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When he was in office, former President Barack Obama earned the ire of anti-war activists for his expansion of Bush's drone wars. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning head of state ordered ten times more drone strikes than the previous president, and estimates late in Obama's presidency showed 49 out of 50 victims were civilians. In 2015, it was reported that up to 90% of drone casualties were not the intended targets.
Current President Donald Trump campaigned on a less interventionist foreign policy, claiming to be opposed to nation-building and misguided invasions. But less than two months into his presidency, Trump has expanded the drone strikes that plagued Obama's "peaceful" presidency.
"During President Obama's two terms in office, he approved 542 such targeted strikes in 2,920 days—one every 5.4 days. From his inauguration through today, President Trump had approved at least 36 drone strikes or raids in 45 days—one every 1.25 days."
That's an increase of 432 [sic] percent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday March 20 2017, @02:21PM (27 children)
It's a disproportionate use of force. You can spam as many drone attacks as you want without risking American lives (unless you are killing American citizens with them). That's why the Chair Force is now the Drone Force [reuters.com].
Drones could be equipped with some nonlethal means of subduing targets for later pickup, but that's either not feasible or not seriously considered. As an easy and convenient way of dealing death, there are no obvious consequences [theintercept.com] of increasing the amount of drone strikes.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @02:37PM (6 children)
1) It can be, but is not necessarily, disproportionate.
2) So what? Force should always be used in an overwhelmingly disproportionate manner or it shouldn't be used at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @03:09PM (1 child)
I think he prefers general carpet bombing and leveling the city as a whole. It is more fair to people because they all have an equal shot of getting it. With drones, the civilians who hang around high value targets have unfair odds.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 20 2017, @08:13PM
Sounds like somebody drank the military's kool-aid.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147 [theguardian.com]
https://www.justsecurity.org/33333/drones-accurate-piloted-aircraft-2/ [justsecurity.org]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/obama-continue-signature-strikes-drones-civilian-deaths [theguardian.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @08:29PM (1 child)
So, what you're saying is, if someone walks up to you and starts punching you, you should either completely ignore it, or go on a rampage and kill every living thing within 50 miles.
Got it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @09:17PM
No, I am saying you should beat them so badly that they never consider doing it again though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:45AM (1 child)
Whenever the antagonist is sitting in a chair 12,000 miles away from the target, that is disproportionate and especially cowardly.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:29PM
You're thinking in terms of fair. That is not just wrong but downright idiotic when it comes to war.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @02:48PM (10 children)
I suppose you're against hunting while making use of firearms or crossbows. Are you okay with cattle chutes and captive-bolt guns?
As for humans: maybe you'd like it if all combatants used muskets and lined up in neat rows on an open field?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday March 20 2017, @04:05PM (9 children)
Agreed.
Or if they all stayed in a couple of buildings: you know, towers or such. Two towers, looking much the same, like...oh... yeah! Twin towers.
You could planes into those twin looking towers, and if you kill a few civilians, well.... what is the problem.
FUCK!!!
It doesn't matter if innocents are killed, does it? I mean, really? If your cause is good: like oil.... lots of oil. Own the oil: Pwn it even. No matter what.
Drone, plane. Same.
FUCK... most intelligent species on Earth, my white/black/yellowpurple ass.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @04:53PM (8 children)
The point is: if you have cause to use force, use the amount of force necessary to bring the conflict to an end in the shortest possible time. If that means use of wildly disproportionate force, then so be it.
The question YOU are focused on (and one which I ignored up until now) is whether or not force should be used in certain cases. Therefore your issue is not US soldiers' use of drones to blow certain people up - it is US soldiers' killing of certain people in the first place regardless of the method used to kill them. That's an entirely different matter from the use of "disproportionate force", and a matter which you and I are likely to be in general agreement on.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @05:18PM (3 children)
> If that means use of wildly disproportionate force, then so be it.
Nuke the whole Middle-East!
Nobody will ever be resentful for collateral damage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @08:59PM (2 children)
TFA is talking about drones here: little [wikipedia.org] go-karts [wikipedia.org] in the sky carrying a few missiles, each bearing a ~10kg conventional warhead [wikipedia.org].
That said, to respond to your attempted reductio ad absurdum: if there is a group of people, largely concentrated in specific geographical areas, who adhere to written religious materials [prophetofdoom.net] that literally call for a world-wide war [quran.com] until "all religion is for [our god]", who consider lying to advance their case as moral [thereligionofpeace.com], whose religion could be thoroughly disproven by destruction of specific physical property on lands they inhabit, and whose members actively [wikipedia.org] engage [thereligionofpeace.com] in warfare [markhumphrys.com] or support those who do [wikipedia.org], yes, it does seem wise to take such peoples' claims and actions at face value and nuke them and their lands to glass. (That US soldiers kill such people in small numbers and for different reasons (oil/mercantilism) is nonetheless objectionable.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @10:14AM (1 child)
Leave Trump/Congress out of this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:39PM
I see what you're trying to say, that "Trump/Congress" is trying to take over the world through war. So let's run with your assertion for the moment:
Are you paying taxes ("zakat") to the US federal government? If so, it would seem that you are personally responsible for a measure of the warlike actions taken by said government's soldiers, and that while you personally may not be the most effective war target, you are nonetheless a valid war target for the enemies of the USA due to your direct financial support.
