AP IMPACT: study suggests drones kill far fewer civilians than many Pakistanis believe

[limpyhobbler]

Last edited Sun Feb 26, 2012, 07:15 PM - Edit history (1)

AP IMPACT: study suggests drones kill far fewer civilians than many Pakistanis believe

ISLAMABAD (AP) — American drone strikes inside Pakistan are killing far fewer civilians than many in the country are led to believe, according to a rare on-the-ground investigation by The Associated Press of 10 of the deadliest attacks in the past 18 months.

The widespread perception in Pakistan that civilians, not militants, are the principal victims — a view that is fostered by leading right-wing politicians, clerics and the fighters themselves — fuels pervasive anti-American sentiment and, some argue, has swelled the ranks of al-Qaida and the Taliban.

But an AP reporter who spoke to about 80 villagers at the sites of the 10 attacks in North Waziristan, the main sanctuary for militants in Pakistan's northwest tribal region along the Afghan border, was told that a significant majority of the dead were combatants.

Indeed, the AP was told by the villagers that of at least 194 people killed in the attacks, about 70 percent — at least 138 — were militants. The remaining 56 were either civilians or tribal police, and 38 of them were killed in a single attack on March 17, 2011.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-bc-as--pakistan-droneshumancost,0,5791907.story

Edited to add this second link. The original linked story moved or something. This is a very similar story:
http://www.usatoday.com/USCP/PNI/Nation/World/2012-02-26-BCASPakistanDrones-Human-Cost2nd-LdWritethru_ST_U.htm

[Cali_Democrat]

1. One civilian killed is one too many.

End the drone war.

[WonderGrunion]

20. Civilians always die in war

Is there any evidence at all that drones kill anymore civilians than manned bombers? Or is it simply the concept of war you dislike and the drones are simply a petard to hoist upon?

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. That's one dead civilian for every four dead militants.

Is that an acceptable ratio for the US?

Drone war makes me grumpier.

[Johnny Rico]

12. In World War II the ratio was 1 civilian for every 2 dead soldiers for the Axis powers

of Italy, Japan and Germany (very rough figures, mind you). For what it's worth.

If you're curious, here are the figures for the other major combatants:

United States: 250 soldiers for each dead civilian.
United Kingdom: 6 soldiers for each dead civilian.
France: 1 1/2 civilians for each dead soldier.
Soviet Union: 1 1/2 civilians for each dead soldier.
China: 4 civilians for each dead soldier.

[truedelphi]

25. the very serious problem wth your analogy is that most of the civilians that were

killed in Germany, France, Belgium and the rest of Europe were killed between May 1944 and March 1945.

And the civilian population in Europe had pretty much figured out that the war was ending and that the Allies were going to win, starting right after D Day.

My Dad served in the Battle of the Bulge, Dec 1944 to January 1945, and German soldiers were surrendering left and right because they knew it was pointless to fight. Not that this battle was not a hard fought battle - it was. And not that people didn't die on both sides. The Allies experienced a huge loss of life. The Germans were hurt even worse than we were. But people understood the war would be over by summer of 1945 at the latest.

Contrast that with the USA's "War on Terror." This war is on going. It appears to be an eternal war, fought by the largest military power on earth, against peoples in third world nations. We have already explained to the world at large that we get to use our drones against all and any as long as there is even one terrorist out there. And for every civilian we kill, there are huge repercussions. If you were a Pakistani, and yoru teenageer was killedat a wedding,how would you feel?

Already over 4 million people have left Afghanistan. Four million people have left! They have gone to Pakistan, to Australia and to Iran.

[stevenleser]

53. How does that affect kill ratios and whether they are bad or good? You dont really explain that. nt

[truedelphi]

64. What? What? What?

To succeed in any military venture, an army must have the hearts and mind sof the civilian population. Do you not understand that?

"Kill ratios" as you so blithely put it can be extremely high and yet indeed be accepted by a civilian population that is being starved to death, killed and tortured by the enemy occupying it.

I don't know your age, but I was young enough that I heard first hand stories of what happened in Europe under the Third Reich's armies. My parents had friends who fled Paris when Hitler's forces took over France.

My dad spend time in Belgium and Holland with the civilians there after the Allies won and drove the Germans out. And you know what? The Dutch were falling down in the streets, dying of malnutrition from the period of October 1944 to the time the Allies took over. And they were also being rounded up. When I visited Europe in 1979, I was befriended by an older man whose brother had been killed during such a roundup. The brother had stayed home from school ill with malnutrition or the flu. The Germans were going house to house and they took every single adult or near adult male over to the local park and shot them.

I heard in 1979 story after story of how a Dutch person would be walking along the street, and the people around them would fall over and collapse, as there was little food allowed for the Dutch - the Germans were taking it all. (The cost of a single loaf of bread was over $ 150 dollars.)

The Taliban did not starve the people in Afghanistan. Even women in Afghanistan are now saying things were better there under the Taliban. Sure, they say, "we have to give up our civil rights as women, but we can walk around our town and shop without worrying that we might be blown away." (TV show on PBS, "POV" or else the one that comes on right after it, had a couple of episodes relating to this.)

No woman want to wear a burqha but they would rather wear burqhas than be killed or wounded - or live in fear of such, for the next ten decades.

[Incitatus]

3. How do they differentiate between dead militants and dead civilians?

Are only women and children considered civilians or do the militants have "militant" tattooed on their foreheads?

[stevenleser]

51. You are asking how the people who lived there knew who was who?Because that is who provided the info

the AP asked the people living in the villages. Something tells me they had a pretty idea who was and who was not a militant.

[gratuitous]

4. Wow, they're really reaching now, aren't they?

It's not like there's any prospect of a war crimes tribunal being convened. I wonder why this bullshit self-justification even needs to be indulged? We're the mighty United States, dammit! If we lob a missile at someone, then we did it for all the best reasons, and anyone killed should be fucking grateful to die in whatever cause that might be this week. So everybody just calm down, unless you're thinking about the booga-booga scary prospect of Iran. In which case, you should probably wet yourself, because that's how super scary Iran is this election year.

Oops, one too many words in that last sentence.

[truedelphi]

24. I have long called the AP

Applied Pressure. And alternately, I refer to them as Applied Propaganda.

They' re usually working in service of whatever Huge And Terrible Industry is giving them the ample monetary reasons to slant the news.

Circa late 1998- 1999, i carefully researched the AP's take on the gas additive MTBE, for example, and discovered that they lied through their teeth. But I am sure that the forces at Big Oil saw to it that they were compensated, and quite well, for the lies they told.

They didn't just misstate scientific facts about MTBE; no, they took the time to create a series of quotes and attribute those quotes to the head scientist, John Froines, on the Gold Ribbon panel of MTBE experts. And those quotes were the exact opposite of the quotes that they would ahve gotten from Mr Froines, if they had bothered to talk to him.

What the AP is hoping for is that you just casually read the headlines, and then this forms your opinion, on a subtle level.

They are nothing but propaganda.

[stevenleser]

52. Speaking to the villagers where the attacks happened is reaching?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/ap-impact-study-suggests-drones-kill-far-fewer-civilians-than-many-pakistanis-believe/2012/02/24/gIQAVx49XR_story.html

1. You are right, there is no war crimes tribunal on the horizon because the agencies in the UN have already ruled that the use of drones is not a war crime. There are questions about how the targeting is being done, because if civilians (CIA) are doing the targeting, that could be an issue, but that is easily remedied by transferring the targeting to military intelligence.

2. Do you have any empirical refutation of the information in the article or are you going on emotion (there MUST be something wrong there darnit!).

3. If there was an investigation into whether the US did anything wrong there, dont you think one of the first things that would be done in such an investigation would be to interview the villagers to determine who was killed and what their status was in terms of combattant/non-combattant?

[gratuitous]

62. Those darn treaties!

Well, we've already erased whole sections and amendments to the Constitution, I suppose it's all right to shitcan the Geneva Conventions, too. What's a little indiscriminate bombing of civilians between us and our pals in Afghanistan and Pakistan, anyway? Who would even have the temerity to conduct such an investigation of the infallible United States? Except for terrorists and other people who don't count. Besides, who are you going to believe - Our faultless, intrepid journalists at the AP and their anonymous sources, or eyewitness accounts gathered by those well-known terrorist sympathizers in the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders?

[RufusTFirefly]

5. Phew! That's a relief!!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality show.

[limpyhobbler]

6. Not sure why people have a hard time believing there are some hardcore terrorist groups

operating out of that region. And they aren't going to go away just by pretending they don't exist.

It's a good thing we have the drones otherwise there would be even more unnecessary deaths than there are now. We would have to use either soldiers on the ground or maybe helicopters or bombers. That would be way worse.

The other choice would be to disengage militarily from the region altogether, and I know that is what many people would like. In my opinion we shouldn't do that because there are too many badguys there. People who agree with me include Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta and David Petraeus.

The drones are horrible but I honestly believe they are less horrible than the alternatives.

[MadHound]

7. So we should just continue to kill people,

Keep the war machine going, killing innocents and making obscene profits for the MIC?

Is that what you propose?

So how long should we stay? What would be considered victory?

Oh, and al Qaeda is gone, and most of the "bad guys" there are much like you and me, innocents caught in the crossfire, with the choice to either lay down and die, or resist the invasion of a foreign enemy.

Just because politicians and generals agree with you doesn't make you, or them, correct.

[limpyhobbler]

10. We should defend our country from fascist terrorists who are plotting to kill us.

Keep the war machine going, killing innocents and making obscene profits for the MIC?

