 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.![]()
![]()
I can actually see why they did it. Better to overturn and retrial it and make it sure why he gets send to jail than leave it ambiguous.
Making a new law seems to be solution for that. However, Judges have to act upon existing law, not make new.
edited 4th Jan '13 8:37:11 AM by 3of4
"You can reply to this Message!"Oh. Well, I could understand that then.
Although, the fact he was going to get a paltry 3 years.... Seriously, is it possible to get a minimum 8 year, no parole sentence for rape put in the Constitution??
edited 4th Jan '13 8:39:33 AM by TheStarshipMaxima
It was an honor
And this is why context is relevant. Courts may make decisions that are unappealing but do in fact uphold an important point of law.
And let me further clarify. If we are going to bomb, we should be very very careful. We arent, there are colletaral civilians that are murdered by the U.S military every month (every 2 weeks or so if you pay attention to the news). Weather drones, helicopters, satelites, I dont care. I care that we are bombing and killing civilians and no one cares.
Because in the west, civilians have this weird thing that in their minds its not terrorism if the bomb is dropped from an airplane.
edited 4th Jan '13 8:46:57 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.
thats because in the west people are heavily indoctrinated with words that have no inherent meaning. Its something taken right out of Nineteen Eighty Four
To quote the above link
Ill give you another example. In Colombia the military executed, since 2000, over 1000 civilians. The Colombian military gets billion from the United States. How did they call this executed civilians? False Positives.
edited 4th Jan '13 8:51:58 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.So the moral of the story is, if you're going to be a terrorist, your wife and kids are at stake? Seems like a good way to dissuade them.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
The moral of the story is, if your neighboor is a terrorist then we can kill you and your family.
Not that it matters because the military considers ALL adult males to be enemy combatants. Even if they are civilians.
Your total disregard for people lives, furthermore, saddens me. Indoctrination at its best might I add.
edited 4th Jan '13 8:57:35 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.![]()
If you're going to be accused of being a "terrorist", you mean. The term has become quite nebulous and ill-defined ever since GWB started the War On Terror, to the point where Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters have become a lot more literally Truth in Television than before.
And that too.
edited 4th Jan '13 8:55:50 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I don't see how that makes drones worse than all other methods: I think the latter would get more innocents caught in the crossfire. It's very hard not to get innocents caught in the crossfire when fighting against guerilla tactics and non-uniformed combatants.
edited 4th Jan '13 3:34:19 AM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."