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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: 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) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> 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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