"But but the Internal Revenue Service will steal my stuff and/or point guns at me!" Giving into criminal coercion doesn't make you a good guy, though it does make you a coward.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday March 20 2017, @05:21PM (3 children)
No, it's not just a case of whether force but used. It is a matter of what kind of force.
If drones kill 49 civilians for every 1 legitimate target, well that seems like a pretty shitty way of doing it. Are there ways of reducing the number of innocent victims? Probably. Boots on the ground might do it - I'd reason that a guy standing in front of the target is probably less likely to take out a building full of innocents than a guy splatting bug on a computer screen half a world away, who can only see the target through a grainy camera from a thousand feet up.
Trouble is, one of those situations risks the lives of US soldiers, and the US public seem unwilling to accept that. They would rather see a school full of Syrians blown up than a single flag-draped coffin borne back to the US. That is seriously wrong thinking in my view.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @08:46PM
A century of the Good Guy killing countless Bad Guys and being rewarded by Getting The Girl will warp people's perception of what's appropriate.
The other side is worthless evil wasteland. Our soldiers are Heroes. Why risk even one Hero on the odd chance that he would save a few anonymous people? Those who live near Bad People in The Wasteland are guilty too, otherwise they'd move.
We'd tell the rare good people in those lands to run away so we can carpet-bomb the useless place to smithereens, but they keep asking us to move into Our Paradise.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:48AM (1 child)
This is why drone wars are so evil - they let one side escape the horror of war and thus perpetuate it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:50AM
A Taste of Armageddon [wikia.com] aside, I now presume you will take up an inferior weapon (one on par with the opponents) and charge manfully into their bayonet-equivalents? Y'know, since it'd be wrong for you to escape the horrors of war...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20 2017, @03:22PM (6 children)
There is no such thing a "disproportionate force". Any Marine can tell you, "A fair fight is a fight you come home from." Meet force with overwhelming force. Anything else is just chickenshit. If you have a thousand troops, and I show up with ten thousand troops, I offer you a chance to surrender. That's the gentlemanly thing to do. If you refuse to surrender, then kiss your ass goodbye.
The rest of that sentence touches on the more serious problem with drone strikes. They smack of cowardice. We're Okay with killing them, but we're to skeered to face them while we kill them? Drones don't make me proud, and I'd be surprised if very many veterans are proud of our drone forces.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @03:29PM
I'm neither proud nor ashamed of them. They're just a weapon. They're no more cowardly than wearing body armor or using artillery though. Using them where they can keep a human from being killed is just common sense.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:33PM (1 child)
Depends on your point of view. For the people on those dusty roads the drones are shooting at, the USA is considered the terrorists.
Imagine that an explosive device goes off in your neighborhood targeting some "enemy of ". I think you would be a little upset, and you would certainly be calling whoever sent it the terrorists. Imagine further that a family member gets caught in the radius, and the sender shrugs and says "sorry?".
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @08:59PM
Sender won't say sorry. Never admit guilt or confirm involvement in anything that could bring lawsuits.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snospar on Monday March 20 2017, @05:42PM (2 children)
Perhaps it's just terminology but I definitely think these drone strikes represent "disproportionate civilian casualties". Remember, we are not at war with these countries and all those civilian casualties are non-combatants so your drone is murdering 49 innocents in the hope of hitting one bad guy. I don't think that's a reasonable ratio in anyone's book. The more I think about it the more it starts to sound like a war crime... except, again, we are not at war with these countries just with "terror" or whatever nonsense is currently being pedalled.
Surely we could strap a sniper rifle to a drone and do a much more surgical strike - or come up with some other method of drastically reducing the civilian casualties.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @06:54PM (1 child)
Not that I have any ethical issue with the current situation, but sniper drones are way more affordable.
A gun the size of an M-16 mounted like the cannons on the AC-130 would be great. It could even be buried in the wing for aerodynamics.
If we got it down to a 3-foot wingspan, it could be dirt cheap. We could have swarms of them that automatically shoot anything that moves. This could be as effective as carpet bombing and nukes, but way more environmentally friendly. We could obliterate whole countries this way.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:43AM
I like your idea, but you'll never sell it to the military industrial complex. Everyone involved insists on having big booms and flashes, high body counts, and tons of money flowing. Killing one person, dirt cheap, in an unnoticeable way, is anathema to their way of business.
(Score: 2) by Jiro on Monday March 20 2017, @05:40PM
Drones could be equipped with some nonlethal means of subduing targets for later pickup
Such as? All "nonlethal" methods short of "drop a net on them" have a chance of killing the target, incluiding electric shocks, gas, and concussions; life isn't like the movies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @09:33PM
Not disproportionate, indiscriminate. Puts targets and innocents into the same bin.