Trump clears CIA to issue drone strikes

[Belsnickel]

(03-16-2017, 03:35 AM)Dill Wrote: People make the same point regarding the all volunteer military we now have.

Military actions should not be taken lightly, and we would make them more responsibly if we still conscripted the military.

I don't disagree with that. I'm all for it, to be quite honest. I like the model of, say, Switzerland. And if you can't physically serve in the military, well, some other civil service for you. But, I'd also like to shrink the size of our active military forces for a number of reasons, so there is that.

(03-16-2017, 03:35 AM)Dill Wrote: But if the US has to take military action against a legitimate threat, then concerns about "cowardice" should not incline us to greater risk to maintain our manliness or whatever. Everything should be done to minimize casualties on our side and civilian on the other.

I don't disagree that we should do everything we can to minimize unnecessary deaths, but I draw a line at removing man from the battlefield unless we are removing all men from the battlefield. We can settle our differences on robot wars.

(03-16-2017, 03:35 AM)Dill Wrote: Our B2 pilots were never much at risk in Iraq or Afghanistan. They might be in Syria now, with Russian SAMs on the ground.

Not at much risk is still risk. It is still more risk than sitting in a bunker in CONUS.

[Dill]

(03-16-2017, 10:13 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I don't disagree that we should do everything we can to minimize unnecessary deaths, but I draw a line at removing man from the battlefield unless we are removing all men from the battlefield. We can settle our differences on robot wars.

So you would put your own people in harm's way, why, to be fair?

[*bfine32*]

(03-16-2017, 11:26 AM)Dill Wrote: So you would put your own people in harm's way, why, to be fair?

I only want combatants to be in harms way.

[Benton]

(03-16-2017, 10:13 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I don't disagree with that. I'm all for it, to be quite honest. I like the model of, say, Switzerland. And if you can't physically serve in the military, well, some other civil service for you. But, I'd also like to shrink the size of our active military forces for a number of reasons, so there is that.


I don't disagree that we should do everything we can to minimize unnecessary deaths, but I draw a line at removing man from the battlefield unless we are removing all men from the battlefield. We can settle our differences on robot wars.


Not at much risk is still risk. It is still more risk than sitting in a bunker in CONUS.

(03-16-2017, 11:26 AM)Dill Wrote: So you would put your own people in harm's way, why, to be fair?

(03-16-2017, 11:44 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I only want combatants to be in harms way.

I guess I just don't see the point of putting "your" combatants in harms way if it can be avoided. Life is sacred. Or at least should be treated as such. Anything to reduce the number of causalities on either side should be done.

Romanticizing war, painting over the reason of why most wars are fought, legitimizing large numbers of deaths... it all makes people feel better, but at the end of the day you've still got people dead for no fault of their own, and many more mentally and physically injured. Some of those injuries never heal. If drones reduce those numbers, use the drones.

[Belsnickel]

(03-16-2017, 12:22 PM)Benton Wrote: I guess I just don't see the point of putting "your" combatants in harms way if it can be avoided. Life is sacred. Or at least should be treated as such. Anything to reduce the number of causalities on either side should be done.

Romanticizing war, painting over the reason of why most wars are fought, legitimizing large numbers of deaths... it all makes people feel better, but at the end of the day you've still got people dead for no fault of their own, and many more mentally and physically injured. Some of those injuries never heal. If drones reduce those numbers, use the drones.

I'm not going to say this is bfine's reasoning, but this is mine. By removing your side from the battlefield you are devaluing the life of the enemy. I get if you think it is romanticizing warfare, because it is in a sense. But I still believe in honor and I believe in the value of all human life, not just those that I agree with.

Edit to add: I heard Dave Grossman talk one time, probably 15 or 16 years ago. He wrote a book called On Killing that I have also read. He talked about the efforts of the military to dehumanize their enemy combatants. What they do to try to train the brain of a soldier to kill, because that is not an instinct everyone has in today's world. He talked about the psychological effects it has on the soldiers.

When I think of weaponized drones I think of it as one of the final steps in dehumanizing the enemy. In removing our soldiers from the battlefield, how do we humanize them? I get that to some that will seem a good thing, and I get that some will see it as good for other reasons, but I do not like that we do this. I don't like that we dehumanize the enemy. I know that if you don't it takes a psychological toll on a person, but I don't think that's a bad thing, because I don't want killing to be easy.

But that's my pacifist upbringing. I should note that I heard Grossman at an event held by my church at the UN. So there is context there for where my beliefs lie. I've said before, that bit of me runs pretty deep.

Edit again: 16 years ago this April. It was the spring before 9/11. Just happened to remember the image of the WTC on the skyline.

