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Common Dreams reports:
The U.S. government's so-called "pinpoint"(NYT paywall) drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen are, in fact, leaving wide perimeters of death, as people on the Kill List are targeted--and even reported dead--again and again, according to a report published Monday by the UK-based charity Reprieve.
While drone attacks and their victims are kept secret by the U.S. military and government, Reprieve compiled public information available, most of it from media reports and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, to determine who actually died when the U.S. went after individuals in Yemen and Pakistan between November 2002 and November 2014.
The study examines the cases of 41 people included on a Kill List--a classified U.S. assassination program personally approved by President Obama with no judicial or public oversight. According to the report's findings, up to 1,147 unnamed people were killed in pursuit of these 41 known individuals.
Furthermore, each of these 41 men was reported killed multiple times.
"This raises a stark question," states the study. "With each failed attempt to assassinate a man on the Kill List, who filled the body bag in his place?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:11PM
So how do you deal with terrorist leaders? Let them be? The drone strikes cause collateral casualties, but they are effective with regards to the capabilities of the organizations that are targeted.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Dunbal on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:26PM
Actually it looks like the "terrorists" are the "collateral damage" if you look at the success rate. You realize that the end does not justify the means, right? Otherwise hey why not kill everyone in the country that way you'll be sure to get them...
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday November 27 2014, @01:11PM
Because nuking countries would probably get the US nuked in retaliation. The goal is to preserve American lives, the only lives that count, but murdering as many brown people as necessary to get to the terrorists. Brown people don't count, it's just that as I said you can't simply nuke them, so you have to use less efficient means.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 29 2014, @12:00PM
so the only reason you wouldn't nuke other countries is fear of retaliation?
that's good to know since i was under the apparently false impression that there was some kind of moral reason for not nuking other countries
heaven forbid america somehow develops countermeasures to foreign nukes... then there'll be nothing stopping you from nuking every other country that doesn't pander to your demands
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:59AM
The way you deal with terrorists is you try them in court. And the way you deal with war criminals is you try them in court. And unless you want to look silly, you should start with the biggest, meanest, most notorious terrorist and war criminal. Fortunately, he would be easy to locate. He lives near Dallas, and his name is Bush II. ~Anonymous 0x29B1D963
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:33PM
The drone strikes cause collateral casualties, but they are effective with regards to the capabilities of the organizations that are targeted.
Can you please define "effective" in this use? Maybe provide some comparison of terrorist capabilities 2002-2007 (before drones) and 2009-2014 (after drones). Some discussion of how well drones have restrained ISIL, for example. Or the number of terrorist attacks stopped because a particular "leader" was assassinated. I contend that the US assassination program is - at best - as good at stopping terrorist attacks as my anti-tiger charm is at stopping tiger attacks. I suspect that the US assassination program is much more useful to terrorist organizations as a recruiting tool than the "leaders" they have lost.