As you all know, the US military is using drones for remote attacks on targets that are difficult to reach; they sell it pretty well with the argument that they offer precise strikes with "surgical precision". Even I was appealed by that argument, even though I'm generally critical about drones.
But then I saw this article, and now I'm even more disgusted than before: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147
The "surgical precision" seems to be but a myth fed to the people in order to lull them in contentment. They hush up all the innocent deaths ( "collateral damage" ) caused by these strikes.
But it doesn't end here. I am well aware that smaller drones can fulfill very useful tasks in public services; policemen, firefighters and other professional fields already try to implement them, often to good use. Such controlled uses of drones I would support.
But private people buy drones too, and we will have to have a serious discussion about air space regulation and, more importantly, private space and security. It is obvious how flying cameras can be a threat to the private sphere; the security part also becomes a reasonable concern after you read what incidents those drones already provoke: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-government-on-high-alert-after-unexplained-drone-flights-over-nuclear-power-stations-9850138.html
So, do drones make sense or not? Where are they useful and where not? And how do we handle them?
What concerns me is that terrorist living in the US, Canada or anywhere in Europe can fly those into commercial planes. I really hate the idea of the public using drones.
What concerns me is that terrorist living in the US, Canada or anywhere in Europe can fly those into commercial planes.
Currently, most can't fly more than a few minutes before the battery is exhausted, and can't go up more than a few thousand feet. Commercial planes cruise about 10x higher. Maybe if they hit it when it's taking off or landing, but there are plenty of more efficient ways for a terrorist to cause trouble than by aiming a miniature helicopter/plane at an engine midflight.
I also think that even the biggest commercially available drones cannot do much against a flying plane. They also couldn't carry a lot of explosives, though maybe enough to target a small human group...
So you're telling me that drones haven't succeeded in avoiding all civilian casualties? It's almost as if humans are capable of error and that surgery carries inherent risks.
Sarcasm aside, the government hasn't hushed anything up. The actual numbers might not reach the press often but the presence of civilian casualties is fairly well known. It's not like there's a ton that can be done about it either. We're talking about people who intentionally use the civilians around them as shields to discourage our military from attacking. The real wonder of modern weaponry is that 50 years ago we would have had to indiscriminately carpet bomb the areas to hit one target and there would be tens of thousands dead each attack rather than a total of 1147. 30 years ago our best bet would be to bombard the areas with machine gun fire killing thousands with each attack. And 10 years ago we would have had to send in a regular jet piloted by a U.S. citizen who could have been killed making these attacks. Every technological step leading up to the use of drones for these attacks has been meant to minimize loss of life, but it's impossible to end it completely right now.
Or, now here's a really insane proposal, you could execute a risk assessed ground assault with support from the country which the targets occupy.
There are a few problems with that. First and foremost getting these countries to support us is extremely difficult. Many, even the ones that are supposed to support, actively fund and support terrorists. They buy weapons from them and help hide them from our military. We send billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan every year and they still kept Bin Laden from us for years. Which country do you expect to actually give us their support? Second, they're still hiding behind civilians which means there's still a chance of our own troops killing more civilians than terrorists. It might reduce the total number but it wouldn't end civilian casualties entirely. Which brings us to the third problem, the risk to our own troops. Sending in a strike force endangers the lives of U.S. citizens and risks the psychological trauma of one of them accidentally killing an innocent person. That risk also creates a lot of political opposition. Most Americans don't really care that people in other countries are dying. Sure, people will donate aid or go volunteer but for the most part they're content to let other countries do what they're going to do. Once one of our troops dies though it becomes a problem.
You cannot deny that the government/military, if not hushing up the numbers, definitely propagates an unrealistically "ethic" image of drone attacks. They're not being completely honest, and while this is not abnormal for politicians and officials, it doesn't make it right, even more so since innocents still die in these attacks.
And yes, human faults are still a major factor. As the article says, the drone attacks are just as precise as the intelligence behind it; which, frankly, is anything but coaxing for the intelligence service considering the failed or misguided attacks. But another factor of the drones is that since noone is sitting in the ****pit, the inhibition threshold for sending it out at the smallest sign of "terrorism" is much lower. Even worse, a pilot sitting in front of his desktop watching a group of people is more likely to interpret some terrorist intention especially since this is their mission, and then fire, than an intelligence service checking things more cautiously before sending a jet fighter.
Concerning ground assaults, you did find and kill Bin Laden eventually, without bombing all the houses in the neighbourhood, did you? Surely it is more costly and time-consuming, but it is possible for individual targets (like most mentioned in the article) without killing too many innocents. Hence, drone attacks are not the best way to do it; it is simply the easiest for the US as long as they don't care about innocent victims.
