Is the President or the Generals calling the shots on the drone attacks?

[kentuck]

The President is the Commander in Chief but there has been a trend in recent years to let the generals make the decisions on the ground. Republicans have run on the very point that the generals on the ground know best how to run the war. Has the President fallen into that trap?

This policy seems so anti-Barack Obama and what we know about his understandings of the Constitution. This is not to excuse the President one way or the other but I wonder who is calling the shots??

[spanone]

1. i doubt anyone tells the military what to do.

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. It doesn't matter. The C in C gets the credit and the blame.

Remember when he started his surge? I know the warnings about how this would become President Obama's war if he didn't move to end from the very start was all over Kos, and I'm sure it must have been here, too. Well here it is, a clusterfuck on track to eclipse the clusterfuck of Iraq and who gets the blame? The Democrats, who else?

[former9thward]

3. The Generals may be calling the shots on the ground (or in the air)

But they are doing so with the approval of the President. If they are doing otherwise then he has surrendered his constitutional duty.

[Orangepeel]

4. The President sets the policy and the generals implement it

I'm too lazy to find a quote, but that's my impression of what the President has said in the past.

Certainly the President is not calling every shot. His involvement probably lies somewhere between authorizing additional support for a Seal team targeting Bin Laden (which reports are that he did) and deciding which battalion is deployed where (which of course he doesn't do).

He has obviously authorized the policy of drone strikes under particular circumstances. I doubt that the procedure is to get his authorization before each strike.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. As commander-in-chief Obama is ultimately responsible for what shots are called.

Just as much as LBJ and Nixon were responsible for what the generals did in Vietnam.

It's not like he doesn't know what's going on.

[The Second Stone]

6. The initiation of shooting follows

a theater's "rules of engagement" and only under certain conditions can a commander fire first. With a drone situation it would be the same. The commander in chief (the president) would have the right to write the rules of engagement.

The drone pilots themselves are frequently retired military pilots. In the last few days I read an interview with one, and he stated that he had been a pilot in previous wars where there was no control on when a bomb was dropped. Now they wait to fire the missiles to minimize civilian casualties, and the drone continues to hover around and watch the bodies and activities around the bodies and it takes a huge toll on the pilots because mistakes mean families are right there, either dead or grieving.

Drone warfare, like all warfare, leaves death and destruction. But the collateral damage is far less. The Taliban invited Al Queda to their country. When they did that, they invited us. It is the job of our government to kill those enemies of ours that are trying to kill our citizens and those that harbor them. That includes Al Queda and the Taliban. If the Taliban wanted us out of Afghanistan, all they would have to do is stop their activity for a period of a year or two. Instead they poison water at girls' schools, plant IEDs and kill government officials.

[MnExpat]

7. Who called the shots to take out Bin Laden?

And there just might be your answer.

I don't think we can have it both ways.

[GeorgeGist]

8. Obama owns the policy.

the CIA (General Petraeus) calls the targets. The triggers are pulled in Nevada.

[PhilInAlaska]

9. It doesn't matter

The drone policy (not to mention the entire "War on Terror&quot is clearly immoral and arguably unconstitutional. Of course Obama "owns" the war; Afghanistan is the one he said he would prosecute to the fullest when he was campaigning. Which is a tragedy. He either lacks the guts to end it, or he actually believes it is in the public interest. Either way, it will make my vote for the President a vote for the lesser of two evils.

[HopeHoops]

10. The brass.