5 Myths Used to Justify Death By Drone and America's Assassination Policy

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/world/5-big-myths-used-justify-death-drone-and-americas-imperial-assassination-policy

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Myth #1: They Target High Level Terrorists

Only two percent of drone strikes have killed “high value targets,” former counter-terror advisor to David Patreus, David Kilcullen, notoriously remarked in a New York Times column early in the Obama presidency, where he said that 50 civilians were killed for every “high-value target” assassinated. That means that 98 percent of drone-caused deaths have been a mix of low-level militants, civilians, or another dubious Pentagon classification called “unknown militants.”

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Myth#2: Drones Are Accurate

The Pentagon rhetoric touting “pin point” and “laser” accuracy of drones is baseless. Dr. Larry Lewis, a principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research group with close ties to the US military, studied the record in Afghanistan and found that drone strikes were no more accurate than traditional air power. So, after all this talk about the ability to discern enemies through surveillance, they are no more accurate traditional fly-bys. This rhetoric has allowed us to kill innocent children.

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Myth #3: Drone Targets Imminently Threaten America

The mainstream media have played into the CIA/Administration’s selective leaks about drones, especially the concept of a “kill list.” This military branding conjures up a process of carefully selected enemies who pose imminent threats to the U.S. However, the reality of “signature strikes” undercuts this P.R. construction.

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Myth #4 Drones Are Cheap

Setting aside the moral, legal, and efficacy arguments about drones, the mantra from the administration, lobbyists and their lackeys in Congress has been drone’s low per-unit cost of $4 million to $5 million. According to Winslow Wheeler of the Project On Government Oversight, “This is quite incorrect.” He states, “The actual cost for a Reaper unit is $120.8 million in 2012 dollars.” This is far above the $27.2 million dollar F-16C or the $18.8 million A-10. Seemingly, this “aura of inevitability” about investing in this new revolutionizing weapon is the military-industrial-complex at its self-serving worst.

[cali]

1. kick for visibility. The administration's drone use is unconscionable.

[The Link]

2. This will be the legacy of this administration.

[warrant46]

5. History will judge these criminals

Harshly

[idwiyo]

3. K&R

[chimpymustgo]

4. Indiscriminate murder: "50 civilians were killed for every “high-value target” assassinated."

[Melinda]

6. Why do you hate 'Murica?

I mean, what's a little BUG-SPLAT anyway?





And so, to not offend any delicate sensibilities on DU, I'll refrain from posting the pics of dead babies blown apart by American drones. We ARE the very monsters we decry. And I am ashamed of my country.

[Moral Compass]

7. K&R

Obama's continued enthusiastic use of drones is an indelible black mark on his administration.

[RC]

8. More proof the "War on Terrorism" is meant to go on indefinitely, as we make at least as many

terrorists as we say we kill.
Just how can so many people living in 3rd world countries be a threat to the United States, the last remaining world power, when they are over 5000 miles away and do not have the resources to get here?
Maybe if we did not have so many military bases all over their territories, their countries, their lands, if we were not killing so many families, men. women and children, they would not feel they have to defend and avenge themselves themselves against us, US, by the only way they can.
Fighting terrorism is a self perpetuating fight. The more people you kill and maim, the more terrorists you make, to avenge the deaths of the relatives and friends we murder. In the Middle East, we are the worlds worst terrorist, bar none. We have the bloody history to prove it.

[Jerry442]

10. Absolutely right. Drone warfare is like crack cocaine.

Whatever else it does, it generates the need for more, more, more.

[Civilization2]

9. Drone murders are TERROR by the US government,. this is the war OF terror.

There is no possible justification of indiscriminate murder. Remote killing and the inevitable civilian "collateral damage" are terror pure and simple. Even in the case of a "correct target" being murdered this way, the practice is still illegal and immoral.

[blackspade]

11. This has been common knowledge for years.

Move along citizen.....

[DirkGently]

12. Yes. We're bombing civilians, period. n/t

[frylock]

13. knr

[PowerToThePeople]

14. You are either with us

[xchrom]

15. ...