I have spent the last 8 years concerned about the use of drones

[bighart]

to wage war.

I hate that collateral damage is done and innocents killed by remotely operated killing machines.
I understand that in war (declared or not) civilians die.
I have decried President Obama's escalation in the use of drones and have taken some heat for it.

I trusted my president to use an abundance of caution and gain a thorough understanding of the situation prior to deploying any use of US armed forces.

Now I find myself asking what the next 4 years are going to bring.
We have a thin-skinned, narcissistic bully preparing to take the oath of office in just few short weeks.
A man who's campaign promised swift and sever retaliation for every thing and who's judgment has already proven to very poor.
A man who can't abide even the slightest criticism. A man who has no qualms about using a "scorched earth" policy to deal with minor opposition.

I have found myself speculating on where, how and against what targets he will employ, or at least attempt to employ, American military might. Drones offer a low risk method to "bomb the shit out of them", which he has PROMISED to do.
His recent statement concerning the error attack in Berlin:

“[Islamic State] and other Islamist terrorists continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad. These terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks must be eradicated from the face of the earth.”


There seems to me that there is no question the use of drones will increase in the next 4 years.

THIS is the reason I was vocal in my opposition to the escalated use of drones.
Sure the person using them for the past 8 years was a rational man with a sharp mind and reasoned approach.
The one who can use them for the next 4 years...............not so much.

[shraby]

1. I remember another person who wanted to eradicate certain people from the face of

the earth.
That person was Hitler and anyone who didn't fit his notion of making an Aryan nation was fair game for the ovens in his concentration camps.

[bighart]

2. These are dire times

[loyalsister]

5. Never forget it started here

A meeting Harry Laughlin and Charles Davenport met with the American Breeders Association to embark on a project to breed humans the way farmers bred animals. Thus began the US eugenics movement. Harry Laughlin worked to develop legislation and policies in the US which were adopted in Germany.....

The Reichstag of Nazi Germany passed the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring in 1933, closely based on Laughlin's model.[2] Between 35,000 and 80,000 persons were sterilized in the first full year alone. (It is now known that over 350,000 persons were sterilized). Laughlin was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Heidelberg in 1936 for his work behalf of the “science of racial cleansing.” (Five other Americans received honorary degrees the same year). However, reports about the extensive use of compulsory sterilization in Germany began to appear in US newspapers. By the end of the decade, eugenics had become associated with Nazism and poor science. Support for groups like the American Eugenics Society began to fade. In 1935, a review panel convened by the Carnegie Institute concluded that the ERO's research did not have scientific merit. By 1939, the Institute withdrew funding for the ERO, and the office was forced to close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_H._Laughlin

[lunatica]

3. Don't forget he thinks killing terrorists' families is OK too

Not only will there be far more drones, but there won't be much care for collateral damage.

[bighart]

4. Good point

We must be intellectually consistent in opposition to the use of military force of any kind except in extreme cases regardless of who the occupant of the oval office is going forward.

The risk is too great not to be and that should be abundantly clear now. The precedent has been set now and the next guy WILL take advantage of that fact.

[bighart]

6. What are your thoughts on how

drone use, and the "war on terror" in general, will play out in the orange administration?

[HAB911]

7. LOL, and I had a post deleted

because I DARED, DARED I TELL YOU, to tangentially tie the downed Russian military plane to our use of drones. TOO FUNNY.

"We ain't seen nothing yet"