The Drone News and Discussion Thread

Except most of the people being targetted by drone strikes are technically classified as criminals, not soldiers. So, unless they're engaged in criminal activity right at the moment the drone strikes, it's basically law enforcement gunning down criminals without bothering to arrest them or give them a trial.

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

Why is right thing to do, almost never the efficient thing to do?

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

Because efficiency of resources on our part means a blithe lack of concern for collateral damage.

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

You don't have to be a soldier to be an enemy target. Al Queda's accountant, for example, would be some one I consider a valid military target as a random soldier.

In addition to that, using lethal force on a violent/hostile criminal even if there's no way you could reasonably capture them is also something I consider justified. Just as if there were a random person running around with a gun, I would not expect the cops to even put effort into capturing him alive as opposed to popping him in the head.

So either way, I'm still expecting them to use weapon strikes on valid military targets. They don't stop being military targets when they are wanted for crimes.

Fight smart, not fair.

Per the Geneva Convention those people are all illegal combatants anyway if they have participated in any way. I don't see how the ones who didn't participate, but perform the administration/finance/training/logistics for those same people are any more protected than the poor souls running around in the mountains with an AK.

And to kind of add to what Deboss mentioned, when there is no reasonable expectation of immediate capture of a dangerous felon who may propagate further violence, you are allowed to take the shot and eliminate them as a police officer. When you go to court for it, stating that you felt you could not immediately capture them, and that in the time it would take to locate and attempt capture later, they would have already performed or aided in further violent crime. That's a civilian police policy. If you can't catch a guy who could very well go off and commit more murders, but you have a chance to take a shot at him, you are justified in taking that shot in order to protect future loss of life.

edited 27th Aug '12 8:27:58 AM by Barkey

That sounds very reasonable.

Problem is, this isn't a bullet we are talking about. It a missile. It turns the target (and whoever happens to be nearby) into chunks.

Its a situation where you'd kill innocents along with a killer to save innocents from a killler.

Yeah. That didn't make much sense either.

Talking about reducing collateral damage, I get the feeling that rather than fire missiles, just use drones with machine guns instead?

Or even maybe use those mosquito robots that were revealed recently to sneak into an area and poison terrorist leaders, so that they won't even know what the hell is up with their own men suddenly choking to death or something.

Cost, I'd assume. I'm not sure why they don't use machine guns (though Barkey probably does), but I'd bet one mosquito drone probably costs more than a fleet of normal ones.

The reason they don't use machineguns is because of the altitude. You have to get pretty close to be accurate from that sort of height, and we don't want to risk our drones being shot down or anything like that. Also, ammo is considerably heavy in the amount needed to be useful or accurate from a drone, to where you have more weight than a missile for less effectiveness.

When you fire a bullet, that's it, you release it to be influenced by gravity and the wind, as well as any surfaces that can be used as cover. Drones do what they do from really high up, where they remain unseen the entire time. You would need to be at a quarter of the altitude of a missile drone to be efficient with a machinegun, and you risk being shot down or your enemy just deciding to run into a house for cover.

Mosquito drones - crikey that's a frightening development! Poison is probably subject to chemical warfare treaties and can be unreliable (unless you're talking Polonium 210) but, hell, they could just land on the target's throat and explode!

I suspect machine guns would be too inaccurate and subject the craft to way too much recoil. They could just use smaller explosive rounds. But looking at drone targets on this page I see why they're using big 'uns - they're mostly targeting groups of militants, houses and vehicles. May as well take down multiple enemies plus their equipment and weapons too. Otherwise you're barely making a mark on 'em.

You could make the point that drones should only be used for high value targets - the insurgent leaders. Problem is, they intentionally don't look any different from anyone else. Also if you kill one leader he'll get replaced within minutes of his hitting the ground. Blow up whole groups of insurgents and you're creating lots more vacancies that need filling.

