Drones - its a method - who cares?

[Kondor3]

Beyond the realm of seldom-used nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry...

Indeed. War has become progressively more deadly to non-combatants over time. Culminating in the tactic known as 'carpet bombing', which saturates a target-area with powerful explosive munitions without ability or regard to distinguish between individuals.

Do you have a contention there? How am I supposed to disprove anything you say when you just change the subject and blather randomly?

I was agreeing with you that war has become progressively more deadly to non-combatants.

But I was setting the stage for the next segment ( "By no means" ), which rejects your claim that Drone Tactics are the deadliest developed to-date, with respect to civilian-versus-combatant kill-ratios.

That is why I used the phrase "culminating in carpet-bombing".

Meaning that I perceive that area-bombing / carpet-bombing yields a higher number of civilian deaths to combatant deaths than are yielded by drone-strikes.

"...Data point, the ratio of non combatant deaths to that of actual combatants increased after we stopped carpet bombing..."

Something tells me that the survivors of the Allied area-bombing / carpet-bombing campaigns in Germany and Japan would disagree with your assessment about ratios of civilians to combatants - meaning that those ratios were far higher in carpet-bombing campaigns than they are in modern drone-strikes.

As one of our colleagues - and I - both pointed-out - to get those 26 Taliban in-question we also ended-up killing 37 civilians - and that's just by blowing-up one house. Had we utilized carpet-bombing tactics we would have saturated an area of several blocks from high altitude and generated hundreds - if not thousands - of casualties, just to get those 26.

You can buck and weave and dodge and (attempt to) deflect and distract all the live-long day, but you have no credible data to substantiate such hairy, wild-and-wooly claims; never mind trying to get us to suspend common sense long enough to buy your idea that the detonation of one precision-guided warhead generates more civilian casualties than an entire air-squadron of bombers unloading tons of dumb munitions in a saturation-bombing sortie. No sale.

"...which means that you do not understand what culminating means..."

Well, I've been under the impression that 'culminating' means: 'ending with', or 'building up to and ending with', or some-such. I have no idea what you think it means; however, you are quite probably correct in perceiving that at least one of us is deficient in this area.

"... Some estimates but the ratio of civilians to actual terrorists killed by drones at 50 to 1..."

Military and Civilian War Dead Through The Years

An Amateur-Hour stats page put up by a photographer as a hobby? Cool.

US Drones Kill 49 Civilians For Every "Bad Guy" | War on Terror

An op-ed piece from a blogger on a 2nd-string news-blogging site? Almost as good.

So, you dig-up two barely-relevant and near-to-incoherent speculative pieces on casualties - with no linkage to carpet-bombing-vs-drone-strike civilian casualty ratio comparisons, by the way - both of a quality akin to Billy-Jo-Bob's-Slap-Together-Marginally-Relevant-Stats and expect those to withstand even a feather-soft scrutiny, never mind a more rigorous one?

"...If you have an actual point to make concerning this, feel free..."

Just did, thanks.

"...If you are just going to blather on endlessly about how wonderful the government is, and how you trust it implicitly, stuff it."

Please. Some decorum here, if you don't mind.

What yo momma used to say to me behind closed doors is none of your business.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Papageorgio incorrectly places responsibility on the government, for protecting its citizens, and not on the parents and family that place their children in danger. I am sure Koresh would love P's argumentation.

I'm sure Koresh wouldn't as he is dead, I put it on the government because the drone strikes do not distinguish it's casualties. We are not at war, there is no war on terror, we are leaving those countries that we invaded. We are supposed to be leaving the countries that drone strikes occur. Except for Pakistan which we are not even supposed to be at war with.

Where is it that the US is now the world police, and when do we start using drone strikes on our own citizens on our own soil. Why are we denying due process own our own citizens.

We weren't at war with France when we landed on the beaches in Normandy.

