Another U.S. citizen assassinated by military drone

[steveh_131]

I already stated why i don't like Salon.com, but i may have posted that before the thread refreshed so i can understand your concern.

Not liking Salon.com doesn't mean they are wrong. If they said something incorrect then point it out. Otherwise why does it matter if you like the source, in the context if this discussion?

 

[steveh_131]

Sorry if I misunderstood you.

To answer your question, it depends.

Principles are very important and they help to guide us through life and decisions. Yet principles can fail to match reality. When that happens, it shows a flaw in the principle, not in reality.

So, you are my enemy, and I shoot you, I'm justified and I think we agree on that.

If you are my enemy and I kick in the door to your house and shoot you, and I shoot the friends you're having over to play charades, am I justified?

How sure must I be that you're my enemy before I can shoot you?

How much danger must I endure to ensure that I don't shoot someone who doesn't deserve to be shot?

These are difficult questions that often collide with principles in the real world.

So, you're my enemy and I know you attacked me, so we're at war. Now you spend ninety percent of your time publishing a newspaper. The newspaper prints damaging propaganda against us, and you are clearly very intimate with the newspaper staff. You spend hours there, and meet with them several times a day.

Am I justified in attacking the newspaper offices in order to kill you? I think so. Am I justified in attacking the newspaper offices because I think that based on their friendship with you and the things they print that they are my enemy, too? I think so.

What if I find out later that I was completely mistaken? Does that indicate a mistake I need to correct with policy, or just the kind of mistake that's inevitable.

Technically, every strikeout in major league baseball is a mistake. Even if you're batting .800, your strikeouts are still a mistake. Would you change your hitting technique if you were batting .800? Why not try to eliminate all your mistakes? If I'm trying to gather intelligence against my enemies and they're really good at protecting their intelligence, when my intelligence is wrong, is it a mistake? Or is it just part of my overall success?

This stuff is only easy on the internets.

Nobody said it would be easy. Don't see the harm in discussing the details, however.

You do raise some good points, and I'll have to give them some thought.

 

[badwolf.usmc]

Not liking Salon.com doesn't mean they are wrong. If they said something incorrect then point it out. Otherwise why does it matter if you like the source, in the context if this discussion?

From the article:

Two weeks after the U.S. killed American citizen Anwar Awlaki with a drone strike in Yemen — far from any battlefield and with no due process...

First of all, there is no due process in war. Second, the term "battlefield" means nothing. When the US bombed train stations during WW2, they were not near any "battlefield". Just because something isn't near a "battlefield" doesn't mean it isn't a valid military target.

And as I wrote about many times, the Obama administration even tried — and failed — to force The New York Times‘ James Risen to reveal his source for his story about an inept, disastrous CIA effort to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program...

Nice open minded journalism there, but if that CIA effort wasn't "disastrous" it would been another example of evil America doing illegal actions around the world.


I would quote more, but those are just examples that represent the whole. I don't like their reasoning and i don't like their opinions. They have an agenda that i don't agree with and i have yet to find anything of redeeming value.

 

[Zoub]

In Yemen, a terminator drone targeted and killed the 16-year-old son of Anwar Al-Awlaki.

Hopefully they got him before he had children of his own? End the line right there with him.

If the surviving family does not like it, they can always go to court and ask for some free money to help them sleep at night.

 

[jeremy]

Then perhaps we ought to develop a method of war better tuned to fighting them since our current efforts are so mistake-ridden?

War is a fluid event constantly changing and evolving as every side is always attempting to defeat the others and triumph. What you see as a Mistake Ridden Effort is actually a very complex event with dozens of Countries being involved some working both sides.

So what would you do if you were the POTUS?!

I always like to hear new views on how to Wage War...

 

[tnek]

Where do you draw the line? Who is and is not an acceptable target for termination?

Who is an acceptable target? Any traitor who sides with a foriegn government or ideology dedicated to killing US citizens.

 

[RockofStrength]

War is a fluid event constantly changing and evolving as every side is always attempting to defeat the others and triumph. What you see as a Mistake Ridden Effort is actually a very complex event with dozens of Countries being involved some working both sides.

So what would you do if you were the POTUS?!

I always like to hear new views on how to Wage War...

You're starting me off with a failed premise. I wouldn't have moved in and "declared" war in the first place nor would I have invaded any countries. I would have sent overwhelming numbers of troops wherever we found an encampment or holdout (might as well use all those bases we have everywhere ) and given them one opportunity to surrender. Assuming that they don't, we form a perimeter and hit the place with the wrath of an angry pagan god (i.e. explosions galore). If there are civilians, we order the troops to go in and do their best not to get them killed just as we do now. Troops will die because of that, but since I presume I'm not allowed to simply encourage domestic defense against terrorist threats by arming our citizenry and so on I'm giving my best offensive strategy.

I would have let police forces (our own and international) work to capture individual leaders if they weren't being found in the compounds with their grunts. I don't control the police, but I would at least recommend the same approach: one chance to surrender, kill all who resist.

