All airstrikes are via remote control. The controversy over drones is empty, emotionally driven bullshit seized upon by the sort of people who don't want us doing any airstrikes. Easier to sell a controversy about drones, because feels. Drone operators are no more disconnected or removed from the action, or whatever the objection is, than artillery operators. Less, actually, but no one bitches about artillery, because it's not an easily demonized scary new technology.
You get hit by an airstrike, you don't know whether the operator of the aircraft was sitting in a cockpit or a control room. You have no idea.
There really is a difference though. Even advanced artillery like our newer railguns still launch from a potentially vulnerable position into a 'warzone' or 'battleground'. With aircraft now the strike zone can be 1600 miles away, but the men and women piloting the aircraft are still within a few miles of their targets. Also these aircraft must have access to the airspace legally.
What is happening now is a Marine can assist a drone launch which can then stay in the air for days and a few kids in a cargo container can drop hellfires on weddings and villages hundreds of miles away from any declared warzone. And these drones can operate mostly undetected. Then even if they are shot down, the operators and ground crew were never in harms way. (except for maybe slowly destroying themselves and their families after realizing they murdered hundreds of people based on Israeli lies and ; that they sold their soul to small sociopathic inhu-men like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
That the shadow they saw was a child, who knew nothing about America and cared only for childish things. And who spent the last few hours of their life crying, in searing pain from burns covering their bodes, not understanding who or what just cut their mother in half in front of their eyes, just before dinner time. Collapsed in their own urine and feces, in agony, wondering where their brother is.)
Even advanced artillery like our newer railguns still launch from a potentially vulnerable position into a 'warzone' or 'battleground'.
Not really, and I don't understand how this distinction even matters. War is not supposed to be a fair fight. You want to destroy the enemy at the least cost and risk to yourself.
Sailors engaging in a naval artillery or missile bombardment of an enemy ground force with no sea or air power are attacking from a remote position with almost no exposure to danger. That's nothing new.
Collateral damage is not a feature unique to drone strikes.
What you are talking about is creating enemies, not defeating them.
We burned Japan's 60 largest cities between 40% and 100% to the ground. They were defeated.
Are civilian casualties counterproductive in counterinsurgency and antiterrorism? Sure they are, and that's why our rules of engagement are remarkably restrictive. When you seize on that and assume without doing the math that they outweigh the value of killing high priority targets, you haven't made your argument. You've made an assumption.
You act as though every drone strike ever means firing a Hellfire at a wedding celebration (these guys sure attend a lot of weddings, don't they?). How about when we blow up a Land Cruiser full of terrorists on some lonely road in Yemen? We can do one without the other, you know.
The rules of engagement are determined by people with a much better picture of the realities on the ground than you or I, and their take is that killing terrorists via airstrikes is a win. A handful of E-4's disagree, but they are drone operators who from the sounds of it don't belong in the military. What did they think they'd be dropping? Food and prizes? They aren't CIA, military intelligence, or anything of the sort. They make things blow up. As to the consequences, they are guessing.
view the rest of the comments →
mcwilshire ago
All airstrikes are via remote control. The controversy over drones is empty, emotionally driven bullshit seized upon by the sort of people who don't want us doing any airstrikes. Easier to sell a controversy about drones, because feels. Drone operators are no more disconnected or removed from the action, or whatever the objection is, than artillery operators. Less, actually, but no one bitches about artillery, because it's not an easily demonized scary new technology.
You get hit by an airstrike, you don't know whether the operator of the aircraft was sitting in a cockpit or a control room. You have no idea.
This is bullshit.
respondwithdata ago
There really is a difference though. Even advanced artillery like our newer railguns still launch from a potentially vulnerable position into a 'warzone' or 'battleground'. With aircraft now the strike zone can be 1600 miles away, but the men and women piloting the aircraft are still within a few miles of their targets. Also these aircraft must have access to the airspace legally.
What is happening now is a Marine can assist a drone launch which can then stay in the air for days and a few kids in a cargo container can drop hellfires on weddings and villages hundreds of miles away from any declared warzone. And these drones can operate mostly undetected. Then even if they are shot down, the operators and ground crew were never in harms way. (except for maybe slowly destroying themselves and their families after realizing they murdered hundreds of people based on Israeli lies and ; that they sold their soul to small sociopathic inhu-men like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
That the shadow they saw was a child, who knew nothing about America and cared only for childish things. And who spent the last few hours of their life crying, in searing pain from burns covering their bodes, not understanding who or what just cut their mother in half in front of their eyes, just before dinner time. Collapsed in their own urine and feces, in agony, wondering where their brother is.)
mcwilshire ago
Not really, and I don't understand how this distinction even matters. War is not supposed to be a fair fight. You want to destroy the enemy at the least cost and risk to yourself.
Sailors engaging in a naval artillery or missile bombardment of an enemy ground force with no sea or air power are attacking from a remote position with almost no exposure to danger. That's nothing new.
respondwithdata ago
The point I am going to stick you on is that you want to destroy the enemy.
Not his uncle, not his neighbor, not the innocent people coming to the aid of other innocent people [see our "Double Tap" doctrine].
What you are talking about is creating enemies, not defeating them.
mcwilshire ago
Collateral damage is not a feature unique to drone strikes.
We burned Japan's 60 largest cities between 40% and 100% to the ground. They were defeated.
Are civilian casualties counterproductive in counterinsurgency and antiterrorism? Sure they are, and that's why our rules of engagement are remarkably restrictive. When you seize on that and assume without doing the math that they outweigh the value of killing high priority targets, you haven't made your argument. You've made an assumption.
You act as though every drone strike ever means firing a Hellfire at a wedding celebration (these guys sure attend a lot of weddings, don't they?). How about when we blow up a Land Cruiser full of terrorists on some lonely road in Yemen? We can do one without the other, you know.
The rules of engagement are determined by people with a much better picture of the realities on the ground than you or I, and their take is that killing terrorists via airstrikes is a win. A handful of E-4's disagree, but they are drone operators who from the sounds of it don't belong in the military. What did they think they'd be dropping? Food and prizes? They aren't CIA, military intelligence, or anything of the sort. They make things blow up. As to the consequences, they are guessing.