Concerning ground assaults, you did find and kill Bin Laden eventually, without bombing all the houses in the neighbourhood, did you?
Bin Laden was alone in a small mansion and his location was given to us by the nation helping hide him from us. Even then we got lucky that we caught him with his pants down otherwise he could have succeeded in killing some of our troops. There were a lot of factors working for us in the attack on Bin Laden that aren't present in most of these situations. Most importantly, the support of the nations we'd be sending our troops into.
You cannot deny that the government/military, if not hushing up the numbers, definitely propagates an unrealistically "ethic" image of drone attacks.
"Surgical precision" is a relative term. As I pointed out to 09philj these types of attacks would have included a lot more risk and collateral damage in the past than they do now. As for the numbers not reaching the media, I think that has more to do with media disinterest than government cover ups. Outrage dies quickly and isn't as useful for click bait unless you can do a comparison between a small number of targets and a relatively large number of dead like in the article you linked.
But another factor of the drones is that since noone is sitting in the ****pit, the inhibition threshold for sending it out at the smallest sign of "terrorism" is much lower. Even worse, a pilot sitting in front of his desktop watching a group of people is more likely to interpret some terrorist intention especially since this is their mission, and then fire, than an intelligence service checking things more cautiously before sending a jet fighter.
There are regulations in place to stop that. The pilots of these drones aren't allowed to just shout "terrorism" and bomb some random location. Intelligence agencies provide data on where these terrorists are likely to be hiding, the area is scouted with surveillance drones to confirm the data, and there are several layers of approval needed before bombing foreign soil.
Bin Laden was alone in a small mansion and his location was given to us by the nation helping hide him from us.
This precise point is irrelevant, as the intel has to locate the target before striking either way.
As to the diplomatic situation, bombing a nation's territory is not exactly less problematic than sending troops. It is, however, certainly easier for you to simply send a drone.
"Surgical precision" is a relative term.
Certainly, and the government gladly uses this to their advantage to advertise their new weapon. Concerning the numbers and the media, I'd like to quote the article:
There are myriad problems with analyzing data from US drone strikes. Those strikes occur under a blanket of official secrecy, which means analysts must rely on local media reporting about their aftermath, with all the attendant problems besetting journalism in dangerous or denied places. Anonymous leaks to media organizations, typically citing an unnamed American, Yemeni or Pakistani official, are the only acknowledgements that the strikes actually occur, or target a particular individual.
And there's a bit more afterwards. If there is a grain of truth to that, it means the government is not entirely transparent about the data, and hence not entirely honest about it. And don't tell me that the following quote, if it were true, is 'not hushing up things':
A Reprieve team investigating on the ground in Pakistan turned up what it believes to be a confirmed case of mistaken identity. Someone with the same name as a terror suspect on the Obama administration’s “kill list” was killed on the third attempt by US drones. His brother was captured, interrogated and encouraged to “tell the Americans what they want to hear”: that they had in fact killed the right person. Reprieve has withheld identifying details of the family in question, making the story impossible to independently verify.
There are regulations in place to stop that. The pilots of these drones aren't allowed to just shout "terrorism" and bomb some random location. Intelligence agencies provide data on where these terrorists are likely to be hiding, the area is scouted with surveillance drones to confirm the data, and there are several layers of approval needed before bombing foreign soil.
There better be regulations. But the steps you mention do not prevent misinterpretation of a situation in what the article calls "signature strikes". And the numbers clearly shows how ineffective the intel is at times. Claiming a single target to be 'dead' several times and causing victims each time is not what I would call a successful system. Neither is killing an innocent namesake.
Those strikes occur under a blanket of official secrecy, which means analysts must rely on local media reporting about their aftermath, with all the attendant problems besetting journalism in dangerous or denied places.
There are layers of secrecy in the U.S. government. Something can be labeled "secret" and still be accessible to every citizen that asks for it. And those attendant problems plague government intelligence agencies just as much as they do journalists. I'm betting that if a U.S. citizen wanted to know about drone strikes more than 3-5 years old they could get that info without any fuss. But the secrecy surrounding them obscures how often misses occur and the reasons for them.
Even the article admits that they don't have any solid facts to prove those numbers or any knowledge of the reason why. I'm also curious how they found any evidence of a case of mistaken identity to include it in the article. Generally if a citizen of another nation is arrested under suspicions of terrorism it takes years before they're released (which is admittedly a bad system but that's a discussion for another thread) and if he was taken away during the Obama administration he'd still probably be in Gitmo.
There better be regulations. But the steps you mention do not prevent misinterpretation of a situation in what the article calls "signature strikes".