This is the best I can come up with on a Saturday morning.

 

[SemperFiUSMC]

You're starting me off with a failed premise. I wouldn't have moved in and "declared" war in the first place nor would I have invaded any countries. I would have sent overwhelming numbers of troops wherever we found an encampment or holdout (might as well use all those bases we have everywhere ) and given them one opportunity to surrender. Assuming that they don't, we form a perimeter and hit the place with the wrath of an angry pagan god (i.e. explosions galore). If there are civilians, we order the troops to go in and do their best not to get them killed just as we do now. Troops will die because of that, but since I presume I'm not allowed to simply encourage domestic defense against terrorist threats by arming our citizenry and so on I'm giving my best offensive strategy.

I would have let police forces (our own and international) work to capture individual leaders if they weren't being found in the compounds with their grunts. I don't control the police, but I would at least recommend the same approach: one chance to surrender, kill all who resist.

This is the best I can come up with on a Saturday morning.

I like war games.

What is an overwhelming number of troops? How do you stage them, their gear, and the logistics train necessary to support them without tipping off an enemy? How do you gather intelligence showing who they are, their command and control structure, whois where, what assets do they have on hand and what is their defensive posture? How do you avoid choke points and ambush? Where and how do you train for serving this one time warrant? Do you just drive up in the police cruizer and yell over the bullhorn "Put up your hands. This is the [STRIKE]police[/STRIKE] military?". How do you know which buildings are to be destroyed by direct air support and indirect fire? Where are those air and indirect fire assets located and how are they secured? And finally who is going to write the letter to mom telling her Johnny died for some sense of principled greater good when an unmanned drone firing a missle could have easily taken bad guy and his buddies out?

And Jeremy was starting out with a failed premise?

 

[RockofStrength]

I like war games.

What is an overwhelming number of troops? How do you stage them, their gear, and the logistics train necessary to support them without tipping off an enemy? How do you gather intelligence showing who they are, their command and control structure, whois where, what assets do they have on hand and what is their defensive posture? How do you avoid choke points and ambush? Where and how do you train for serving this one time warrant? Do you just drive up in the police cruizer and yell over the bullhorn "Put up your hands. This is the [STRIKE]police[/STRIKE] military?". How do you know which buildings are to be destroyed by direct air support and indirect fire? Where are those air and indirect fire assets located and how are they secured? And finally who is going to write the letter to mom telling her Johnny died for some sense of principled greater good when an unmanned drone firing a missle could have easily taken bad guy and his buddies out?

And Jeremy was starting out with a failed premise?

The failed premise being that I would have engaged in war with the terrorists to begin with. I would not have, were I the one to make that choice.

Most of the questions you raise are situational and tactical. How in the blazes could the POTUS general overall strategy also include individual situational tactics? I'm the president (per Jeremy's post) not the tactical coordinators, squad leaders, or officer staff in charge of the missions who should be creating the SOPs for this sort of thing.

As to the idea of principled greater good vs. pragmatism (soldiers vs. unmanned drone strike, in this case) we are already following a concept of principled greater good, I'm merely following it to it's full conclusion. We already follow international laws, prisoner of war rules, and are demonizing (rightly!) these terrorists for slaughtering innocents in order to accomplish their goals. If we're going to go all pragmatic we ought to do so in a manner that would make the Assyrians and Huns seem like a bunch of pacifists and abandon this pretense of being in any way superior to the terrorists we're attempting to kill. This halfway measure merely compromises principle when convenient or excusable and makes us look like indecisive fools.

 

[IndyBeerman]

The failed premise being that I would have engaged in war with the terrorists to begin with. I would not have, were I the one to make that choice.

I can clearly see by your statement here that you did not have anyone you knew, or was related to in either one of the WTC Towers when they went down.


Terrorist must be taken out where they stand, at that time and moment they are found, you do not give them next day a Fed Ex document or a tap on the shoulder and announcing that their expiration date is up and give them a chance to hide. Is the same sense, these fanatical fools are not going to provide any warning either.

The war on Terror is a continuous morphing scenario that is mind boggling on how it plays out, each and every day is a different.

I don't know about you or any other person here that can support idea of not taking them out, but I know this....

If I was a drinking man, I'd raise a can of beer or shot of whiskey to congratulate the man who ok'd the mission and the men who successfully carried it out each and every time they did it.

 

[rambone]

I can clearly see by your statement here that you did not have anyone you knew, or was related to in either one of the WTC Towers when they went down.

The kid they killed was 6 years old when the towers fell, and his dad was hanging out with his CIA handlers at the Pentagon. 9/11 is going to have to stop being the justification for everything sooner or later.

 

[1032JBT]

The failed premise being that I would have engaged in war with the terrorists to begin with. I would not have, were I the one to make that choice.

Most of the questions you raise are situational and tactical. How in the blazes could the POTUS general overall strategy also include individual situational tactics? I'm the president (per Jeremy's post) not the tactical coordinators, squad leaders, or officer staff in charge of the missions who should be creating the SOPs for this sort of thing.

