General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I am not a"Loyal Member of the Democratic Party" I am a Democrat [View all]neffernin
(275 posts)it is that it's too easy to bunch up everything into one category. It is for this reason I consider myself an independent. Having everything be black and white, democratic vs. republican, social programs and regulations vs. free market; there's a whole spectrum in the middle that is ignored.
These drone strikes aren't honestly any different than any of our foreign occupations or excursions. I don't necessarily believe in isolationism but I think its more than a bit egotistical for us to violate other countries sovereignty in such ways as this as it leads to people hating us which is completely counter productive. Sure, I am glad to see OBL no longer in action. But imagine if Pakistan used their military to hunt down someone in our country unannounced?
Furthermore, killing leaders does very little to quash a group so dedicated. It may hurt them as a whole but it also further radicalizes them. Take the Mexican drug cartels for example, Mexico declared its war on drugs and took on the 4-5 cartels. It managed to capture leaders and figureheads. An unintended consequence was cartels breaking up into smaller cartels, and at one point the amount of cartels was up fivefold. Some of the stronger cartels took on weaker cartels to gain their territory and the result was tons and tons of deaths in the streets. Maybe as a whole the cartels are now weaker, but at the cost of the security and safety of much of the country.