Drones are a great idea. They allow air strikes without risking the death or capture of a pilot. The most controversial aspect of drones is simply that CIA drones don't follow military rules of engagement. They have a tendency to target wedding parties and the like on the off chance a terrorist may be there. Give the spy boys a slapping and take away their toys and most of the controversy will go with them.

I...have to agree with you Octavious, even though I feel I shouldn't.

"Pakistan is a sovereign country. Sending military units into another sovereign country and blowing things up (when not at war with that country) is a serious violation of international law."
In all seriousness I don't think the USA give a toss about that, nor does anyone else by all accounts, how many innocent Pakistanis or Afghans have to die before they get a 30 second slot on Fox News?

Absolutely. I agree. I'm just responding to the original question asked - why are drone strikes in Pakistan controversial?

I think drone strikes are the only answer to the wild boar population explosion. The first article I read on this "ecological train wreck" mentioned that, but I couldn't find that particular one.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/22/us-usa-pigs-wild-idUSBRE85L1CF20120622

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/us-pig-population-an-ecological-disaster/538

To Synapse and the others against drone strikes - hypothetically, if it could be guaranteed that there would be no civilian casualties from drone strikes, would you support them? I stress hypothetically.

@gf, no, i don't support the use of drone to hunt down 'terrorists' - if you want to go in and get them, and try them under Pakistani law, or to ratify the International Criminal Court (which the US signed up to, but never ratified, so for example, US troops can't be tried)

If you want some kind of international law, then go for it. But do it fairly, in a way where people get a trial; don't enforce 'might is right' style 'justice' but killing whoever you like from your flying death machines.

You wouldn't like it if anyone else did the same to American citizens.

If they are American terrorists I wouldn't mind. For that American (al Awlaki or something?) in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula they did it via courts. They ordered him to come to court to answer for his crimes. He didn't, so they had the justification to get him dead or alive. Why risk other American lives in trying an arrest?

And I asked the question to determine whether people are against drones due to the civilian casualties or violation of a country's sovereignty or (As you have said) violation of human rights.

Why don't we do drone strikes in Latin America against drug cartels? Because we have the assistance of the countries they are operating in. Even Venezuela helps us out and they hate us. Pakistan won't lift a finger to help us. Yemen is unable to lift its finger, period haha.

And I personally hate that the US tries to be above all these international laws, just for the record. We should be the first adopters in all of these.

Regarding Al Awlaki, it's worth noting that his son was also killed, two weeks later, by drone. He was 16, a citizen of the USA, and there was no evidence that he'd done anything to harm the USA in any meaningful way.

It could be worse, they could imprison and torture hundreds of people without any evidence of a crime, and then deny them basic human rights because despite having no evidence at all we call them 'enemy combatants'.
Of course in 2013 this could never happen ...... no way, not in a civilized law abiding democracy

GF, so for the record, you don't have a problem with the US government (well military or CIA, the federal government is designed to do as little as possible...) deciding who they think is a threat and blowing them up.

Regardless of citizenship, regardless of due process, regardless guilt. Just considering it might be difficult to attempt to arrest them?

"And the liberals went nuts when Regean made a JOKE before a live broadcast about going to war with Russia and the bombings were to begin in minutes.

Now we have a liberal president actually bombing people and it's not front page news. Only on our forum do we get the truth."

That is a great point. Gives us conspiratorial fucks some credibility. Like the government uses the media to hide what's really happening or something. No, it can't be!

...+1

So, looking at Waziristan, we have the taliban conducting military operations across an international border. This is not a criminal organization like a drug cartel. They are conducting warfare in Afghanistan in violation of international law with the goal of the reconquest of that nation. People are dying in that war including many innocents.

You want to say we should not be in Afghanistan, that is perhaps a respectable view.

However, if we are a player in this war, we need to conduct operations against the source including command and control.

If we are going to conduct operations against Taliban command and control, we should use technology and strategy that increases precision and results while reducing collateral death. That would be drones. Believe it or not.

There will be no trial before every trigger pull.

You should thank your liberal gods we have a less destructive technology at our disposal than the Nixon administration unleashed in Cambodia when the NVA was operating over that border.

"There will be no trial before every trigger pull."

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

That might help you clear up your misconceptions.

Um, what's your beef with the constitution? I don't see any references to drones.

Perhaps you are upset by the unconstitutionality of undeclared wars? Is every US soldier who pulled a trigger in Korea a war criminal in your mind? US soldiers in Korea crossed an international border and the shot and killed people without trial.

"Is every US soldier who pulled a trigger in Korea a war criminal in your mind?"