[*bfine32*]

(03-16-2017, 12:22 PM)Benton Wrote: I guess I just don't see the point of putting "your" combatants in harms way if it can be avoided. Life is sacred. Or at least should be treated as such. Anything to reduce the number of causalities on either side should be done.

Romanticizing war, painting over the reason of why most wars are fought, legitimizing large numbers of deaths... it all makes people feel better, but at the end of the day you've still got people dead for no fault of their own, and many more mentally and physically injured. Some of those injuries never heal. If drones reduce those numbers, use the drones.

I agree life is sacred and that is why if it is to be taken in conflict it should be done in person. Also anybody can by a $50 drone and strap an IED on it. If we use this as a justified means of combat, the person flying the drone into the Elementary school can assert the same thing.

[Dill]

(03-16-2017, 11:44 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I only want combatants to be in harms way.

You want your own combatants to be in harm's way?

[*bfine32*]

(03-16-2017, 01:33 PM)Dill Wrote: You want your own combatants to be in harm's way?

Most likely should not dignify this with an earnest reply but: No I do not; however, there are times when it cannot avoided. many times it is necessary to avoid collateral damage or to help those that cannot help themselves.

[Dill]

(03-16-2017, 12:28 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I'm not going to say this is bfine's reasoning, but this is mine. By removing your side from the battlefield you are devaluing the life of the enemy. I get if you think it is romanticizing warfare, because it is in a sense. But I still believe in honor and I believe in the value of all human life, not just those that I agree with.

Edit to add: I heard Dave Grossman talk one time, probably 15 or 16 years ago. He wrote a book called On Killing that I have also read. He talked about the efforts of the military to dehumanize their enemy combatants. What they do to try to train the brain of a soldier to kill, because that is not an instinct everyone has in today's world. He talked about the psychological effects it has on the soldiers.

When I think of weaponized drones I think of it as one of the final steps in dehumanizing the enemy. In removing our soldiers from the battlefield, how do we humanize them? I get that to some that will seem a good thing, and I get that some will see it as good for other reasons, but I do not like that we do this. I don't like that we dehumanize the enemy. I know that if you don't it takes a psychological toll on a person, but I don't think that's a bad thing, because I don't want killing to be easy.

But that's my pacifist upbringing. I should note that I heard Grossman at an event held by my church at the UN. So there is context there for where my beliefs lie. I've said before, that bit of me runs pretty deep.

Edit again: 16 years ago this April. It was the spring before 9/11. Just happened to remember the image of the WTC on the skyline.

We share the same values here, Bels, but think we locate control of the problem in different social sites.

1. When I speak of removing our soldiers from the battlefield, I am thinking about saving them, humanized or not. Nazis and Imperial Japanese did not remove their soldiers from the battlefield, and yet they still dehumanized the enemy.
Worry about "dehumanizing the enemy" is the sort of thing that should be going on before people decide to use military force.

2. I understand your fear of placing control of military action in the hands of people with no skin in the game. But that problem is not solved very well by placing US troops in the line of fire.

3. In placing our soldiers on the battlefield, how does that humanize them? Nothing dehumanizes Western fighters like war/combat, especially when it goes on and on and on from months and years.  In WWII ordinary American 18-year-olds became ruthless killing machines in the Pacific and in Europe, hardly more "humanized." Think of the Marines who would behead Japanese, boil the heads to clean flesh off the skulls, then send these home as souvenirs. How apt were they to do that before their experience of war?

4. Seconding Benton's point-- Romanticizing war is in my view a continuing problem, especially in the US where so few ever serve in the military, but live in an environment saturated with romanticized versions of war.  I am not sure what you mean by "honor" above. But national honor was a major stake in both WWI and WWII. Even though we have by far the most powerful military in the world, our current president has succeeded in convincing a portion of the electorate that we are "weak" and laughed at by the world. How might the need to uphold our honor affect Trump's foreign policy?

5. If it becomes necessary to fight, then we should be thinking about how to effect whatever result is needed--free hostages? aggressor expelled from territory?--and not whether we are fighting fair with "manly" weapons or "dehumanizing" the enemy. Once enemy combatants are prisoners, then all the usual ethical imperatives come into force. They may not be mistreated, their property stolen, no torture, etc. But when they are in the field and refuse to surrender, then deadly force must be applied.  That is what war is.  An admixture of romanticism and pacifism muddles decision making when clear sightedness and grasp of consequences for each available option is the paramount need.

6. At a time when the lessons of WWI and WWII (not to mention Vietnam and Iraq) seem already forgotten, I would like to mention one of my WWII heroes--Ike, who hated war and dehumanization and all that, but understood what had to happen in order to take a beach head, to drive Nazis back into Germany. If he could have used drones, he certainly would have. And two weeks into the Normandy invasion I doubt there were any US combat soldiers who would rather "fight fair" than strike from a safe distance.