As to the idea of principled greater good vs. pragmatism (soldiers vs. unmanned drone strike, in this case) we are already following a concept of principled greater good, I'm merely following it to it's full conclusion. We already follow international laws, prisoner of war rules, and are demonizing (rightly!) these terrorists for slaughtering innocents in order to accomplish their goals. If we're going to go all pragmatic we ought to do so in a manner that would make the Assyrians and Huns seem like a bunch of pacifists and abandon this pretense of being in any way superior to the terrorists we're attempting to kill. This halfway measure merely compromises principle when convenient or excusable and makes us look like indecisive fools.

If you are the POTUS.......then you better make damn sure you have at least some operational understanding of that kind of thing (or have someone close to you that can explain it to you) because the blood of EVERY soldier that dies doing your bidding is on YOUR hands. If blood has to be shed then so be it.......they knew what they signed up for, but it is YOUR job as POTUS to make sure that if the blood of your soldiers is shed it is with purpose and a reason.


Hypothetically of course

 

[1032JBT]

The kid they killed was 6 years old when the towers fell, and his dad was hanging out with his CIA handlers at the Pentagon. 9/11 is going to have to stop being the justification for everything sooner or later.

Doesn't really matter if the boy was 6YO or still in his mothers womb when the towers went down. At 16YO he damn sure knew who his father was and what he was about. There was obviously some intelligence on this "boy" or the strike wouldn't have happened, at least not with him as the obvious and admitted target of said strike. Just because you are not permitted to see or know that intelligence doesn't mean it isn't there. Just as others in this thread and other threads have said, just because some POS "news" agency reports topic ABC doesn't make it true.......conversly the other side is also true, just because the government said it doesn't automatically make it untrue.


As far as when the towers will stop being used as an excuse for these types of military operations..........when every last one of these SOB's that want us ALL dead (including YOU even if you are defending them) just because we are Americans are finally stopped of their oxygen stealing ways....................then and only then will we stop using that excuse. It's kind of like a school yard fight, we may not have started it but we are damn sure going to finish it. You can disagree with the methods all you want, but the amount of American lives saved by strikes like these are unknown and untold. Who knows, it might just be your life or the lives of those that you love that were saved by that strike.

 

[rambone]

There was obviously some intelligence on this "boy" or the strike wouldn't have happened, at least not with him as the obvious and admitted target of said strike. Just because you are not permitted to see or know that intelligence doesn't mean it isn't there.

Americans are being whacked, and we aren't even allowed to know why?

these SOB's that want us ALL dead (including YOU even if you are defending them)

I'm defending Due Process. If the Nazis got trials, so should these flakey excuses for threats to America.

 

[1032JBT]

Americans are being whacked, and we aren't even allowed to know why?


I'm defending Due Process. If the Nazis got trials, so should these flakey excuses for threats to America.

No, you aren't.....not in these instances. These were "Americans" by birth alone. Their vocal admissions and their actions while in another country and being surrounded by our enemies is all the due process they deserved.



The nazis (you capitalizing that word in your post tells me something) got trials AFTER the war was over. This war is far from over........they haven't earned the title of "war criminal" yet, they still fall under "enemy combatant".

 

[rambone]

The nazis (you capitalizing that word in your post speaks volumes)

Hmm. What do these volumes say about me? I would like to know.

This war is far from over........

Agreed. America still has some remaining wealth to **** in a hole. The war will wage on.

 

[1032JBT]

Hmm. What do these volumes say about me? I would like to know.



Agreed. America still has some remaining wealth to **** in a hole. The war will wage on.

Your right......."volumes" probably wasn't the right word so I'll edit my post. What it means to me though is the fact you felt they deserved the distinction of that word being capitalized.



Actually you are wrong, we don't have money to **** down a hole. We just differ in opinions that this is a hole.

 

[rambone]

Your right......."volumes" probably wasn't the right word so I'll edit my post. What it means to me though is the fact you felt they deserved the distinction of that word being capitalized.

I frequently capitalize "Republicans", "Democrats", and "Libertarians" as well; as they are all political parties, regardless of what they stand for. I capitalized "Due Process" in the same post for some reason too. Its just a habit.

I've Godwin-ed too many threads to be a closet Nazi sympathizer, lol.

 

[1032JBT]

I frequently capitalize "Republicans", "Democrats", and "Libertarians" as well; as they are all political parties, regardless of what they stand for. I capitalized "Due Process" in the same post for some reason too. Its just a habit.

I've Godwin-ed too many threads to be a closet Nazi sympathizer, lol.

Well of the words you capitalized in this quote and put in paraenthises, the only one that deserves it is Due Process, and I think even you and I could agree on that. We just disagree on who deserves Due Process.

 

[RichardR]

War is ugly. Sometimes innocent people are killed in war, especially when they are in close physical proximity to combatants. This may be news to some of you.

What's for dinner?

^^this^^

It'd be impossible to wage war against any nation or group of people if only the "guilty" were allowed to be killed.

Sorry but that's just the way it is.