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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: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @03:31PM (4 children)
I guess so are body armor, night vision, artillery, missiles, and anything else that isn't an absolutely equal fight then...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
Men in armor die, men with goggles die, artillery men die. Missiles - ehhh. No drone operator is going to die as a result of enemy action.
And, BTW, I didn't call for a "fair fight". There is no such thing as a "fair fight". The fight you win is "fair".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:02PM
Then you seem to be begging your own question.
Personally if I'm guessing where you're coming from, I think I agree with you. Maybe. TMB seems to be getting to the crux of the question.
I'll have to review the arc of Gundam Wing where mobile dolls [wikia.com] were important. I think what Gundam Wing was trying to say was that the human soul was important, so then we got the ZERO system [wikia.com] which allowed Zechs and Heero to battle it out in an AMV [youtube.com] set to a remix of Duel of the Fates from SW:TPM.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:53AM (1 child)
There is at least some element of fair chase when the killers can be killed. Then they come home crippled and fucked up and people start thinking, maybe we shouldn't do this to our own people.
With drones, the pussies are half the world away, snug and safe. The horror never comes home, making it easier to perpetuate horror abroad.
Secondly, you really think drone tech is going to be US only for long? It sets a really ugly precedent especially when an arduino and $50 worth of sensors will get you a fairly well guided anything - quadcopter, glider, whatever. This is going to get out of hand.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:27PM
Yes, I'm sure they said the same thing about strapping a board to your arm back when shields were first invented too. It was an idiotic, Luddite position then and it still is now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.