PS I have read On Killing too, and the section on killing up close, with knives, maybe the opposite of drone warfare.

[Dill]

(03-16-2017, 01:50 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Most likely should not dignify this with an earnest reply but: No I do not; however, there are times when it cannot avoided. many times it is necessary to avoid collateral damage or to help those that cannot help themselves.

You just said that if life must be taken, then it should be done "in person," because life is sacred.

So dignify this with an answer: if there were a  troop of five armed Taliban on a mountainside making their way past a US COP, and you, as local commander, have the choice of sending US troops to meet them or taking them out with a drone, which do you choose? 

Life is sacred so you should save American lives, or life is sacred so your troops should take the same risk as the Taliban, "one on one"?

[*bfine32*]

(03-16-2017, 02:24 PM)Dill Wrote: You just said that if life must be taken, then it should be done "in person," because life is sacred.

So dignify this with an answer: if there were a  troop of five armed Taliban on a mountainside making their way past a US COP, and you, as local commander, have the choice of sending US troops to meet them or taking them out with a drone, which do you choose? 

Life is sacred so you should save American lives, or life is sacred so your troops should take the same risk as the Taliban, "one on one"?

I'm not sure of your end game here, but it has gotten quite tiresome.

I would prefer a direct fire engagement that included positive identification, provide them with a chance to surrender their arms and perhaps themselves (as they may be acting against their will), and if required a direct fire engagement that focuses on destroying the enemy while doing all in my power to avoid collateral damage or friendly casualty.

The Taliban are human too. Ask yourself which form of engagement you would prefer if you were the Taliban or worse yet, just some local villager forced to walk with them.

[Dill]

(03-16-2017, 02:33 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I'm not sure of your end game here, but it has gotten quite tiresome.

I would prefer a direct fire engagement that included positive identification, provide them with a chance to surrender their arms and perhaps themselves (as they may be acting against their will), and if required a direct fire engagement that focuses on destroying the enemy while doing all in my power to avoid collateral damage or friendly casualty.

The Taliban are human too. Ask yourself which form of engagement you would prefer if you were the Taliban or worse yet, just some local villager forced to walk with them.

That is a good answer, Bfine. I don't have some trick "endgame" I am working on you.

The question was designed to produce a response to clarify this statement: "life is sacred and that is why if it is to be taken in conflict it should be done in person."

Seems to me a drone strike would avoid a friendly casualty for sure. So you are not really doing all you can to avoid that by involving US troops in a direct fire engagement. 

My response would not be dictated by what the Taliban prefer; in all sincerity, I am sure they would prefer I give them my arms and then let them shoot me.

There is no local villager in the original scenario, but in your direct engagement version, I think he is still dead.

[*bfine32*]

(03-16-2017, 03:03 PM)Dill Wrote: That is a good answer, Bfine. I don't have some trick "endgame" I am working on you.

The question was designed to produce a response to clarify this statement: "life is sacred and that is why if it is to be taken in conflict it should be done in person."

Seems to me a drone strike would avoid a friendly casualty for sure. So you are not really doing all you can to avoid that by involving US troops in a direct fire engagement. 

My response would not be dictated by what the Taliban prefer; in all sincerity, I am sure they would prefer I give them my arms and then let them shoot me.

There is no local villager in the original scenario, but in your direct engagement version, I think he is still dead.

If you actually looked at what I said and not what you want me to have said you will see my goal is to avoid friendly casualty, WHILE engaged in direct fire combat.

You don't care about the enemy combatant because you most likely cannot empathize with him or her

So you could tell from your drone that no one was being forced to guide the patrol?

You could tell from your drone that no one was forced to guide the party? 

[Belsnickel]

I just want to take a moment and point out the interesting sides that have formed on this argument.

The crux of my argument is that, as a pacifist, I want killing to remain personal because when killing remains personal we do more to try to avoid it. We kill only when necessary. Going back to bfine's example, we see the opportunity for surrender. The saving of human life. I know it can seem counter intuitive to hear (see) someone put out there that warfare needs to be brutal so that we can better avoid it, but it's the opinion I have on it. Our country is in a constant state of conflict around the world, and I want that to stop. Weaponized drones more easily allows that to continue.

We're not going to sway anyone on this, I don't think, so I'm just going to rest it there.

[*bfine32*]

(03-16-2017, 04:00 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I just want to take a moment and point out the interesting sides that have formed on this argument.

Plus, I'm bashing Trump's decision while others support it.