Just because the MIC is real and makes money, doesn't mean we should stop defending ourselves against real threats. The actual number of innocent people killed may be far less than previously believed, as per this article

Is that what you propose?

If we just totally come home, then are terror groups going to stop their plots against us? I think they will just keep on coming either way. So we might as well at least defend ourselves. We should not kill indiscriminately. So what is the best way we have to do very targeted attacks against known terrorists, without sending in the Navy Seals every time? That's the drones.

So how long should we stay?

I don't know.

What would be considered victory?

Every badguy we stop is a victory. Victory would also be if the local governments had the ability to police their own territories adequately.

Oh, and al Qaeda is gone

Yeah they have been greatly disrupted because we have waged this war, including the drone strikes. Including the mission to get Bin Laden. That demonstrates the success of our policy.

and most of the "bad guys" there are much like you and me, innocents caught in the crossfire, with the choice to either lay down and die, or resist the invasion of a foreign enemy.

They aren't that much like me. There are groups of fascist terrorists in that area who are all hopped up on religion and they are gunning for us. I admit it sucks that the terrorists are blended into the general population and even into the police, military, and intelligence service. I don't view it as an invasion. It's self defense.

Just because politicians and generals agree with you doesn't make you, or them, correct.

Yes. But since this is Democratic Underground, I thought I would point out that my view is in fact the mainstream view of the American people and also the position of the "leaders" of the Democratic Party and the US government.

[frylock]

13. fascist terrorists?!

commie marxist fascists!

[limpyhobbler]

14. You don't agree?

What's so funny about a group of religious fanatics who want to destroy our civilization and turn the whole earth into a religious dictatorship.

It may not be the textbook definition of "fascism" but it is close enough for me.

Pretty humorous huh?

If there is another big attack I wonder how many people will be saying we should have done more.

[Nostradammit]

16. You're right - there's nothing funny about the Republican party.

If you meant the people of Pakistan, I don't know how you're going to avoid "another big attack" if we continue to kill innocent citizens with our drones.

Eventually the whipped dog bites back.

[limpyhobbler]

22. I do see the resemblance.

I'm not trying to describe the people of Pakistan. It's just these terrorist groups that I am referring to.

Pakistan is a partially-failed state, the legal government is not in full control of the security forces.

What should we do, just stop all efforts at combatting terrorist groups in that region?

I think even most people even on this message board would agree we should have intelligence gathering operations there. So then what should we do when we get intelligence about a terrorist group who is planning attacks?

Wouldn't it be negligent not to act on the information? What can be done though? A drone strike may be your best option in that case.

Besides drones, how else can we fight the badguys there? Or do you think the whole concept of these terrorists is just a concocted myth?

[Nostradammit]

33. Targeted assassinations that allow for the murder of innocents IS TERRORISM!

I would think that fact would be self-evident.

By your logic the Pakistan people would be justified in attacking the U.S. in the U.S.

What you seem to have a hard time grasping is the fact that you'll never end terrorism if you keep creating more terrorists.



This is the thinking of the future.

Try it.

[limpyhobbler]

35. OK so what would be a better way to approach the issue?

OK I got it, you're against the drone strikes.

You think it is bad because it leads to a cycle of violence.

You make a great point and I agree with some of your principals.

So that's why I'm just trying to figure out this question:
If there are terrorist groups in Pakistan planning attacks against the US and other countries, what can we do to stop them?

I understand you don't like drone strikes. I don't like it either. But I was just thinking that targeted killings were better than the alternative. I thought the alternative would be less precise bombings, which would be worse.

So far the drone strikes combined with intelligence gathering and special forces, so basically what we've been doing, that's the least violent option I've heard so far.

How would you approach the issue of dealing with the militant extremists?
Or do you think there is nothing that needs to be done?

[Nostradammit]

37. Well, if we are to stay true to the original intent of the people who started this country

We will withdraw our military to the borders of our own country and end our experiment in imperialism.

If I think my neighbor is planning to do me harm and I go over and whack him first will the jury buy my reasoning?

Is that how you think society should work?

I'm truly more worried about what our global military exploits are going to end up costing us FAR more than I worry about a bunch of religious nuts in Central Asia.

I believe you are straining at gnats and swallowing camels.


All due respect ~

[stevenleser]

58. All due respect to you, there is no such thing as war without civilian deaths.

You keep focusing on that as if it is some astounding point, it's not. Everyone here on DU knows that.

The question is, is there a good/legitimate reason to be fighting a war, or not. Civilian deaths always come with war. That point should keep us focused on how serious a proposition a war is, for sure.

If you cannot make an argument why this particular war is wrong or illegitimate, bringing up civilian deaths will not save your argument.

[Nostradammit]

61. Did Congress declare war on Pakistan?

I didn't read about that in the papers.

Beyond the immorality of raining death down upon innocent people in a country with which you are not at war
it is a ridiculously stupid thing to be doing if your goal is, as has been stated, to be ending terrorism.

[stevenleser]

60. No, actually, in wartime, it is neither murder, nor terrorism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vengeance

Operation Vengeance was the name given to the military operation to kill Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on April 18, 1943, during the Solomon Islands campaign in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed on Bougainville Island when his transport bomber aircraft was shot down by U.S. Army fighter aircraft operating from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.

The mission of the U.S. aircraft was specifically to kill Yamamoto and was based on United States Navy intelligence on Yamamoto's travel plans in the Solomon Islands area. The death of Yamamoto reportedly damaged the morale of Japanese naval personnel (described by Samuel Eliot Morison as being considered the equivalent of a major defeat in battle), aided the morale of members of the Allied forces, and may have been intended as an act of revenge by U.S. leaders who blamed Yamamoto for the Pearl Harbor attack which initiated the formal state of war between Imperial Japan and the U.S. After the war, more controversy surrounded the legacy of the mission as several of the U.S. fighter pilots involved debated for years over who should have received the aerial victory credit for the downing of Yamamoto's aircraft.
------------------------------------------------------------

And, as I already noted, there are always civilian deaths in wartime.

[Comrade Grumpy]

36. Yes, maybe we should stop combatting terrorist groups in the region.

Al Qaeda is a ghost.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and their buddies don't want to take over the world. They are interesed in power in their region.

But I'm sure they'll be happy to fight us as long as we want to fuck with them. I don't think we saw a whole bunch of Pakistani and Afghan wannabe attackers aiming at the US until a few years into the Afghan occupation. Simply continuing the killing guarantees the killing (on all sides) will continue.

Imperial war makes me grumpy.

[MNBrewer]

21. Sounds like we should be sending drones to hit the Catholic Bishops, then.

[frylock]

43. clearly, i don't..

life is too short to spend every waking moment in fear of "another big attack." what's evident is our current foreign policy isn't accomplishing fuckall in preventing "another big attack." if anything, it's contributing to the possibility of "another big attack."

[limpyhobbler]

48. This thread

has turned into my own personal little quagmire. I can't get out of it.

I get that you are against our current policies. I'm open to ideas.

But what would you do instead?

How would you approach the issue of combatting militant terrorist groups in Pakistan?

Is there some other strategy you think would be better?

Or do you think the whole idea of the terrorist groups is just exaggerated and we don't need a policy on that issue?

[stevenleser]

56. You are going to get a very simplistic and superficial response if at all.

See my responses down thread.

[limpyhobbler]

59. thanks

I needed a little backup.

[frylock]

63. you're right. let's just continue to utilize the same costly and ineffective methods..

because i can't come up with a better idea.

[MadHound]

40. USA-USA-USA

Geez, you sound like the rest of the jingoist idiots in this country. Full of piss and vinegar, willing to kill others for no good reason.

Have you ever been to war? Have you ever cowered in fear as the bombs fell? Somehow I doubt it, otherwise you wouldn't be so consign others to death.

You don't get it, much like most of America doesn't get it, still doesn't get it, even though we've had our asses kicked, our noses rubbed in this type of shit before.

We are fighting in a battle of ideas, not bullets, but instead we brought an army to this battle of ideas, and are consequently losing this fight. You don't win a battle of ideas by killing people, but by coming up with better ideas. We faced this situation once before, in Vietnam, and we lost, badly.

Every person we kill means we're losing this war of ideas, because every death means that another person, at least, is turned against us. You don't win wars of ideas with bullets, but ideas(I suggest you read the Ugly American, an old, but still relevant classic). Sure, we can scorch the earth and call it peace, but all we're doing is creating problems for ourselves in the future. Have you no since of history? Why do you think these people are attacking us to begin with? Oh, yeah, because we've been fucking around in that part of the world for decades, killing innocents and destroying countries. You think that more of the same is going to solve the problem? You are woefully ignorant on this situation.

Two million dollars. $2,000,000. That is how much it would cost to prevent 911. Looking back, would you have paid two million dollars to prevent 911? You see, we used the Afghan people, the mujahideen, to fight our proxy war against the Soviets back in the late seventies and early eighties. We provided them with arms, supplies and money, but little humanitarian aid. Still these people(including bin Laden), fought on and beat the Soviets. Once the peace held, we left, left the Afghan people to bury their dead, left them to rebuild their country, which had been blown back to the Stone Age.

The mujahideen wanted, needed help, and turned to the US. But we wouldn't give it to them. The act that really pissed off bin Laden, the one thing that turned him against the West, was school funding. We, the richest country in the world, the one outside country who had benefited the most from the Afghan victory, refused to loosen our purse strings and provide two million dollars in order to build schools.

Two million dollars would have won that battle of ideas, and done immense good, bought immense good will. But instead we snapped the purse shut, pissing off bin Laden in the process, along with millions of Afghans. And setting the wheels in motion for 911. Action, reaction, cause, effect. When you are fighting a war of ideas, you need to consider the future ramifications of your actions.