The article briefly mentions that they didn't even investigate "signature strikes". You have no idea what they are or what the casualty numbers are. The article also mentions that they made no attempt to investigate single strikes nor does it give any numbers on how many times there have been single strikes on a named target. So for all you know those 33 dead named strikes were just a small fraction of the number of people that have been targeted and killed by drones.
Claiming a single target to be 'dead' several times and causing victims each time is not what I would call a successful system. Neither is killing an innocent namesake.
Innocent people die in war, especially when guerrilla fighters hide behind them. This is a war, they kill civilians as a standard practice. Not just in the U.S. either, England has seen plenty terrorist bombings as well as many other democratic nations. The U.S. works to minimize casualties, terrorists work to maximize them. When the U.S. was occupying Iraq there were more than half a million civilian casualties from terrorist bombings. So I'm afraid I have to disagree with the articles final sentiment that drone bombings are making us less safe. Assuming the numbers are accurate, 1100 civilians is a much smaller number than the tens or hundreds of thousands who would be at risk if those 33 terrorists (and unknown number of others killed in single strikes and signature strikes) were still alive.
I'm betting that if a U.S. citizen wanted to know about drone strikes more than 3-5 years old they could get that info without any fuss.
I'm betting it isn't that easy and that by far not every information is ever made publicly available. Naturally I have no idea about how that works; you may be completely right for all I know. It simply appears naive to me.
The article briefly mentions that they didn't even investigate "signature strikes". You have no idea what they are or what the casualty numbers are.
They do explain what they call signature strikes. They haven't investigated them, but they give numbers of another, conservative assessment of drone strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan (which I guess assessed all drone strikes, not just specific ones).
The article also mentions that they made no attempt to investigate single strikes nor does it give any numbers on how many times there have been single strikes on a named target. So for all you know those 33 dead named strikes were just a small fraction of the number of people that have been targeted and killed by drones.
Whether 33 or 333, as long as the number of victims stays proportional (and we have no reason to assume otherwise), what does it matter?
Innocent people die in war, especially when guerrilla fighters hide behind them. This is a war, they kill civilians as a standard practice. Not just in the U.S. either, England has seen plenty terrorist bombings as well as many other democratic nations. The U.S. works to minimize casualties, terrorists work to maximize them. When the U.S. was occupying Iraq there were more than half a million civilian casualties from terrorist bombings. So I'm afraid I have to disagree with the articles final sentiment that drone bombings are making us less safe. Assuming the numbers are accurate, 1100 civilians is a much smaller number than the tens or hundreds of thousands who would be at risk if those 33 terrorists (and unknown number of others killed in single strikes and signature strikes) were still alive.
One thing that would be interesting to look at is a comparison of drone strikes and aerial strikes (by the latter I mean whatever was used before drones, carpet bombing and such). I'm betting that with the coming of drones, the number of strikes radically augmented, which would diminish the importance of their accuracy from the point of view of the number of victims. But maybe the number of killed confirmed terrorists also augmented? That would be interesting to know.
But I still think that eliminating important terrorist leaders in foreign countries should imply more attacks from trained teams instead of drone strikes. There would be less innocent victims, the 'collateral damage' that is nothing more than the people the US Army is trying to protect in the end. To the argument that soldiers might die during the operations, I answer with your own words: this is a war. I do not wish death upon any soldier, naturally, but it is a risk they take consciously when takin up arms.
Reviving this thread with another article related to drone strikes:
. Yemen chaos shows drones can take out key targets, but they’ll never defeat terrorism
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It's not about the difference between carpet bombing and drone strikes as previously discussed with Ishtaron, it addresses remote strikes in general and how they are not really as useful as one may think. Especially reinforcing one of my suspicions, that the innocent victims caused by drone strikes only stoke more resentment towards the West; this cannot be a long-term solution.
I think the article is pretty clear in that drone strikes are not a long term strategy. Western nations don't want to risk their own troops lives or their own money on stabilizing the Middle East so instead of facing the political backlash of an invasion governments are using drone strikes to accomplish short term goals without any long term strategy in mind. I don't think anyone plans of drone strikes being a long term solution, they just cut the worst heads off of the hydra until a method can be developed to destroy the beast completely. Extremism isn't the far end of the spectrum over there, it's the status quo every citizen lives under. The only way to truly end terrorism would be a massive cultural overhaul of the area. Good luck getting that to happen.
So, do drones make sense or not? Where are they useful and where not? And how do we handle them?
They do, but they do more civil damage than military sucsece.+ I am not buying that it save more life than it takes. They are using for spying and scouting (but still they we must think of privacy). They will be possible to handle for about 10 years (maybe).