[Benton]

(03-16-2017, 12:28 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I'm not going to say this is bfine's reasoning, but this is mine. By removing your side from the battlefield you are devaluing the life of the enemy. I get if you think it is romanticizing warfare, because it is in a sense. But I still believe in honor and I believe in the value of all human life, not just those that I agree with.

 

There's honor in sports, games, business. There's no honor in killing someone. It's a loss of life. Whether you do it by pulling a trigger from a distance, pushing a button from a further distance, or taking their life with your bare hands... you've devalued that life and all the lives it could have impacted.

Quote:Edit to add: I heard Dave Grossman talk one time, probably 15 or 16 years ago. He wrote a book called On Killing that I have also read. He talked about the efforts of the military to dehumanize their enemy combatants. What they do to try to train the brain of a soldier to kill, because that is not an instinct everyone has in today's world. He talked about the psychological effects it has on the soldiers.


When I think of weaponized drones I think of it as one of the final steps in dehumanizing the enemy. In removing our soldiers from the battlefield, how do we humanize them? I get that to some that will seem a good thing, and I get that some will see it as good for other reasons, but I do not like that we do this. I don't like that we dehumanize the enemy. I know that if you don't it takes a psychological toll on a person, but I don't think that's a bad thing, because I don't want killing to be easy.

But that's my pacifist upbringing. I should note that I heard Grossman at an event held by my church at the UN. So there is context there for where my beliefs lie. I've said before, that bit of me runs pretty deep.

Edit again: 16 years ago this April. It was the spring before 9/11. Just happened to remember the image of the WTC on the skyline.

To the bold, we already do that. And by "we" I mean people, not our culture specifically. We've romanticized war as long as small groups of people have convinced larger groups into killing for their benefit. Leaders always make dying for their benefit a sacrifice for the greater good. Sometimes it is. And sometimes it isn't.

But either way, people have gone that direction, and they always will. That's why we have to make it Us vs Them. Who the hell would want to go murder a guy trying to feed his family? The guy who thinks he's defending his own.

[Belsnickel]

Interestingly enough, we're talking about the drone's use in warfare, which is important. But what this particular move is about is taking away oversight of the program. The lack of oversight/accountability was why the program was moved from the CIA to the military. The program still existed, but now it was the military in charge of it which is more accountable to the elected officials.

The CIA is less accountable, and there is a lower level of oversight that will exist over the program by moving it back to the CIA. I think we may have forgotten this piece of it all.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(03-16-2017, 02:33 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I'm not sure of your end game here, but it has gotten quite tiresome.

I would prefer a direct fire engagement that included positive identification, provide them with a chance to surrender their arms and perhaps themselves (as they may be acting against their will), and if required a direct fire engagement that focuses on destroying the enemy while doing all in my power to avoid collateral damage or friendly casualty.

The Taliban are human too. Ask yourself which form of engagement you would prefer if you were the Taliban or worse yet, just some local villager forced to walk with them.

So no air support or indirect fire? Just direct lay weapons?

[Benton]

(03-16-2017, 01:32 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I agree life is sacred and that is why if it is to be taken in conflict it should be done in person. Also anybody can by a $50 drone and strap an IED on it. If we use this as a justified means of combat, the person flying the drone into the Elementary school can assert the same thing.

To the bold, when it comes to being shot by a guy from 100 yards or being shot by a guy from 1,000 miles, I'm not seeing how that's treating their life with reverence. Life doesn't become less sacred just because it has to be taken, and even as a pacifist I understand there are times when taking a life is the only alternative to letting several lives be taken.

As far as the rest, I think that's part of the disconnect between military training and reality. To some, it's a military strike to bomb a school from a mile overhead. To the people on the ground, it's a bombing. On the other hand, it's a bombing to us if someone drives a car serving as an IED into a school. To them, it's a military strike.

To me, I don't agree with either way. A blown up school is a blown up school, whether it's from a "justified means" like a billion dollar aircraft or an improvised mean like a $50 car bomb.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(03-16-2017, 04:00 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I just want to take a moment and point out the interesting sides that have formed on this argument.

The crux of my argument is that, as a pacifist, I want killing to remain personal because when killing remains personal we do more to try to avoid it. We kill only when necessary. Going back to bfine's example, we see the opportunity for surrender. The saving of human life. I know it can seem counter intuitive to hear (see) someone put out there that warfare needs to be brutal so that we can better avoid it, but it's the opinion I have on it. Our country is in a constant state of conflict around the world, and I want that to stop. Weaponized drones more easily allows that to continue.

We're not going to sway anyone on this, I don't think, so I'm just going to rest it there.

The vast majority of policy makers have no skin in the game. It's about as personal for them as a game of Axis and Allied, but with empty platitudes.