We're still involved in that war of ideas, and we're still losing it badly. The only way we can win, the only way we can stop terrorism, is to stop the killing. Stop turning people against us out of rage and anger. Stop the killing, apologize for what we've done, and try to make amends.

Your portrayal of who we're fighting is woefully inaccurate. We aren't fighting "fascist terrorist&quot whatever that is), but rather ordinary human beings who suddenly find themselves being invaded by a much larger military power. After all, the actual number of al Qaeda, the actual number of the Taliban at the beginning of this war was laughingly small. Less than two thousand people all told. Yet we have unleashed our full military might on this country. What would you do if you were in their shoes? Oh, yeah, like most people, you would join the military and fight back. We're not talking terrorists here, we're talking about people fighting for their country. In fact, the Afghan people would, justifiably so, call us the terrorist, since we invade their country without good reason, use "Shock and Awe" to terrorize the people, and proceed to kill innocents and destroy a country, all for what? To bring justice to a literal handful of people? Sounds like terror to me.

And again, citing what political leaders, and even the brainwashed masses of American people, believe doesn't justify what we've done. After all, military and political leaders alike, Republican and Democrat, supported the Vietnam war for far too long. And the American people, well hell, just a few short years ago they voted a congenital idiot back into the highest office in the land.

Sadly however, you are like far too many Americans, ignorant of our history, ignorant of other people, and in possession of only one answer to any problems, the military. The trouble is, when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.

I suggest that you educate yourself, equip yourself with some other tools, so that you can start truly discerning what our problems are.

[limpyhobbler]

45. I think I disagree with your position on drone strikes.

Geez, you sound like the rest of the jingoist idiots in this country. Full of piss and vinegar, willing to kill others for no good reason.

I'm not jingoistic. Not full of piss an vinegar. Also not willing to kill others for no good reason. I think your comments are getting kind of personal. By the way if you are saying these things about me then are you also saying them about the vast majority of the American people who agree there is a real terrorist threat in Pakistan.

"In a February 2012 poll, 83% of Americans (77% of the liberal Democrats) replied they support the drone strikes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan

Have you ever been to war? Have you ever cowered in fear as the bombs fell? Somehow I doubt it, otherwise you wouldn't be so consign others to death.

No. But I disagree with this formula where if somebody has experienced war then they will not support policies to attack terrorist groups. I don't think there is a real point there besides the personal dig against someone for not having experienced war.

We are fighting in a battle of ideas, not bullets, but instead we brought an army to this battle of ideas, and are consequently losing this fight.

How are we losing? I thought Al Qaeda had been decimated. We got Bin Laden. There have not been any successful major attacks in the US. If that's losing, what would be your definition of winning?

You don't win a battle of ideas by killing people, but by coming up with better ideas.

We do have much better ideas than the Talibans, AlQaedas, etc. We have the ideologies that underlie our way of life. I don't always agree with those ideologies, but they are certainly better than the ideas proposed by the Taliban.

We faced this situation once before, in Vietnam, and we lost, badly.

There are some valid comparisons to Vietnam but there are also some differences. I think the differences are greater than the similarities.

Every person we kill means we're losing this war of ideas, because every death means that another person, at least, is turned against us.

I don't believe it but I'm willing to maybe be convinced if you show me evidence that terrorist groups or religious militant groups are growing in size.

You don't win wars of ideas with bullets, but ideas.

I believe there are terrorist groups in that region that region who don't care about our ideas. They are all hopped up religion and they want to take over governments like in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons. I'm OK with stopping them by any means necessary.

(I suggest you read the Ugly American, an old, but still relevant classic).

Thanks for the suggestion.

Sure, we can scorch the earth and call it peace

What is this scorching the earth? You see earth scorching, I see fighting fascists.

but all we're doing is creating problems for ourselves in the future.

If we go into isolation mode that would create even worse problems in the future.

Have you no since of history?

Yes I have it.

Why do you think these people are attacking us to begin with?

I take them at their word. They say it plainly.
1) US support for Israel.
2) US support for Saudi and other oil kingdoms.
3) US support for other nation-states.

In other words, they view us as supporting repressive governments that are blocking them in their goal of establishing a global religious dictatorship. That's not a guess, that is the reason they give for attacking us. And they are correct, we have been doing that. In my opinion we mostly just do it to sell guns and get oil and protect Israel. So our motives in the region have been suspect to say the least.

Oh, yeah, because we've been fucking around in that part of the world for decades, killing innocents and destroying countries.

OK you have a good point there. But I'm still thinking we should attack terrorist groups. I perceive them as fascist militants hell-bent on bringing down governments and destroying civilization as we know it.

You think that more of the same is going to solve the problem?

No. I think we should change our role in the middle east (and everywhere) to a benevolent or at least a benign role where we do not seek to exploit other nations for their resources. We should not rob others of their natural wealth or encourage repressive governments.

You are woefully ignorant on this situation.

whatever.

Two million dollars. $2,000,000. That is how much it would cost to prevent 911. Looking back, would you have paid two million dollars to prevent 911?

I think this line of reasoning about the $2,000,000 is weird and might belong in creative speculation.

You see, we used the Afghan people, the mujahideen, to fight our proxy war against the Soviets back in the late seventies and early eighties. We provided them with arms, supplies and money, but little humanitarian aid. Still these people(including bin Laden), fought on and beat the Soviets. Once the peace held, we left, left the Afghan people to bury their dead, left them to rebuild their country, which had been blown back to the Stone Age.

I agree with that history lecture. Personally I think we were on the wrong side in the Soviet-Afghan conflict. We should have supported the Soviets instead. We could be living in a very different world today.

The mujahideen wanted, needed help, and turned to the US. But we wouldn't give it to them. The act that really pissed off bin Laden, the one thing that turned him against the West, was school funding. We, the richest country in the world, the one outside country who had benefited the most from the Afghan victory, refused to loosen our purse strings and provide two million dollars in order to build schools.

I don't really think it is accurate to portray Bin Laden as simply fighting for school funding. No offense but to me that sounds like goofy talk. Where did you hear this? What if they then asked for more money? But on the broader point that we should have remained engaged in Afghanistan after the Soviets left, I agree with that. I also agree social aid can be more effective than bombs.

So where is the disagreement? We seem to agree on many things? Except for that I think we should disrupt terrorist groups by any means necessary, and you think we should restrain ourselves from violence against them. Is that a fair assessment?

We're still involved in that war of ideas, and we're still losing it badly.

How are we losing the war of ideas? You think the terrorist groups have a better health care proposal or something? I'm still not following that. I think you are just saying that by using violence we are losing credibility in asking other people to lay down arms.

The only way we can win, the only way we can stop terrorism, is to stop the killing. Stop turning people against us out of rage and anger. Stop the killing, apologize for what we've done, and try to make amends.

My opinion is that if we stop disrupting terrorist groups, they will regroup and get stronger. I think they will try to take over whole countries and attack us in our own countries. The idea that if we be nice to them they will be nice to us doesn't add up for me. Sorry.

Your portrayal of who we're fighting is woefully inaccurate. We aren't fighting "fascist terrorist&quot whatever that is), but rather ordinary human beings who suddenly find themselves being invaded by a much larger military power.

Nope there are terrorist groups very active there. It may not be the textbook definition of fascism, but it's close enough for me. They are pretty similar to a nascent Nazi Party, or the KKK, or Aryan Nations, in my opinion. That's why I call them fascists. Why drag "ordinary human beings" into this? I guess they are ordinary. I'm not referring to the average residents of Pakistan. I'm talking about terrorist groups. Can't you make that difference in your thinking?

After all, the actual number of al Qaeda, the actual number of the Taliban at the beginning of this war was laughingly small. Less than two thousand people all told.

You say the Taliban was less than 2000 people. Doesn't make sense to me. Where did you hear that?

Yet we have unleashed our full military might on this country.

We certainly have not.

What would you do if you were in their shoes? Oh, yeah, like most people, you would join the military and fight back.

No. Speak for yourself. I would join a secular leftist democratic party and try to work with the international community and NATO forces to protect my family from the fascist Taliban. What happened to the war of ideas?

We're not talking terrorists here, we're talking about people fighting for their country.

I am specifically talking about terrorist groups. In my view they are not fighting for their country. If anything they are fighting to overthrow their country and replace it with a religious dictatorship. Pakistan is basically a semi-failed state. Left unchecked these extremist groups could stage a coup and take over the government there. I hope you can agree that would be a negative development.

In fact, the Afghan people would, justifiably so, call us the terrorist, since we invade their country without good reason

I think we did have a good reason.

use "Shock and Awe" to terrorize the people, and proceed to kill innocents and destroy a country, all for what? To bring justice to a literal handful of people? Sounds like terror to me.

You make a good and valid point. In my view targeted killings such as by drone strikes or special forces are better than the "shock and awe" campaigns. But you seem to be against all military activity in the area, no matter how targeted or precise. I would much rather be having a conversation about WHICH TACTICS we should use against these terrorist groups. Instead of WHETHER we should do anything, and merely trying to convince people that there is an actual threat.

And again, citing what political leaders, and even the brainwashed masses of American people, believe doesn't justify what we've done. After all, military and political leaders alike, Republican and Democrat, supported the Vietnam war for far too long. And the American people, well hell, just a few short years ago they voted a congenital idiot back into the highest office in the land.

Yeah you are right about that. I mentioned it because I know my view on this issue is a minority view on this discussion board, so I wanted to point out that in the broader community my view on drone strikes is shared by the vast majority of Democrats. I don't think much is accomplished by calling people we disagree with "brainwashed".

