But of course that's not going to happen because more casualties are better when you want to become a popular president.

SYnapse: but America wouldn't be the sole dominating power if they left Europe to the Nazis.

True, but goldfinger says that American soldier's lives are the most important , you see why that doesn't make sense. American soldiers enlist to give their lives for _insert values here, not to try to stay alive at the expense of the world going to shit.

Fair enough.

you gentlemen done masturbating each other yet?

Is it still called masturbating if you do it to eachother?

If so, yes.

"SYnapse: but America wouldn't be the sole dominating power if they left Europe to the Nazis."

CoughSovietUnioncough.

@SYnapse - I'd be taking a very narrow definition of combatant. So the mechanic who works on their cars would be a noncom. Combatants would strictly be the fighters, organizers, bomb makers and weapons and logistics providers. Mechanics, wives, servants, etc etc would not be harmed in this hypothetical.

I also disagree with the fact that they would surrender. How many militants surrender in the firefights that happen with the US army *every day* in Afghanistan? Most of the people we captured were through night raids, which were *even more* unpopular than the drone strikes.

Let's see how often they surrender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Amenas_hostage_crisis
29 militants dead, 40 civilian hostages killed. 3 surrendered

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Lal_Masjid
91 militants dead, 11 special forces killed and another 30 wounded. 50 captured (Note: captured, not surrendered.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0ZIG4GYt7g (read under "show more")
4 militants dead. None surrender.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkHZ9uITsGg
3 militants dead. 2 captured (again, not surrendered, captured)

When militants do surrender, they will do it voluntarily. Not during a raid.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-319805-six-pkk-terrorists-surrender-to-security-forces.html

And I just think America is on the other side of the ball then. Didn't Patrick Henry say "give me liberty or give me death"? Do you think that the Revolution would have ended if the British went door to door an asked people to surrender? Justice isn't attainable because for many terrorists the only justice they want - and they deserve - is death. Why waste American lives then in dispensing it?

"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."

Look, I get what you're going at, but you have to think practically here. First off, let's assume a good scenario where the country allows American boots on the ground (which would still take a LOT of diplomatic work). You need people to build a base. Then you need people to guard said base. Then you need a logistics team. You need a supply line. You need people to protect said supply line. How are you going to conduct raids? By air? You need helicopters and crews. Then you need gunships to fly support. All this adds up, to the point where a single patriot missile battery requires 400 troops to man it.

http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-send-missiles-400-troops-turkey-093600827.html

In Somalia in 1993 we tried the boots on the ground technique in raids, and it got a lot of men killed (granted, it was in a major city. I know I could have better examples). Task Force Ranger had 400 combat men, with additional support personnel. But they needed backup, which came in the form of the 10th Mountain Division, a Marine Expeditionary Unit and a bunch of Pakistani and Malaysian soldiers.

This is all, of course, assuming that the country allows our troops in. Which Pakistan will not.

So I get what you mean by "limited", but "limited" still would involve thousands of people. What you're going for I believe is "covert" which is much, much worse for PR than a drone strike. Case in point - the Bin Laden raid.

Also, this is the armed forces oath.

"I, XXXXXXXXXX, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Nothing about dying for a cause there. People join up to serve, not to die.

And drones reduce those soldier deaths. However, the President may order a soldier to his death as may a commanding officer, so the vow does allow for it. Those pussies who went into the reserves then didn't want to go serve when they were called up after 9/11 wer, well, pussies. They got the money they wanted then didn't want to fulfill the obligation that came with it.

@ Synapse, it has never been
"the soldiers job to die for the right values or his country"
it's a soldiers job to make sure the enemy die
yes they risk being killed &/or injured themselves, but that is not their "purpose"
their purpose is to defeat opposing forces & capture targets eg territory, strategic positions, installations etc

@gf ... no, I'm not saying that the Korean War was illegal, because if it was perceived that way I am confident that Truman's opponents would have taken action against him for it. Truman did though, by a more literal sense, violate the War Powers Clause, and because the War Powers Resolution wasn't around until 1973 (I think?), the President explicitly did not have the right to engage in war without Congressional approval.

To paraphrase Elbridge Gerry in the Philadelphia Convention, there is no justification of any law that enables a single executive power alone to declare international war in any republic. I understand that Congress is more worried about getting booted out of office than doing what's right and would rather blame the President for such potential failures (while also taking credit from the President for victories themselves because they didn't object to it), but Madison and co. wrote Gerry's view into the Constitution. That should be all there is to it. If you want to violate it, change it.

The problem with Drone strikes in Pakistan is that they clearly violate the Sovereign rights of that nation, however Pakistan's Government & Military are riddled with corruption
Tha mission that got Bin Laden is a classic example of the dillema faced by the USA,
it also clearly violated Pakistan's Sovereign rights, but we all know that if the USA had tried to involve the Pakistan Military in any action against Bin Laden then Bin Laden would have been warned and protected by corrupt members of Pakistan's Military & Intelligence services.

We are having a bad political row over refugees in Australia, I am sympathetic to persons fleeing for example Iran's religious dictatorship, but then I also think that some of these chaps aren't prepared to fight to fix the problems in their own nation.
for example if a young chap in Iran chooses to marry & sire children and then says "well I have to put my family first and flee to a safe country" I can understand that, but I also think "well hang on you knew things were awful in your own country, why did you get married and sire children in the first place ? why didn't you fight to fix the problems in Iran from the start ? "