Drone Warfare Won't Win in Libya

[tekisui]

Source: CNN

(snip)

Drones are cheaper to use than planes. If they are shot down, no U.S. pilot is killed or captured. And because they are unmanned, President Barack Obama uses them in places where, for political reasons, he does not want a significant U.S. military presence.

Yet that is the fatal attraction of drones -- they may not seem like a weapon of war but they are.

(snip)

As this death toll demonstrates, drones are battlefield weapons. Predators and Reapers launch Hellfire missiles or drop bombs weighing up to 500 pounds -- firepower only permitted in armed conflict. The United States is not in an armed conflict in Pakistan; it is not supposed to be in one in Libya.

In Pakistan, despite continuous drone attacks since 2004, the terrorism threat remains. In 2010, the United States attacked more than 110 times, killing 600 to 700 people. Greg Miller of The Washington Post has reported that in all of those strikes only two people on a list of high-level terrorism suspects were killed.

more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/25/oconnell.drones.libya/index.html?eref=rss_politics&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_allpolitics+%28RSS%3A+Politics%29

[DirkGently]

1. Apparently we need specific legislation clarifying that Drone warfare IS warfare. Cowardly and evil.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Drone warfare is no different than any other kind of warfare,It will always take boots on the ground

to settle the matter

[DirkGently]

3. But it's politically painless. No body bags with OUR flags on them = no protest rallies.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. That is why UAVs are all the rage these days. Not evil or cowardly either

Keeping friendlies away from hostile fire is generally considered a good thing.

[DirkGently]

5. It is evil & cowardly. The whole point is to kill w/o consequence or scrutiny.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. You make it sound like combat is duel...a quaint but seriously incorrect concept

When it comes to violence, whether it is between people or nations, the goal needs to be to win at minimum cost and risk. There is no requirement for righteousness or morality. Drones are no more inherently evil than a rifle or bomb. It is not cowardly to accomplish the mission with no risk to friendly lives.

When confronted by violence I will stop it as quickly as I can and at lowest risk to me. Sometimes it is with a sidearm, other times hand to hand. I do not give the perp a fair chance, I take him out as soon as I can with whatever means I have handy at the time. There is no such thing as a fair fight.

There is nothing evil about using remotely controlled vehicles to deploy ordnance against the enemy. Nor is it cowardly to maintain a safe distance will killing them. It is war, not duel.

[DirkGently]

8. That's a mile-wide assumption of efficacy on your part. We're bombing civilians and kids.

And there's no indication whatsoever that drone killings are "winning" a single solitary thing. Of course, they're illegally classified as "secret," so there is conveniently no official reporting on who we have and not have killed.

We do know the Taliban seems to be doing fine. We do know that children, civilians, and a few U.S. passport holders have been bombed.

As for the cowardice of it, it has nothing to do with chivalry either way. The cowardice is political and moral. By treating drones as covert action, they're not subject to the usual scrutiny by the public. The effect is illegal, undeclared war.

And because no Americans are ever killed, the public is less likely to look at either the morality, or the efficacy of drone attacks, which despite your generous assumptions, both appear completely lacking.



editted for speling. and then to add stuff. and more spelling. sigh.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. I now understand where you are coming from, but there would be no difference if it was being done by

manned platforms. People would still be dieing and the activities would still be classified. We could conceivably lose air crew, but I would doubt it.

[inna]

10. thank you, thank you! very well written, and needed to be said.

:thumbsup:

[inna]

7. "they may not seem like a weapon of war" - in whose delusional imagination? K&R!