Sadly however, you are like far too many Americans, ignorant of our history, ignorant of other people, and in possession of only one answer to any problems, the military.

I think you are making a lot of unwarranted assumptions about me personally. We probably agree on most issues, but I just disagree with you on this one issue regarding the drone policy in Pakistan. And apparently maybe the broader issue of the justification for the war in Afghanistan. I'm certainly not "in possession of only one answer to any problems". Not sure what gave you that impression.

I suggest that you educate yourself, equip yourself with some other tools, so that you can start truly discerning what our problems are.

It is possible for informed people who agree on most things to still come to different conclusions on some issue. Apparently we have a disagreement about the correct policy towards terrorist groups in Pakistan. My views are always evolving and changing. Thank you for your valuable insight on the issue.

[MadHound]

49. Geez, where to start

OK, let's start with the basics, namely the language and terms that you use. "Fascist-terrorist", really? First of all, brushing aside the fact that this sounds like something you picked up from hate radio, your use of this term shows a profound lack of understanding about what fascism, and terrorism is.

Fascism is the melding of the corporate and the state for greater control and power. Since Afghanistan has no real corporate power base for the government to use, there really can be no fascism. Totalitarian government are not, by definition, fascist governments, there are many flavors of totalitarianism, learn them. For words and concepts matter, and if you are using the wrong words, engaging with the wrong concepts, then you aren't fully comprehending what you are doing, and hamstringing yourself. This relates to the war of ideas that I mentioned earlier, and the need for understanding.

Speaking of the war of ideas, since you don't seem to grasp it, let me explain it plain for you. A war of ideas is a conflict of cultures, beliefs, modes of approaching the world. Sometimes a war of ideas is fought concurrently with a physical battle, such as what occurred during the Vietnam War, sometimes not. During the Cold War we were engaged in a war of ideas with the Soviet Union, vying with them for control of large swathes of the world. Socialism vs. capitalism, democracy vs. an totalitarian oligarchy. Though much of this war was a physical conflict, many of it was simply a battle for hearts and minds, and in some cases, we lost badly. Let me give you an example from Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Back in 2005 there was a devastating earthquake in the Kashmir region of Pakistan, just across the Afghan border. While the US eventually provided a substantial amount of aid, the folks on the spot, the first responders, were members of al Qaeda. Instead of taking time out to help our fellow humans, and garner a great deal of good will for ourselves, we continued on with military operations across the border. It wasn't until we belatedly realized what a PR nightmare this was did we start aiding our fellow humans, but by then it was too late, we had lost that battle in the war of ideas.

We just lost another battle in that war of ideas the other week, with the discovery of those burned Qurans. Yes, yes, I know that it is fashionable to dismiss this as overreaction due to religious fanaticism, but the fact of the matter is we've stuck our foot into this tiger trap more than once during this war, you would think that we would have learned by now. Instead, we've come out looking like ugly Americans, with no cultural sensitivity and no respect for those we are supposedly saving from, well, whatever it is we're supposed to be saving them from. Another battle in the war of ideas lost.

You may think that a war of ideas is meaningless, that it doesn't contribute anything to winning the physical battles, but you are wrong. Winning the war of ideas, winning hearts and minds, is the most important thing, a fact that has been recognized by leaders and political experts for eons. Some contrast and comparison.

We failed badly in the war of ideas in Vietnam. We failed to show that we were a people who were kind, generous, and dedicated to something nobler than our own vision of empire. This is why the NVA was able to operate in South Vietnam with relative impunity, why the Viet Cong weren't lacking for recruits, why the people of Southeast Asia did not want our presence in their country. You cannot win a war if you do not have the people of the countryside on your side. Yes, you may pound your enemy into tiny pieces, you may stride across the country in question like a Collosus, but you won't win in the long run, but your enemy will continue to reform from the ashes of defeat, only to attack you again and again until you are bled dry or leave. We saw this with our own Revolution. We did not win militarily, we won less than a handful of major engagements, our capital was captured, our major ports of commerce were occupied or blockaded for a good portion of the war. Even the belated entry of the French did not swing the balance of the military scales. What won the Revolution far us was the fact that we had already won the war of ideas. The British were being bled dry in a war that they could not win because they did not have support of the people of this country, so their only other option was to leave.

Now compare our actions in Vietnam, and Iraq, and Afghanistan with our actions after WWII. We deliberately set out to win the hearts and minds of our former enemies after the conclusion of hostilities. We poured money, manpower, and material into rebuilding both Japan and Germany, showing them our generosity, kindness, respect and humanity. It was a wise decision, one inspired in large part by the disaster of the post war settlement of WWI(which essentially led to WWII). This post WWII war of ideas was won by us, even though we leveled Germany, and unleashed the scourge of atomic power upon the Japanese. We kicked their ass, yes, but then we showed them that we had a better way, a better idea, and that is what truly put the seal of victory upon WWII.

The simple fact of the matter is that if you don't win the war of ideas, you will never win the physical war. Empires, and people, throughout history have recognized this simple fact. That was how Alexander the Great held his empire together, the same for Rome, they presented a better idea, and thus rather than endlessly fighting their enemies, they made them a better offer, gave them a better set of ideas. Moving on.

Logic. You lack it, at least to some degree. You are falling for the that old trick that if something is popular with most of the people, it is right, good. That is a fallacy. Millions of people in the South for over four hundred years thought that slavery and Jim Crow, American apartheid, was a good thing, a right thing, even Biblically sanctioned in some cases. But really now, was slavery right, or good? The same applies with drone strikes. Just because people think it is a good think doesn't make it so.

Back to definitions, let's hit on "terrorism". Terrorism is how the weak, the poor fight back against a stronger, wealthier foe. At one time American Revolutionaries were deemed to be terrorists by the British. The same with Christians and the Romans, Native Americans and the US, on and on. When in reality it is the only way the poor can fight back. They don't have the money to buy drones, they don't have the manpower to line up in a straight line and slug it out, so they work with what they've got. They are not evil, at least no more evil than their opponents, but just poor.

Yes, they kill civilians, guess what, warfare in general kills civilians. We've killed tens of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan in the past ten years, and will wind up killing thousands more before we're gone. And again, what have the Afghan people done to us? It was Saudis who flew those planes in those towers, Saudis who planned the operation, yet we land with both feet upon the Afghan people? Where is the justice in that? Hell, the vast majority of Afghans don't even know about 911. They think that we're invading their country, and they are simply fighting back, by whatever means necessary. If the situation was reversed, you know as well as I do that Americans would also fight back, with whatever weapon came to hand. Terrorist is, in reality, simply a matter of perception, a term that is used to demonize the enemy of the moment, the dreaded "other."

I'm not trying to get a personal dig in at you because you've not been in war, I am trying to get you to empathize with the people of Afghanistan. How would you feel if a vastly superior military power came in and, oh, say, killed your bride, your friends, your family, all on your wedding day? That this crime was carried out by a man halfway around the world sitting behind drone controls? Repeat this scenario a few dozen times, perhaps you'll get the idea. Besides, never, ever believe the propaganda. "Smart bombs" were supposed to minimize civilian deaths, when in reality they didn't, and haven't, worked as promised.

Empathy, it is part of what makes you human. Yet you show little empathy. That's not surprising, millions of Americans aren't showing much empathy either. They, like you, are ill informed, and thus parrot the propaganda that is put out there. And yes, they use many of the same terms that you do, fascist, terrorist, and worst. What is interesting however is that most of the people who buy into this bullshit are on the political right, addicts of Fox news and hate radio. What is your excuse?

One other thing before we go. You are essentially calling me a conspiracy theorist when you question the veracity of my statement about bin Laden and the rejection of school funds by the US. I assure you, I deal only with fact, for I'm a historian, with the parchment and publications to back it up. The fact is, we did deny Afghanistan funding for rebuilding their education infrastructure. Hell, that's pretty common knowledge, a part of the Congressional record, even a part of pop culture, having made it into the movie "Charlie Wilson's War". Furthermore, bin Laden, by his own admission, on the record, stated that this denial of funding was what originally turned him against the US. It is an on the record interview.

I could give you links for all this, spoon feed it to you like one does to an elementary school student. But the fact is, you're an adult, and you need to start taking the initiative to educate yourself. What I say is true, the information is out there, go find it on your own, and learn even more in the process. For you desperately need to learn, to educate yourself. The terminology you use, the assumptions you make, your lack of logic, all of this shows a person who is ill educated, at least in matters of history, politics, and philosophy. That isn't just your problem, but a societal problem. But it is one that you can correct. Stop getting your information from just right wing sources, but rather get a diverse range of views. Educate yourself on philosophy. Machiavelli and Plato may seem like dry, dull, irrelevant reading, but trust me, they are part of the essential curricula of those in power, as is Sun Tzu and many, many others. Study your history, not just what you get from the school textbooks, but from the primary sources. Yes, it possible for informed people to reach different conclusions, but frankly, we are not equally informed people, that much is obvious. You need to correct that deficit. Do so, and then we can talk, and probably agree on much.

[limpyhobbler]

50. ok so...

Last edited Sun Feb 26, 2012, 08:24 PM - Edit history (1)

OK, let's start with the basics, namely the language and terms that you use. "Fascist-terrorist", really? First of all, brushing aside the fact that this sounds like something you picked up from hate radio

Nope, I came up with it myself, I don't listen to Right Wing anything.

your use of this term shows a profound lack of understanding about what fascism, and terrorism is.

