United States Fails To Show For Drone Hearing

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In all honesty, I think there would be more civilian casualties if the US deployed ground forces in the places where they use drones. Drones are just scarier because they don't expose the user to direct danger when they're pulling the trigger...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v55YWkZKsE[/youtube]

The United States is a declining nation in the production of (civilian) electronic hardware. For a home education project in robotics and I developed a new control board that incorporated a truly fantastic Japanese microcontroller to replace the existing control board that used the American PIC. I also changed the design that originally used connectors from an American manufacturer to use connectors from a European manufacturer. Little by little the rest of the world is showing the Americans that they are producing fewer and fewer good that other countries also manufacture.

Now explain what are you ugly American supremists and imperialists going to do when Muslim dominated nations develop their own drones (Iran already has) that fly over the US and shoot down prominent Zionists in their own homes? This isn't a matter of if. It's a matter of when. Sanctions from Washington are useless when they can buy components to make drones from other more friendly nations or develop them themselves.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (which highly criticises drone strikes, BTW), lists the following data for drone strikes in Pakistan so far in 2013:


Source: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/20 ... e-strikes/

(Note that the site updates continuously, so the above figures will become outdated over time)

From these data, the highest possible civilian casualty ratio (civilian ratio of combatant casualties) is 1 : 25.8, and the simple average is 1 : 73.5.

So, drone strikes with the latest technology outperforms just about any other military intervention in existence (perhaps except snipers, but they haven't got the range) when it comes to avoiding civilian casualties. And after 9/11 it would be naive to assume that a valid alternative for the US would be to do "nothing" at all.

This also raises another question:

By continuously focusing on and criticising drone strikes selectively, wouldn't there be a risk that the government would shift its approach to more conventional approaches that cause more collateral damage, but less media publicity?

An ally that regularly double deals, becuase of Kashmir, region which used to have large historic Buddhist community, and Christians are now virtually non existent. A region which nearly all of Pakistan politics dominates, which they are so obsessed about to fault, despite their biggest threat being in the tribal regions..

Ask the Bangladeshis what they think of Pakistan.

They suffer far more becuase of their own extremists, which they ironically fund. Drone strike are a drop in the ocean compared to that, but real term vs sensation is not your forte.

They are not an ally, and they haven't been one for a couple of years, and they have never been a good ally as it is. Anyone who actually thinks the Pakistan is an ally of the US hasn't got the gist of foreign policy in the region. Pakistan is more of an obstacle then an ally. Afghanistan, despite it faults is an ally still, they wouldn't even consider Pakistan an ally in private.

Do you honestly think the US would be an ally with a country which locks up a doctor who helped them identify Bin Laden? What the US is doing correctly is not being an ally of Pakistan, but also not making too much noise about it. This is becuase it would serve their attention seeking aim.

Even for the sake of argument they didn't harbour him, they are acting like harboring Bin Laden was a good thing.

In fact it was in a sense for them, Pakistan is one of the most corrupt places on earth, these states regularly practice aid extortion so had a vested interest in a continued relationship.

If we accept the premise that drone strikes are one of the more accurate weapons in the US arsenal, it raises as many questions as it answers

- does it imply that the US is specifically targeting civilians?...

- ... or does the US have problems identifying the difference between civilian and combatant?

-If so, does it mean a) there are difficulties with its imaging technology or b) is it incompetence on the part of the drone operators?

-Otherwise, is the killing of civilians simply an afterthought on the part of the US military?

I would say that the US is deliberately targeting civilians. Aerial bombardment historically has always targeted civilians. When the acknowledged enemy has no uniforms, armored divisions, or armaments factories, civilians are even more likely to be directly targeted.

yup. A theme in the Bradley Manning video was that the helicopter gunner kept shouting that the victims were holding rifles when it was really cameras. The drone operators are probably claiming to see insurgents with AK47s when its really shepherds holding staffs.

Actually, here's an excellent article on this (from a left-wing perspective) that neatly crushes the anti-droners with evidence and hard facts:

Essentially - the drones kill really rather few innocent civilians and they are mightily useful for killing terrorists.

So, would the anti-droners rather that terrorists were not killed and their stranglehold allowed to become ever tighter or is it not a problem to allow the U.S. and UK to take out the trash?

Even before you consider the killings of Pakistani civilians, I think that NATO's continued incursions into countries like Pakistan only serves to consolidate the propagandising and recruitment among hardline Islamists in the west.

Hardline Islamism has nothing to do with just being anti-West. It's anti-everything that ain't their extreme version of Islam.

Ignoring the general debate about intervention: you quite hate the fact that these drones are rather effective. How terribly awful for you.

Maybe NATO and the Islamic fundamentalists can work out an arrangement: "You guys stop using suicide bombers, and we'll stop using drones"

If you actually listen to what the Islamists are saying to recruit, they aren't focusing on western decadence or non Islamic apostasy.

Their first and main recourse to incite anger and hatred is the killing of Muslims in other countries by NATO and Israeli forces. Its also the reason why the USA, UK, Israel and their allies receive the lion's share of Islamic terrorist attacks.

These activities only provide them with extra ammunition.


Not at all. I'm just waiting for an answer to my original question. Namely, in spite of the supposed precision, efficiency and accuracy of these weapons, drone operators are failing to make the killings discriminative to combatants only. So tell me-

is it incompetence on the part of the drone operators or an inherent problem with the drone technology?

Or is it a little of both of the above, or a general contempt for the value of civilian lives?

The distinction between civilians and combatants is not absolute. A person can be both a civilian and a combatant. A bomb factory in a civilian area for example, or a NATO soldier on leave at home...

If you refuse to have some boundaries, what precedence does that make?

We can safely say an old woman is not a combatant.

It is well established that the group in the "Collateral Murder" video had weapons (Including at least one RPG). Even Julian Assange himself acknowledged this.
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