Truman's order of the attack on Korea could be considered illegal by American standards. He used SC Res. 82 and 83 to provide support for the war. Decide for yourself whether or not that's legal. According to that cute little document that is just so irrelevant in American politics I posted above, it's illegal to do that. Same could be said for both GHW Bush and GW Bush as well as Clinton. And, of course, as well as Obama.

"Um, what's your beef with the constitution? I don't see any references to drones."

You didn't make any. You just said that we should go around and kill people without trial if the federal government suspects that they are guilty. You say this as if there is some sort of exception due to the crimes that they are suspected to have committed but haven't been convicted of committing. If the United States - not the United Nations - are conducting the operations to take these people out, the United States needs to follow its own laws which guarantee a fair trial.

Terrorism, as we understand it, is about 150 years old.

It's nothing new.

americans are stupid cunts.

re you opinion about Korean war vets being murderers and criminals -- you just confirmed what I thought re you and your opinion. I get your take on undeclared wars bit, it's overly simplistic and I don't particularly agree.

"You said that we should go around and kill people without trial if the federal gov suspects they are guilty". Nope. I said no such thing sorry.

I get what you're saying, but you sadly miss my point. I am making a distinction between warfare versus criminal interdiction. I am saying there is a difference. And, furthermore, in my opinion, the drone strikes on taliban command and control in waziristan is in fact an operation of warfare.

There will be no trial before every gun shot. There will be no trial before every artillery shell fires. There will be no trial before every bomb. And there will be no trial before every drone strike.

Is the taliban conducting a war? What do they say? I think they believe they are in a war.

People are upset by the technology and can't fit it in with existing mental models of warfare. When Curtis Lemay ordered the fire bombing of Tokyo, they did not hold 97,000 trials before they dropped the bombs.

You want to find war criminals look to Gen. LeMay. Probably among the worst war criminals of the last 100 yeas, and he did it all in complete compliance with your constitution in a fully declared war.

Do drone strike keep me up an night. No. Helps me sleep better.

"re you opinion about Korean war vets being murderers and criminals"

Didn't say that, not reading the rest of your post. If you are going to make up things that I supposedly said, I don't feel the need to respond further.

"americans are stupid cunts"

only 50%

"Didn't say that, not reading the rest of your post. If you are going to make up things that I supposedly said, I don't feel the need to respond further."

boohoo

don't get your tears on your precious constitution.

Brilliant. I just spit out my beer.

Bravo.

@ora - there was due process for al awlaki (if that's his name). He was ordered to court on charges of treason and attempting to launch attacks in the US. He never showed up and Yemen doesn't have the power to arrest him. What do you do then, allow him to plot attacks? If he was innocent, let him show up at court.

And it wouldn't just be difficult to arrest them. It would be stupid. It would be like trying to arrest Bin Laden, and one of the helicopters crashed and blew up there. People would die and eventually it would one of our soldiers dying. If we're not the world police, then why arrest terrorists? Also, terrorists don't *Want* to be arrested, so we'd be flying guys into a gun fight. Drone strikes save American lives considering the alternative.

And the US only guarantees a right to a trial to its own citizens, so in most cases we wouldn't need to make an arrest.

@bo - are you really trying to say the Korean War was unconstitutional?

@mendax - but was he the target?

goldfinger define citizen. In response to your question, I don't agree with drone strikes because they allow no opportunity for surrender.

I mean define a civilian**. I assume you're counting all accomplices as combatants? Ie. a guy who repairs Al Quaeda’s busted tyres at his mechanics, he’s liable to be blown up by a drone right? The difference is with troops on the ground that guy would surrender; a drone dispenses death, not justice (or victory). If you feel the cost of sending troops in outweighs justice then I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what your founding fathers would say about it either. Anyway America is now a very different place than the one of Thomas Paines, it makes me sad. Killing people is seen as more cost-effective than making the world a better place

Even if you love this war and all, you're just doing it wrong. With those drone strikes, people are watching family members die. What do those people do? Some of them just try to go on with their lives. The others? They join the opposition, the terrorists, the suicide bombers. Oh, and a few kill themselves.

Just do the math. If you fight this way, you are just recruiting suicide bombers for the enemy.

I say invade, but invade small scale. Make some reformations, focus on counter-terrorism more, and get a load of boots on the ground with the sole goal to get the terrorists, and other than that, just shoot out of self-defense.

Yes, more Americans will die to kill that one group of terrorists, but at least another group of terrorists does not arise from the ashes of the old one. And there's much less collateral (I might have spelled that wrong?) damage, which should be a priority, imo.