I agree with you that was imprecise language. I apologize for using the term fascist so freely even though I am aware of the dictionary definition. I once called my boss at Starbucks a fascist. And I called a coca-cola machine a fascist vending machine when it stole my money without delivering on the goods. It is a known weakness of mine.

Back in 2005 there was a devastating earthquake in the Kashmir region of Pakistan, just across the Afghan border. While the US eventually provided a substantial amount of aid, the folks on the spot, the first responders, were members of al Qaeda. Instead of taking time out to help our fellow humans, and garner a great deal of good will for ourselves, we continued on with military operations across the border. It wasn't until we belatedly realized what a PR nightmare this was did we start aiding our fellow humans, but by then it was too late, we had lost that battle in the war of ideas.

I agree with you on that. We should do more charity work, humanitarian work, help people. But that does not necessarily mean we have to stop tracking and removing terrorists.

We just lost another battle in that war of ideas the other week, with the discovery of those burned Qurans.

Who's defending that except the far right? You're lecturing me that burning Korans is bad. It is a very stupid thing to do. But again I don't see the connection from that issue, to the policy change which I believe you are suggesting, that we should stop targeted strikes in Pakistan.

Yes, yes, I know that it is fashionable to dismiss this as overreaction due to religious fanaticism, but the fact of the matter is we've stuck our foot into this tiger trap more than once during this war, you would think that we would have learned by now. Instead, we've come out looking like ugly Americans, with no cultural sensitivity and no respect for those we are supposedly saving from, well, whatever it is we're supposed to be saving them from. Another battle in the war of ideas lost.

Nobody here is suggesting otherwise. I agree we ought not piss on other people's bibles. So how does that mean we should stop targeting known terrorists?

But there is some inconsistency in your understanding of the war of ideas. But I won't say that it is because you fail to grasp basic concepts or because you need to go get educated. Earlier you said the war of ideas was a competition between ideologies. You gave the example of the cold war where there was a war of ideas between "Socialism vs. capitalism, democracy vs. an totalitarian oligarchy." The analogy in the modern case would be a competition between Religious-political fanaticism of a certain religion (who earlier I called fascists) vs. whatever you call our side, roughly speaking democratic capitalism. I don't have difficulty picking a side in that "war of ideas".

But now you are changing your definition of the "war of ideas" to much more tangible issues such as building schools or providing humanitarian aid after an earthquake. I think you are also implying that if Al Qaeda gets to the earthquake scene first as "first responders" then they win the war of ideas. But yet the underlying ideologies and ideas of the two sides have not changed.

Please make up your mind. Is the war of ideas "a conflict of cultures, beliefs, modes of approaching the world"? Or rather is it the provision of humanitarian aid and civil respect by soldiers toward populations? I agree they are both important issues but are they both part of the war on ideas? Because when it comes to underlying ideologies, our side is the clear winner of the war of ideas. But when it comes to humanitarian social aid and respect for other cultures, obviously we need to improve.

You may think that a war of ideas is meaningless, that it doesn't contribute anything to winning the physical battles, but you are wrong.

Nope. I don't think that.

Winning the war of ideas, winning hearts and minds, is the most important thing, a fact that has been recognized by leaders and political experts for eons.

I agree with that.

We failed badly in the war of ideas in Vietnam. We failed to show that we were a people who were kind, generous, and dedicated to something nobler than our own vision of empire. This is why the NVA was able to operate in South Vietnam with relative impunity, why the Viet Cong weren't lacking for recruits, why the people of Southeast Asia did not want our presence in their country. You cannot win a war if you do not have the people of the countryside on your side.

Our current situation in Pakistan has some similarities and some differences to Vietnam. I certainly agree with you we ought to be more respectful of cultures and provide more social-humanitarian aid.

Yes, you may pound your enemy into tiny pieces, you may stride across the country in question like a Collosus, but you won't win in the long run, but your enemy will continue to reform from the ashes of defeat, only to attack you again and again until you are bled dry or leave.

We are not indiscriminately bombing and killing people in Pakistan the way that we were in Vietnam. We have clearly put a top priority on intelligence gathering to identify militant extremists and then use strikes as narrowly targeted as possible to get the target. That is not similar to Vietnam at all.

We saw this with our own Revolution. We did not win militarily, we won less than a handful of major engagements, our capital was captured, our major ports of commerce were occupied or blockaded for a good portion of the war. Even the belated entry of the French did not swing the balance of the military scales. What won the Revolution far us was the fact that we had already won the war of ideas.

You have a good point. If you don't have the support of the people you can't ever really "win" where winning is defined as controlling the territory. But what does "winning" even mean in Pakistan? We are not trying to control their territory. We went there to disrupt terrorist groups. So that's what we are doing, and with success.

The British were being bled dry in a war that they could not win because they did not have support of the people of this country, so their only other option was to leave.

Again our goal is quite different. We are not trying to colonize like the British in America or say like France(and by continuation the US) in Vietnam. Also I will point out that the British colonization of America was a huge success because the spin-off entity(the USA) largely carried on the British culture and ideologies in North America. So if success is spreading your ideas, I guess the British did win, in one sense. I will preemptively say I do not support the genocide against Native Americans.

Now compare our actions in Vietnam, and Iraq, and Afghanistan with our actions after WWII. We deliberately set out to win the hearts and minds of our former enemies after the conclusion of hostilities. We poured money, manpower, and material into rebuilding both Japan and Germany, showing them our generosity, kindness, respect and humanity. It was a wise decision, one inspired in large part by the disaster of the post war settlement of WWI(which essentially led to WWII). This post WWII war of ideas was won by us, even though we leveled Germany, and unleashed the scourge of atomic power upon the Japanese. We kicked their ass, yes, but then we showed them that we had a better way, a better idea, and that is what truly put the seal of victory upon WWII.

I agree with that 100%. But does that mean we should stop disrupting terrorist groups in Pakistan? Before we helped rebuild Germany and Japan, we used devastating force to get them to surrender unconditionally. We could never today use the type of force against any nation such as the force we used against Germany or Japan. Nor should we. Targeted strikes are much better. If we had UAV drones in 1942 we could have used them in Europe and spared millions of lives.

The simple fact of the matter is that if you don't win the war of ideas, you will never win the physical war. Empires, and people, throughout history have recognized this simple fact. That was how Alexander the Great held his empire together, the same for Rome, they presented a better idea, and thus rather than endlessly fighting their enemies, they made them a better offer, gave them a better set of ideas. Moving on.

Again I think you are conflating two distinct concepts. Our ideology of liberal democracy/capitalism is a better offer, a better idea than the political-religious-extremism(not yet fascism) offered by the "bad guys". On the other hand, the "bad guys" are better at respecting local culture and responding to social and humanitarian needs. So we have a lot of room for improvement. But despite the fact that we have room for improvement, let's go ahead and disrupt these terrorist groups anyway. They are still dangerous bad guys who want to take over the world.

Logic. You lack it, at least to some degree. You are falling for the that old trick that if something is popular with most of the people, it is right, good.

I already replied to that once. I don't think that just because something is popular that makes it correct. On the other hand I did point out that my view is shared by the vast majority of Americans, including the "leaders" of the Democratic Party and the US government. I don't think that makes me correct. But it is worth something. You keep telling me I need to "educate myself" on the issue and then I will see you are correct. But there are clearly some people with a lot of foreign policy education and experience who share my view. Like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, etc. So me "getting an education" like you did, may not change my view in this issue.

Back to definitions, let's hit on "terrorism". Terrorism is how the weak, the poor fight back against a stronger, wealthier foe. At one time American Revolutionaries were deemed to be terrorists by the British. The same with Christians and the Romans, Native Americans and the US, on and on. When in reality it is the only way the poor can fight back. They don't have the money to buy drones, they don't have the manpower to line up in a straight line and slug it out, so they work with what they've got.

I agree with that. The reason they use asymmetric tactics is because they do not have access to bigger weapons. Left unchecked they will probably take over a couple nation-states and then they will have access to the bigger weapons. That would be a negative development. Let's disrupt those groups by using intelligence gathering and drone strikes so they will not be able to do that.

They are not evil, at least no more evil than their opponents, but just poor.

Evil shmeevil. Look at their ideas and let me know if their ideas are evil. They want to take over all nations in the region and impose dictatorships based on medieval religious codes. In some countries it is reasonable to think they could achieve that goal. They want to convert the entire world to their crazy fundamentalist version of a religion. If we cannot use drones against these fascists fanatical terrorists, then when could we ever use them? If we do not fight these creeps, they will violently spread their shit without end.

Yes, they kill civilians, guess what, warfare in general kills civilians. We've killed tens of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan in the past ten years, and will wind up killing thousands more before we're gone. And again, what have the Afghan people done to us? It was Saudis who flew those planes in those towers, Saudis who planned the operation, yet we land with both feet upon the Afghan people? Where is the justice in that? Hell, the vast majority of Afghans don't even know about 911.

I agree with you that is horrible. When we went there, Al Qaeda was operating out of there under protection from the government. OK that part of it is sickening and we need to find a better way, maybe by more social and humanitarian aid. But I don't think we should let the fascists religious-fundamentalist-political-religious-extremists take over. We already "abandoned" Afghanistan once after the Soviet war and we saw the result. Let's not repeat that error.

They think that we're invading their country, and they are simply fighting back, by whatever means necessary. If the situation was reversed, you know as well as I do that Americans would also fight back, with whatever weapon came to hand.

Yes.

Terrorist is, in reality, simply a matter of perception, a term that is used to demonize the enemy of the moment, the dreaded "other."