Partial ninja

edited 27th Aug '12 12:21:40 PM by betaalpha

I have nothing to add to Barkey's statements. Well, maybe just one thing:

Playing the devil's advocate here, the people on the ground (let's just use the Pashtuns for argument's sake) live with the threat of insurgents around them 24/7. Sometimes these insurgents are their family. It is impossible or at the very least highly improbable that these people do not know who the insurgents are; indeed, this is a well-known part of low intensity conflict and one of the core principles of counterinsurgency. At the rate the drone strikes have been going on, these people should know by now that insurgents tend to get picked off by Hellfires, which means that hanging around them is potentially hazardous.

I submit that those who know where the insurgents are and hang around them a lot are treading the fine line that separates "innocent civilians" from "insurgents" and are likely to harbor anti-American sentiments anyway.

edited 27th Aug '12 11:49:15 PM by HouraiRabbit

Wise Papa Smurf, corrupted by his own power. CAN NO LEADER GO UNTAINTED?!

I suppose they could put one of those guided 50 caliber round weapons they're working on in a drone.

Fight smart, not fair.

If you think things are bad in Pakistan now with drone strikes, what is coming post-2014 will really grind your gears. It'll be "It Got Worse - The Motion Picture."

I just wanted to interject that the American interpretation of the Geneva Convention with respect to "unlawful combatants" is

a) BS.

b) Very wrong.

Yeah okay I'll explain myself. If you're not wearing a uniform, is not an automatic relegation to "unlawful" status. Resistance fighters are legitimate lawful combatants regardless of uniforms because it's ridiculous to expect resistance fighters or other militia groups to pandy around in big bright uniforms for you to shoot at.

Secondly, if you're not a combatant, then you're protected under general rights which includes not being blown the eff up without due process. So either you are committing acts of war or you are acting without due process. Your choice.

If you think it's perfectly okay for the government to select people, name them terrorists and then kill them without due process, that's your world, not mine.

Yes, but define resistance fighters. It's not a 1-to-1 match with international terrorist groups and/or those with a more global ideology. And what about the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Chechens, and other foreign jihadis? Are they resistance fighters, terrorists, mercenaries, or some kind of supranational actors outside the scope of international law?

edited 28th Aug '12 10:52:49 PM by HouraiRabbit

Wise Papa Smurf, corrupted by his own power. CAN NO LEADER GO UNTAINTED?!

Yeah but what I'm saying is, you can go "they don't have Geneva Convention rights as lawful combatants" but it does not strip them of rights in general. International law gives you a minimum set of rights no matter who and what are you are outside of any perspective of freedom fighter, militia group or terrorist. The Bush-era concept of "unlawful combatant" doesn't mean, "You can jail them forever now! Cuz they have no rights!". It doesn't mean that. If you aren't a lawful combatant then you fall under the other category of rights. That's why I called it bullcrap. It's not a situation of "rights" versus "no rights" it's a situation of "rights as a lawful combatant" and "rights not as a lawful combatant". They're just two separate categories of rights.

That seems to be irrelevant to this discussion, though, since anyone who's a combatant (lawful or otherwise) is generally considered fair game for stuff like airstrikes. So the legal issue should be whether or not someone counts as a combatant at all.

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

Well no, not exactly. You cannot launch military strikes on someone else's soil without them being allowed to call that an act of war. That isn't so much a question of legality, of course, since killing people is generally not in any legal text (internationally speaking).

Overall, I think you might have to talk about the legal questions over things like:

a) You've breached someone's sovereignty, now what?

b) You've not done due process, now what?

c) What is the exact repercussions of killing innocents? Obviously there's no actual legal framework surrounding what exactly should be done but generally, America itself has typically demanded financial restitution from other countries who have killed Americans intentionally or otherwise. (And quite a lot per head)

Then when you talk about ethically, and say something like "it protects American soldiers". Well but these missions must be looked at in the big picture. You aren't simply striking down one terrorist here or there for the price of 100 Pakistani civilians each. It's also destabilisation of a country full of militants and causing an increase in terrorist activity in the country. It's also increasing the chance of international terrorists striking at USA. It is also increasing the chance of domestic home-bred terrorism.

