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posted by azrael on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the poor-execution dept.

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?

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:43PM

    by edIII (791) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:43PM (#120405)

    You've opened up my eyes. All those women, children, and men at the wedding were not deserving of any mercy or justice. They were within like 50 miles of terrorists!!! It's perfectly reasonable to conclude that every single death, down to the toddlers, was justified because they were terrorists at the wedding. Now I feel better about it. Hmmmm.... those drones are expensive though dude. We already have a bunch of nuclear material lying around. How bout' we just kill em all and let God sort them out instead?

    Don't get the impression that the intelligence work is top notch here. The assholes in charge have lowered the bar down so far for what can become a target. There is no situation in which the Pentagon was fully aware of the imminent hundreds of deaths of civilians and still ordered the strike. This was not a situation in which they knew civilians were being used as shields and fired anyways. Intelligence was caught unaware of the casualties, and their natures, in almost every single case in which civilians died. This was because, obviously, that just before the strike got there nobody gave a shit about what was on the ground once the decision was made. Nobody cared to verify targets because they could not ascribe any value whatsoever to the human beings there.

    Obviously that doesn't work, and we can't go around offing children at weddings because we *thought* there might be a terrorist there. If you feel that way, then the children have become expendable in the goal of securing America.

    Children are not expendable. Not even to fight terrorists. At least not remotely with drones. If you want to risk killing children, then do it face to face over there with soldiers at least. Not drinking a Fresca with central air and heating. So don't bring up logistics and strategy considerations as if it excuses the complete incompetence of the US military in choosing targets for their plethora of advanced weapons platforms. You will never convince me that the target selection and mission operations aren't anything but callous men deciding the fates of others, in ways that no general from World War II would even consider. Those generals were busy leveling Germany too. City by city.

    This isn't the 1940s either. We have GPS, surveillance, and weapons systems quite capable of extremely precise targeting and execution. We don't even have an excuse in some cases to damage a wheat field 100 yards away. We can be that *good*. Those generals would have been appalled at the performance of the men under their command if the weapons system were that precise and they could have targeted only factories and Nazi supply lines, and somehow didn't.

    Yet, if we are so capable of sophisticated destruction... why are innocent people dying? Explain to me how the billions we've spent on these systems are incapable of not killing women and children at weddings? The entire CIA has no kick ass Virginia farm boys willing to be there and verify targets before firing? Where's the SEALS? Where's Rambo?

    It's so wrong from about every conceivable angle, including actual military performance irrespective of mission goals.

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by frojack on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:24PM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:24PM (#120427) Journal

    Yes, yes, we all know that every group of terrorists shooting in the at aircraft air is instantly categorize as a wedding.

    Run along son, stop being a useful idiot for these people.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @02:07AM (#120476)

      You're that guy from Robin Hood Men in Tights, aren't you? Let's see...

      ...every group of terrorists shooting in the at aircraft air...

      King illegal forest to pig wild kill in it a is!

      Yup, that's about as coherent as your ranting.

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:01AM

      by edIII (791) on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:01AM (#120518)

      You really just digging yourself in with the willful ignorance aren't you?

      I guess the lottery payouts for the survivors were the Yemeni government just funding terrorism right? [washingtonpost.com]

      * This incident is really just hilarious for people like you. They killed the man's son at the wedding, and they had been actively working on pro-Western goals and defeating terrorists in Yemen. I guess they were double agents!! Thankfully, the father is probably not still pretending to support the US *

      Here's some journalism from the other side of the world [aljazeera.com]

      You know I initially thought the drone strikes were a very good thing too. Then I kept hearing about the fuckups. One after the other.

      I guess you're right... I mean what's a few dead bodies of children and allies as long as get that "reasonable" certainty that a terrorist gets killed?

      Pull your head out of your ass. The people using these weapons systems are clueless heartless morons.

      --
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:21AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:21AM (#120450) Journal

    You will never convince me that the target selection and mission operations aren't anything but callous men deciding the fates of others, in ways that no general from World War II would even consider. Those generals were busy leveling Germany too. City by city.

    Their only question would be "How soon can we get this to the front lines?" Smart bombing alone is a game changer. Coupling it with instant feedback, no risk to military personnel, and a considerable loiter time, would make it instantly adopted by any competent general of that era.

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:40AM

      by edIII (791) on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:40AM (#120509)

      You misunderstand me. I agree with you.

      A WWII general would have jumped at it, that much is obvious.

      What I am saying is that the generals bombed entire cities simply because that was the best way to sabotage Germany and win the war. If you told a general that you didn't need to risk the lives of any soldiers, could attack with precision, and reduce all secondary damage and causalities, he would have absolutely. That same general would have marched you to a firing squad personally if you told him that not only the factories got hit, but that 3,456 civilians also lost their lives in the city. Why? That's not what the general asked for.

      There is a serious issue with civilian casualties when you have the means and technologies to prevent it. Smart bombing is a game changer. I wish they would actually use it too.

      As a final analogy, we are arguing about muskets and sniper rifles. A musketeer could be forgiven for accuracy and accidents. A sniper at average range hitting the wrong target can not. Our "snipers" are making themselves look like retarded Mr. MaGoos. Repeatedly.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @03:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @03:18PM (#120618)
        One important difference in WWII is everyone in those countries knew they were officially at war. And so in WWII bombing civilians and factories did help win the war. In fact nuking an entire city or two made it a lot easier to convince a whole country to surrender. But you need to kill huge amounts of people to be effective (or at least convince huge amounts of people that they could be wiped out if they don't surrender).

        But if you merely kill wedding parties and scores of children you're just making things worse. Especially if you are killing people who think they will go to Jannah/heaven if they fight you.

        And the other problem is who has the authority and ability to surrender for who? At least when you bombed Japan, the Emperor could say "Japan surrenders" and enough of the Japanese would accept that. When you drone strike a village wedding party, who surrenders? It's likely that after the strike a higher percentage of those in the village are now at war with you. The rest were probably not even your enemies in the first place. What do you really achieve other than giving promotions to a few terrorist lieutenants?
      • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:16PM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <reversethis-{moc ... {8691tsaebssab}> on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:16PM (#120692) Journal

        The problem is that "smart" bombs are dumb bombs without REALLY good intel on the ground and wadda ya know, terrorists tend not to hang out with non terrorists which makes gathering any type or concrete intel damned near impossible.

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