Yes I think their ideology and tactics warrant that kind of demonization. But beyond that, you can call them whatever you like. It is what it is regardless of what you call it. I think "terrorists" is a fairly descriptive economical way to describe who we are fighting in Pakistan.

I'm not trying to get a personal dig in at you because you've not been in war, I am trying to get you to empathize with the people of Afghanistan. How would you feel if a vastly superior military power came in and, oh, say, killed your bride, your friends, your family, all on your wedding day? That this crime was carried out by a man halfway around the world sitting behind drone controls? Repeat this scenario a few dozen times, perhaps you'll get the idea. Besides, never, ever believe the propaganda. "Smart bombs" were supposed to minimize civilian deaths, when in reality they didn't, and haven't, worked as promised.

OK I'm empathizing. I agree that stinks. I share your basic values, at least I think I do. We should look for a better way. At the same time I think the local population may be greatly overestimating the number of innocents killed by drone strikes in Pakistan. If that's true, it's true. It can't be just dismissed as propaganda because you disagree with it.

Empathy, it is part of what makes you human. Yet you show little empathy. That's not surprising, millions of Americans aren't showing much empathy either.

I have empathy. Tell me how to stop the fanatical groups without drone strikes. I'm listening. I agree drone strikes are horrible. But if the alternative is doing nothing, then that seems even worse to me. I empathize with the people affected by the bombings of German cities in WWII. I empathize with the victims of 9-11, and women oppressed and abused by the Taliban and their buddies. I empathize with the mainstream people of Pakistan who don't want religious lunatics taking over their government. So I got a lot of empathy for a lot of folks.

They, like you, are ill informed, and thus parrot the propaganda that is put out there.

I support the policy of the US government with regard to drone strikes in Pakistan. That does not automatically mean I am ill informed. Maybe you are ill informed about the true nature of the threat from terrorist groups.

And yes, they use many of the same terms that you do, fascist, terrorist, and worst. What is interesting however is that most of the people who buy into this bullshit are on the political right, addicts of Fox news and hate radio. What is your excuse?

I think the terrorist groups in Pakistan are a threat to the whole world. In my view it's because of their crazy ideology, their desire to destroy governments, and their willingness to blow themselves up.

It's not just a right wing view.
"In a February 2012 poll, 83% of Americans (77% of the liberal Democrats) replied they support the drone strikes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan

Call them brainwashed if you want to. I think you don't appreciate the threat posed by terrorist groups.

One other thing before we go. You are essentially calling me a conspiracy theorist when you question the veracity of my statement about bin Laden and the rejection of school funds by the US. I assure you, I deal only with fact, for I'm a historian, with the parchment and publications to back it up.

That won't be necessary.

The fact is, we did deny Afghanistan funding for rebuilding their education infrastructure. Hell, that's pretty common knowledge, a part of the Congressional record, even a part of pop culture, having made it into the movie "Charlie Wilson's War". Furthermore, bin Laden, by his own admission, on the record, stated that this denial of funding was what originally turned him against the US. It is an on the record interview.

I still think saying all Bin Laden wants is more school funding, that is goofy talk to me. Even if that is true, it ignores his primary goals and ideology. He is was really into the "war of ideas" and his ideas are well known, and they weren't about school funding issues.

I could give you links for all this, spoon feed it to you like one does to an elementary school student. But the fact is, you're an adult, and you need to start taking the initiative to educate yourself. What I say is true, the information is out there, go find it on your own, and learn even more in the process. For you desperately need to learn, to educate yourself.

Dude, how would you like it if I said you desperately need to go read up on the concrete threat posed by terrorist groups in Pakistan. Wouldn't that sound stupid to your ears? If it's so obvious, why not provide a link? Let people see what you are talking about.

The terminology you use, the assumptions you make, your lack of logic, all of this shows a person who is ill educated, at least in matters of history, politics, and philosophy.

So what if I don't have an education. Apparently I'm able to have a pretty decent political debate with some history professor on the internet. Should I say you don't seem to understand global security politics at all? You have not addressed at all the possible consequences if the Pakistan government should fall to religious extremists. Maybe it has not entered your thinking. I won't say it is because you lack a grasp of the basic concepts of global security issues. Just for some reason that issue is not important to you.

That isn't just your problem, but a societal problem. But it is one that you can correct. Stop getting your information from just right wing sources, but rather get a diverse range of views.

I live in a left-wing information bubble. My view on disrupting "terrorist" groups are my own views and I realize they are a minority view in my usual political blogging circles. I'm open to new ideas and information.

Educate yourself on philosophy. Machiavelli and Plato may seem like dry, dull, irrelevant reading, but trust me, they are part of the essential curricula of those in power, as is Sun Tzu and many, many others.

Spare me the lecture. I read all that stuff, but if I hadn't I'm still entitled to a viewpoint that may not exactly align with yours.

Study your history, not just what you get from the school textbooks, but from the primary sources.

No thank you. I'll leave that to historians.

Yes, it possible for informed people to reach different conclusions, but frankly, we are not equally informed people, that much is obvious.

You are not considering the consequences of failure to fight the "terrorists" at their base.

You need to correct that deficit. Do so, and then we can talk, and probably agree on much.

My views change sometimes. I'm not stuck in my thinking or resistant to different ideas. If you're some kind of history professor, I'm obviously never going to know as much about history as you do. Other people besides history professors are entitled to opinions. You can't just say anybody who disagrees with you must be wrong because you are more educated. Next Gingrich is a "historian" too, and I disagree with him all the time.

[Hugabear]

66. Why are they trying to kill us?

Is it because they hate us for our freedom?

Or is it because we continually fuck with their countries?

[limpyhobbler]

67. Here are some reasons why

1) US support for Israel.
2) US support for Saudi and other oil kingdoms.
3) US support for other nation-states around that area.

In other words, they view us as supporting repressive governments that are blocking them in their goal of establishing a global religious dictatorship. And they are correct, we have been doing that.

Clearly we (the US) need to improve some of our policies. But these religious-fundamentalist-political-militant-terrorist groups are real (not imaginary) and they are going to continue their struggle regardless of whether we fight them or we don't.

They want to take over all nations in the region and impose dictatorships based on medieval religious codes. In some countries it is reasonable to think they could achieve that goal. They want to convert the entire world to their crazy fundamentalist version of a religion. If we cannot use drones against these fascists fanatical terrorists, then when could we ever use them? If we do not fight these creeps, they will violently spread their shit without end.

[eridani]

69. I really don't get why otherwise sensible people believe this horseshit

"Establishing a global religious dictatorship"? How the bloody hell would they do that without powerful imperial armies? If they had such things, why would they be using terrorist tactics, which as everyone agrees are weapons of the weak?

You are a citizen of the only country which has actually established a global military dictatorship. And no, it isn't necessary to directly administer colonies as was the practice in the 19th century. We do it the Roman way, by having picked natives run the colonies on behalf of our 1%. The problem with that is that they occasionally get disobedient and pursue their own interests.

Terrorists are weak by definition. If they were strong, they could stop us from dominating their countries. Quit trying to dominate them, and POOF! no terrorism.

[limpyhobbler]

71. It's easy to understand if you think those terrorist groups pose a real threat.

I think there is a real dangerous threat. I guess you don't think that. That must account for the difference.

"Establishing a global religious dictatorship"? How the bloody hell would they do that without powerful imperial armies?

That's their goal. They will take over any country they can. It is very real to think they could take over Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia. Then they would be (nuclear) armed and very dangerous. And also they could have oil and money. Also given the opportunity they will attack other countries.

If they had such things, why would they be using terrorist tactics, which as everyone agrees are weapons of the weak?

agreed

You are a citizen of the only country which has actually established a global military dictatorship.

We may be using different definitions of the word "dictatorship". For the purposes of this issue, let's say a dictatorship is a form of government that will execute you if you shave.

And no, it isn't necessary to directly administer colonies as was the practice in the 19th century. We do it the Roman way, by having picked natives run the colonies on behalf of our 1%.

I agree we do that. It's horrible. But what does that have to do with the issue of how we should fight terrorists groups in Pakistan? What are you saying that just because we are an empire that we should not fight these creeps? I don't think like that.

The problem with that is that they occasionally get disobedient and pursue their own interests.

I agree with you. This is a big issue of our foreign policy.

Terrorists are weak by definition. If they were strong, they could stop us from dominating their countries. Quit trying to dominate them, and POOF! no terrorism.

I think you are confusing the terrorist groups with the mainstream people of the countries. In my thinking the terrorist groups do not represent the people of Pakistan or any other country. And yet they could take over a couple countries and keep spreading their extremist lunacy. Even if we brought every soldier and every drone home to the US, those groups would keep right on violently spreading their shit without end. Let's discourage that.

That seems to be a key difference in how my opinion is different from yours. You think the reason they hate us is because we attack their countries. I think they just want to violently spread religion and they will attack anything that gets in their way.

Sometimes it seems to me that people have to ignore the real threats to get situations to fit neatly in with an anti-imperialist world view. Much of that view I share. But not everything in real life fits neatly into an ideology and I'm not going to cram reality into a box just to be consistently anti-imperialist. Since these threatening groups exist, we have to collect intelligence on those threats. And once we have information it would be negligent not to act on it.

[eridani]

72. If they wanted to violently spread religion--

--then why weren't they doing it in 1950? How could anyone possibly take over a country if they aren't strong enough to employ any tactic other than terrorism, other than by the sponsorship of an imperial power such as the US?

BTW, terrorists have been in charge of Saudi Arabia since the 30s, when the Wahabists did a deal with the US and Britain. That's where the 9/11 hijackers came from, remember? The elites give the terrorists pretty much free reign over the general population to preserve their own privileges in exchange for our domination of their oil fields.