The idea that militants attack America for no reason is nothing short of ignorance of American policies just like this one. If there was a reason there are international terrorist organisations attacking the United States in the first place it is because of this. So it makes it both pointless and circular to argue for policies to stop terrorists that create them in the first place.

a) If a country is not willing or able to take care of a problem on its own soil (cf. Pakistan, the ISI, and our "alliance" with same), then it falls to us to do something about it especially when we have made it our mission to track down and dismantle these terrorist networks.

b) I wasn't aware due process applied to enemy combatants.

c) That is an excellent question. I haven't done a lot of research into this area so would you mind showing me some figures, as well as incidences in which the countries in question have actually paid said reparations?

Islamic terrorism has existed long before modern day American policies, which are themselves a multi-faceted beast dating back to at least the end of World War II. To say that terrorism arises because we go into other countries and kill terrorists ignores the influence of Qutbism, American support for the state of Israel, political moves by states like Iran, and so on.

Wise Papa Smurf, corrupted by his own power. CAN NO LEADER GO UNTAINTED?!

There's lots more reasons for using drones than just this, eg. it's less of an outright declaration of war than sending troops in, and those things are much faster at responding to the presence of a target that may only be viable for a few minutes. That's also part of the big picture.

I'm sure that terrorists are not just attacking America and the West in general because of revenge at the US striking them. Other reasons include changing the local politics in ways that favour themselves, or to give their regimes a free hand in expanding territory. For example, Al Qaeda say they want the US out of Afghanistan and other countries - so they can take them over.

If the US stops the drone attacks and other operations against terrorist and insurgent groups, the revenge attacks would (probably) start to go down. But in return those groups will grab a lot more territory and could sink Afghanistan back into Taliban rule and a perpetual civil war. And as soon as the US attempted to fight back to defend their interests or intervene as civvies are forced under horrific Taliban-style regimes, then the terrorists will declare their plots for revenge just like always.

As for being allowed to call something an act of war, nothing's stopping Pakistan from calling drone strikes an act of war if they want. I don't think there's any rules to say they can't. Or rules period. It's just a phrase (correct me if I'm wrong).

edited 29th Aug '12 12:29:53 AM by betaalpha

I see a problem with that part. What you make your mission has no legitimacy outside of your borders. However, an international terrorist would be "painted" as target by international organizations (UN, Interpol, etc.)

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

So, when a non-state actor decides to declare war on a country and conduct attacks against its citizens it is okay, whereas a country's policy has no legitimacy outside its borders? I know that's not what you meant but in the context of globalization (with apologies for buzzwords), that's what it amounts to. That's actually one of the big problems of the Westphalian system of international relations; this idea of borders is ill-equipped to cope with modern day terrorism especially when it is funded by states as part of their own foreign policy. This is one of the reasons why I see covert operations as an unfortunate necessity. Yes, they can be pretty illegal under the rules that we have elected to play by on the basis that it gives us some kind of alleged moral authority, but this all falls apart when one kid decides not to go along with the consensus.

edited 29th Aug '12 12:45:13 AM by HouraiRabbit

Wise Papa Smurf, corrupted by his own power. CAN NO LEADER GO UNTAINTED?!

When states agree on rules, they should agree on an organism to enforce them too.

The UN should be able to officially and legally recognize "this guy is an international terrorist and unlawful combatant^note even if we ignore the "no uniform" part, this guy is guilty of willfully attacking civilian targets, thus harboring him voids your right not to have other countries do a surgical strike against him on your territory"

Come to think of it, this sounds not entirely unlike a writ of outlawry...

edited 29th Aug '12 12:53:50 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Sure, but the challenge there is deciding which part of the UN gets to make those decisions. The Security Council? Without going into the whole reform debate, let's just say that recent history suggests the Cold War didn't actually end.

You'll also have a bit of difficulty convincing some of my fellow Americans that such a move would not be a play for the One World Government, to our detriment. No, it doesn't make sense to me either.

edited 29th Aug '12 1:04:15 AM by HouraiRabbit

Wise Papa Smurf, corrupted by his own power. CAN NO LEADER GO UNTAINTED?!

Frankly I'd rather have it delegated from the Security Council to a specialized office (or even a UN____ subgroup) that doesn't have five people with veto rights.

The problem is that it's only "to [your] detriment" because you are the ones abusing your position.

edited 29th Aug '12 1:27:50 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."