Trump clears CIA to issue drone strikes

[Dill]

(03-16-2017, 03:48 PM)bfine32 Wrote: 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? 

What I could tell depends on the kind of intel I might already have from that area.

I heard you say your goal was to avoid a friendly casualty, while engaged in direct fire combat.  If I am in a firefight then no, I cannot, and should not, empathize with whomever is shooting at me. I am a liability to everyone around me if I do.

But the point of my line of questioning is to find out whether you would put an American soldier's life at risk (your own combatants) rather than use a drone, or some other safe, long-distance weapon. The answer seems to be yes. And you would be empathizing with the Taliban, or maybe a friendly among them.

Looks like I let you slide out of the question by reframing the conditions. Let's say you have intel that says your Taliban are all Taliban and bad ones at that. You would send out a force and risk direct engagement to give them a chance to surrender rather than use the drone? Or for that matter artillery. A 155 HE round would have bigger punch. Would that be any different from a drone?