The way to fight terrorists is to quit trying to dominate their countries. They would instantly lose any appeal they have now to the general populace in those places.

BTW, the answer to the 1950 question is that ME nationalism in that era was strictly secular. The US and Britain overthrew the secular democrat Mossadegh in Iran for the crime of wanting to use his country's resources to benefit their own population. In that process, we specifically funded and encouraged the fundie whackjobs (who later supported Khomeini) to oppose secular democracy. Israel, for the same reasons, funded Hamas as an alternative to the secular PLO. The US and Pakistan established and funded the religious extremists in Afghanistan in the 80s.

Stop fucking with those countries and promoting religious nuts to fight secular nationalists, and the terrorism stops. Our involvement with Pakistan should be limited to keeping their nuclear stockpike out of the hands of nutcases. Easy enough to do through regular security procedures--no war necessary.

[limpyhobbler]

73. That is what they want. That's what they say and I believe them.

If they wanted to violently spread religion----then why weren't they doing it in 1950?

My understanding is that they didn't really exist yet in the 1950s. It was a totally different world at that time with different issues and a different generation of humans were alive on earth.

How could anyone possibly take over a country if they aren't strong enough to employ any tactic other than terrorism, other than by the sponsorship of an imperial power such as the US?

They are infiltrated into the police, army, and intelligence service.

BTW, terrorists have been in charge of Saudi Arabia since the 30s, when the Wahabists did a deal with the US and Britain. That's where the 9/11 hijackers came from, remember? The elites give the terrorists pretty much free reign over the general population to preserve their own privileges in exchange for our domination of their oil fields.

I don't dispute that.

The way to fight terrorists is to quit trying to dominate their countries. They would instantly lose any appeal they have now to the general populace in those places.

We are not trying to dominate Pakistan or Afghanistan. Actually I think we would love to leave. We went there to disrupt terrorist groups and that is what we have been successfully doing. That's what President Obama promised to do when he was running to office, and we all voted for it. I'm glad to see he is keeping his promise.

BTW, the answer to the 1950 question is that ME nationalism in that era was strictly secular.

I think you are confusing the terrorist groups for nationalists. We are not combating nationalist groups in Pakistan. We are combating fascists political-extremist-militant-religious-fundamentalist-terrorists.

The US and Britain overthrew the secular democrat Mossadegh in Iran for the crime of wanting to use his country's resources to benefit their own population. In that process, we specifically funded and encouraged the fundie whackjobs (who later supported Khomeini) to oppose secular democracy. Israel, for the same reasons, funded Hamas as an alternative to the secular PLO. The US and Pakistan established and funded the religious extremists in Afghanistan in the 80s.

I don't have a hard time believing any of that. We played a major role in creating the extremists. Particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan we funded them to fight the Soviets in the 80s and then we abandoned those countries in the 90s and let the extremists take over. That was not cool. Why keep abandoning, when abandoning already failed? Since we helped create those groups, do we have any responsibility to help clean up the mess? I think one could also draw an analogy and say the US and Britain played a role in causing the rise of Hitler and the Nazis after World War I, because of the harsh sanctions imposed on Germany following that war. And during the years of Nazi ascendance there were a lot of people who felt bad for them and thought all they wanted was to be left alone and free of western oppression. But if one would have listened to what the Nazis were saying, considered their stated aims, they could have been stopped sooner.

Also yes there is quite a bit of history there and I'm glad we seem to agree on the relevant historical facts but just disagree about current best policies.

Also you drew some parallels between our relations with various countries (Iran, Palestinians), to help to see the big picture. And I agree that is an ugly picture. But once we figure out that we are guilty of all these things, once we see that bigger picture, we don't necessarily have to let that take away our ability to make more narrow distinctions when developing policies toward various countries or provinces. I don't see any reason why we can't have one policy in Morocco, a different one in Libya, a third in Tunisia, for example. The situation is highly nuanced and dependent upon human facts on the ground.

Stop fucking with those countries and promoting religious nuts to fight secular nationalists, and the terrorism stops.

I don't think those extremist groups are going to stop spreading their shit until they are met with force. I don't think we can fight them with the power of love. They don't respond to that.

Our involvement with Pakistan should be limited to keeping their nuclear stockpike out of the hands of nutcases.

Pakistan is a semi-failed state. If the Pakistan government falls to religious extremists we won't be able to keep it out of their hands. And there is every reason to believe they will use it.

Easy enough to do through regular security procedures--no war necessary.

If the gov't there falls, we won't have anybody with whom to coordinate procedures, and there could (probably will) be a much bigger, nastier war.

[eridani]

74. Our own 1% is the real threat to us, not religious whackjobs.

We are not trying to dominate Pakistan or Afghanistan. Actually I think we would love to leave.

Right. And I am Marie of Rumania. Name another country that has 800+ military bases around the world. Places like Bagram are not actually collections of Quonset huts, you know.

Extremist groups wil lose their audience for their nonsense if we butt out of people's lives. and 1950 sure was different--we had barely begun the project of world domination, and it could have been called off in favor of actual defense.

You and I are basically just among the more privileged of the class of disposable human garbage--that is to say the 99%. The US military empire is not for our benefit, and has little interest in actual defense of the US population--witness 9/11. Elements of the 1% wanted something to happen, so they ignored all warnings. They are far more dangerous to us than random religious whackjobs.

(Not advocating the "inside job" position here. Pearl Harbor was a similar event. No one had to know exactly what the specific Japanese response to the US and Britain cutting off their oil would be--they just knew it would be something, and they could declare war after whatever it was happened.)

[bluestate10]

28. In one word, yes.

There are savage people in the tribal regions of Pakistan that are dedicated to killing innocent people anythime they get an opportunity. I say find them and kill them first. And keep killing evil bastards until only people that cherish peace are left alive in tribal regions.

[MadHound]

42. Who are the savages?

Might I remind you that it was nineteen people, citizens of other countries besides Afghanistan, led by a Saudi national, who ran those planes into those buildings on 911. Yet we go over and kill the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan for what those others did? Who are the savages?

Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity, it is oxymoronic and simply doesn't work. Those "evil bastards" that you so jingoisticly refer to are actually just people trying to defend their country. I mean really now, if the largest military country in the world landed here and started dealing out death indiscriminately, wouldn't you take up a gun, fight back?

Your words reveal that the only true savages here are you, you and the millions of others like you, ignorant and bloodthirsty, snugged comfortably away from any threat, but cheering on the bloodshed, like fat, ancient Romans in the coliseum.

Question, did we blow the people of Kansas or Idaho to hell and gone after Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building? After all, there were, and are still, a small number of religious fanatics in those states who could still be a threat to us.

Oh, no, we didn't do that. So why are we continuing that same stupid policy in Afghanistan?

[frylock]

44. killing for peace..

what a noble endeavour.

[limpyhobbler]

46. I guess that is sarcasm?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Obama, Clinton, Panetta, and Petraeus? Aren't they the ones who escalated the war?

Real peaceniks aren't they?

[truedelphi]

27. It's always easy to think the way you do if you

Aren't psychically informed. When the war in Vietnam was waging, I opposed it and my friends opposed it because there was a huge part of our inner consciousness that said, "Jeez Louise, what if I had been born in the hills of Vietnam instead of Chicago?"

And that is my take on all these wars as well. What if it was you, limpyhobbler, whose teenagers had been at a wedding and been blown to smithereens by one of our drone attacks. How would you feel then?

And there will always be bad guys. However, when our military action called "Shock and Awe" was waged upon the Iraqi people at large, starting in late March 2003, the Iraqi people had not done anything to us at all. Ten years later, and we have seen events unfold at Abu Gharib, we have witnessed as four millions Iraqis have fled the country with over six hundred civilians dead there. And we Americans don't even see a corresponding lowering of our gasoline prices at the gas pumps, in exchange for all this carnage. (Though apparently, Shell Oil will be doing quite nicely.)

I would personally rather our military took out the "bad guys" on Wall Street and escorted them off to jail, to join Maddoff in the Chow Line. Instead, these bad guys are sitting around deciding how to spend their billions of dollars of Christmas holiday bonus monies.

[limpyhobbler]

29. I appreciate your thoughtful response.

It sounds like you are against all wars? Is that right?

I'm against some wars but I am not against all wars all the time.
Take World War II for example, I would say that was a justified war.

I agree with most of what you said.

But I think the drone strikes are justified in Pakistan because of who we are fighting against.

Seems to me that Al Qaeda, Taliban, and similar groups in the Af/Pak border region are very dangerous. They are religious extremists with a political-religious ideology and they are committed to imposing a religious dictatorship on the entire world. They have attacked before and they will attack again. They would love to take over a nation-state and it could happen.

We collect intelligence on them. Once we have intelligence information, are we not compelled to take actions? What would be a better less harmful action to take besides drone strikes? Seriously I'm interested in people's opinions.

And I do appreciate your response.

You asked what if an innocent family member of mine had been killed by a US drone? Yes I would be mad about it.
So I'm listening for a better option than drone strikes.

How would you address the issue of the dangerous terrorist groups based in the region? Or do you think it's not an important issue?

[truedelphi]

31. When we're attacked, then we should wage war.

That hasn't happened since Dec 7th 1941.

Many people see us as having been attacked FROM FORCES OUTSIDE OUR NATION on Nine Eleven. However, I don't. But even if it was a direct attack, an attack that Gosh oh gee whiz, happened, despite the thirty one trillions of dollars we had spent so our air force jets could get off the ground and stop such attacks, and despite the memo to George Bush and Rumsfeld delivered first week of August, 2001, and despite the messages sent to us by the German Ministry, and other nations, there is still no way the events of Nine Eleven could implicate the nation and the people of the nation, of Iraq. They had done nothing against us.

Yet we fought a war against that nation. Why? We not only fought a war against that nation, we followed the same plan we had in Vietnam - the plan of "Let's have a war, but let's not have a strategy by which we will win that war." Our strategy in Iraq was rather dismal - we simply put our service people into unarmored HumVees and sent them up and down dangerous highways, till some one vehicle in the convoy was taken out by IED's. And then the survivors made short work of the folks who had launched the IED? Is that a military strategy?

I very much believe that there are spiritual beliefs at work. One of the things i was taught in first or second grade by the nuns, that resonated as being true was that whatever we as a society agree to do, will resonate for the next three generations. It is a saying in the Bible, can't remember where. (And I don't take on every thing that the Bible says, but this one pie4ce of it is instructive.)

The American Indians believed that what a society agrees to do resonates for seven generations. And that culture was thousands of miles away from the one of the ancient Israelis that oversaw the writing of the Bible. Yet the belief was the same, except the Indians believe our actions last much longer than three generations.

If we need to fight a war,t hen everyone should have to go and fight. Everyone. That is one of the things i have admired about the nation of Israel. Wars should be fought by the collective as a whole, with even the fifty year olds having to put on the combat boots and go fight.

Right now, as a society, we are not making it. We are dying. Peopel are losing their homes, people are laid off from work, people are committing suicide.

Certainly, it is not on account of some religious fundamentalists in the hills of Pakistan that my friends are suffering. It is because of our financial "leaders" and those in the Political Class, who' re slaves to those financial leaders.

If my friend B does kill himself, rather than facing losing his home, I can't blame the Taliban. And so my two cents is that we need to concentrate on what is happening here, and quit spending the money and energy on wars on places outside our nation's borders.

[Nostradammit]

34. Yes!

[truedelphi]

65. I love your user id name.

We psychics have to stick together. And thanks for the brew ("When God closes a door, he opens a brewski!&quot

[Nostradammit]

68. I knew you were going to say that.

[stevenleser]

57. We were attacked by a multistate terror group on 9-11 why did you choose not to address that?

Bringing up the Iraq war, which no one agrees with on DU, has nothing to do with that.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. They can tell they're "militants" because they're dead.

Just like the 3,000,000 Viet Cong and NVA we killed in Vietnam.....oh, wait.

[limpyhobbler]

17. Apparently they asked the local people to find out.

The number of residents of Pakistan killed in these drone strikes is orders of magnitude less than the number killed in Vietnam. Couldn't they get a pretty precise count of of militants just by walking around and talking to people?

Doesn't it seem like the US is placing a lot of emphasis on intelligence gathering, targeting, and precision in these drone strikes?

I understand there have been horrible incidents and some horrible mistakes. But is it even close to the indiscriminate bombing that happened in Vietnam?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. At that time, they also claimed to kill only insurgents.

In fact, by their own estimates, they had wiped out the entire National Liberation Front and the NVA. Not to mention that we were constantly told how much the Vietnamese appreciated and applauded our efforts.

Sound familiar?

We lost in Vietam. We lost in Iraq. And, we lost in Afghanistan. It's all about face saving now and has been for years.

[limpyhobbler]

26. Well, that's a good point.

It's bad to be stuck in a never ending war where there is nothing left to do but try and save face.

I just think the threat of those terrorist groups in the Pakistan border region is actually a real threat. Even though not too many people on this message board seem to agree. More real of a threat than the Vietnamese army ever was.

How should we approach the issue of extremist terrorist groups in Pakistan who plot attacks against governments and populations?

I thought drone strikes seemed like a minimal use of force, but maybe I'm wrong.
What else could we do instead? Or should we ignore the issue, or is it just not an issue?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. It poses an insignifican "threat" to America, except that it's bankrupting us.

We have, by an plausible measure, lost a war that was unwinnable from the day we started it.

Al Queda and its allies have not been diminished, but strengthened as a result of our attempts to quell it.

We have needlessly lost thousands of our own troops.

Our "ally" Pakistan is in shambles and is now at war with many of its own people because of our efforts.

We are not looked upon as friends in the Middle East and much of South Asia.

Our military has been shown, and continues to be shown, as inept despite the advertising of being the World's Mightiest Military.

We have, literally, wasted over 1 Trillion dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, and God knows where else.

Our own government is cracking down on our civil liberties in a futile attempt to keep us "safe".

It's as if Osama Bin Laden wrote the script for us to follow and we dutifully did so with our own embellishments.

And, ALL that we have to show for all of the above is one dead man dumped in the ocean.

[quaker bill]

75. little evidence remains for this:

"Al Queda and its allies have not been diminished, but strengthened as a result of our attempts to quell it." This was true for a time, say 2004 - 2006, perhaps even a bit longer. Little evidence remains for their once renewed strength.

Evidence for ineptness of the military was far stonger in 2004-2006 as well. They appear to have become more adept with experience and better management.

Yes, nearly all of this misadventure was a massive waste of time, money, and lives. However, you could stand to update your arguments.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

11. So it sounds like we need to take steps to change both reality and perception n/t

[Igel]

15. Except we can't.

Look at it from another's POV--that of the Pakistani government's and ISI's.

If most of those the US/NATO kills are militants, then we're not so bad. In a country built on being not so great but certainly better than all the other losers, this is not a good thing. But then the questions get nasty.

If it's mostly militants that are killed, then the problem is there are too many militants in Pakistan. If so, then why isn't Pakistan doing anything about it? Is it lethargy? Or is there another reason? Where do the militants get funding, if any? What effect do they have on the local population? Why has Pakistan defended them in the past? Why has Pakistan repeatedly struck deals with militant groups if they're really that bad?

Pakistan has the Arafat problem. Say--in English--how horrible it was that some Jewish kids were killed and that such acts hurt the PA cause while not ever saying a bad word about the perp. Then shout out in Arabic, "A million martyrs to Jerusalem! A million martyrs to Jerusalem." American hear the first bit and then "blah-blah-blah." Palestinians hear "blah-blah-blah" and then the last bit. The reporters that understand both suddenly forget how to translate.

That's Pakistan, too.

[Robb]

38. Good read. (nt)

[stevenleser]

55. Yes, well said, and to extend your analogy, people here insist on superficial interpretations

just like in the I/P situation.

Drones = absolutely bad
Drones = absolutely good
US = automatically bad
US = automatically good
and on it goes.

Truth of the matter is, we have a bad situation and every action is both some parts bad and some parts good. I prefer the use of drones with their weaker munitions to airstrikes with conventional weapons or dropping squads of special forces. I know the drones kill less people than the other means, but it still is bad that we have to do anything. I also know that Pakistan is fighting a war with itself and some parts of the ISI and military and government side with us and some side with and fund the militants.

This is ugly. There is no perfect option. There does seem to be a plethora of people reducing this all to superficial arguments and positions though, both on the left and right.

[marmar]

19. Spinning the death machine.

AP = All Propaganda

[EFerrari]

23. Authorized Propaganda, spinning? Don't be so cynical.

lol

[joshcryer]

30. These numbers are worse than what the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found.

And AP is being, predictably, parroted as a bad source.

The AP reporter in question may be someone we respect in the middle east, we don't know who they are.

They certainly took a big risk going there and asking questions and interviewing people.

That's a really good article, and I say this being vehemently against targeted killing.

[stevenleser]

54. It's interesting that some are reflexively attacking the article with no backup whatsoever

I think we can have a reasonable discussion whether waging war against terrorists, whether by drones or any other means, is the way to go in our situation. I can come up with good arguments in both directions.

What I do not think is reasonable is focusing on drones or attacking this article without empirical reasons for doing so. Without the drones, we would be using regular airstrikes or we would be dropping special forces in and both of those would result in far more deaths than the drones.

If this article is what it appears, and there is no reason to doubt it at this point, just as you said, some reporter took a huge risk in trying to get at the truth and they ought to be commended.

[fujiyama]

39. The real problem here

is that terrorism itself isn't about just killing one person or a group of persons. That's the shortsighted view held by our government and military - which is still hopelessly stuck in the mindset of facing an actual army with troops. Here in the US we want to view the enemy in the prism of what we're familiar with - hence either a military or corporate hierarchy with Al Qaeda. The reality is we face an ideological conflict that cannot be defeated with remote controlled planes dropping bombs.

For every civilian we kill, we are likely prolonging this conflict which many see as between civilizations. This "war" doesn't end with the death of one evil son of a bitch like Osama or ten of his apprentices. It ends with other people realizing that fighting modernity and civilization is a losing battle. So really it's not a clash of civilizations per se - it's a clash between civilization and the lack thereof. But we're not convincing anyone of anything by dropping bombs on weddings or killing some innocent fruit vendor or a poor woman and her children. And of course the ratio of enemy combatants to civilians killed in combat is much higher now than in say WWII. Technology is light years ahead. GPS alone has improved targeting significantly. But we're not facing armies with tanks, battle ships, and fighter jets.

[woo me with science]

41. ...

How low the Democratic Party has sunk.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1240&pid=52449

[GeorgeGist]

47. Oh f*ck me with a spoon.

[eridani]

70. In every person advocating for the "war" on terror, by whatever means--

--bin Laden lives again. He was quite explicit about his goals--namely perpetrating an attack that would goad the US into an unending military expedition in the Middle East for the single purpose of bankrupting us financially.