 

[Circe]

We are not at war, there is no war on terror, we are leaving those countries that we invaded. We are supposed to be leaving the countries that drone strikes occur. Except for Pakistan which we are not even supposed to be at war with.

Where is it that the US is now the world police, and when do we start using drone strikes on our own citizens on our own soil. Why are we denying due process own our own citizens.

If Pakistan wants to call it war, hey, welcome..............

But then they'd have to fight us.

And they have zilcho and are too stupid to fight, and we have not only drones but B-52s. I think they'll go on as they have for several years and not call our incursions war.


Same deal with Yemen and Somalia and whatever other countries we are droning. They can call it war any day they want to. Somehow, they don't, though........

As for droning our own citizens, if they are terrorists or violent criminals, I'm all in favor of droning them! Why not? The police would machine-gun 'em, right? The police would sniper them, right? Drones may be better for the job than sniper rifles with lasers.

Drones are just real big bullets. There is nothing special about drones!! They are just another weapon. You can kill criminals with lots of weapon choices, if you have to.

 

[Freewill]

Papageorgio incorrectly places responsibility on the government, for protecting its citizens, and not on the parents and family that place their children in danger. I am sure Koresh would love P's argumentation.

I'm sure Koresh wouldn't as he is dead, I put it on the government because the drone strikes do not distinguish it's casualties. We are not at war, there is no war on terror, we are leaving those countries that we invaded. We are supposed to be leaving the countries that drone strikes occur. Except for Pakistan which we are not even supposed to be at war with.

Where is it that the US is now the world police, and when do we start using drone strikes on our own citizens on our own soil. Why are we denying due process own our own citizens.

We weren't at war with France when we landed on the beaches in Normandy.

We weren't at war with the French people we were at war with occupied France. What a low information voter you are.

 

[Circe]

We weren't at war with the French people we were at war with occupied France. What a low information voter you are.

No, we were never at war with France AT ALL in WWII.

We were at war with Germany and Italy and Japan. Never with France or any other Nazi-occupied territory, such as Norway.

 

[NYcarbineer]

I'm sure Koresh wouldn't as he is dead, I put it on the government because the drone strikes do not distinguish it's casualties. We are not at war, there is no war on terror, we are leaving those countries that we invaded. We are supposed to be leaving the countries that drone strikes occur. Except for Pakistan which we are not even supposed to be at war with.

Where is it that the US is now the world police, and when do we start using drone strikes on our own citizens on our own soil. Why are we denying due process own our own citizens.

We weren't at war with France when we landed on the beaches in Normandy.

We weren't at war with the French people we were at war with occupied France. What a low information voter you are.

Read the post I replied to and stop being an asshole.

 

[NYcarbineer]

I don't remember getting permission from the government of Afghanistan when we went in there after al qaeda in 2001.

I guess Freewill and Windbag will now tell us that made that action some sort of crime.

 

[dblack]

I don't remember getting permission from the government of Afghanistan when we went in there after al qaeda in 2001.

I guess Freewill and Windbag will now tell us that made that action some sort of crime.

No, that was a war. A real war. With a nation that was harboring terrorists. That's how these things should be handled. The mess in the subsequent years, not so much. But the basic approach ("You're harboring terrorists - give them up or face annihilation") was about right.

 

[Circe]

No, that was a war. A real war. With a nation that was harboring terrorists. That's how these things should be handled. The mess in the subsequent years, not so much. But the basic approach ("You're harboring terrorists - give them up or face annihilation") was about right.

It would have been about right, except that as usual (Iraq and Vietnam) we changed "do what we say or face annihilation" to "we're your bestest new wittle friendsies" and started a social work war that no one at all believes in, and that lasts forever and that we always lose and retreat from.

What we are doing in Pakistan --- pinging away persistently with drones at enemies of the United States --- is a lot more wholesome and makes a lot more sense. Let's keep doing that. No more ten-year losing social-work wars.

I realize you are saying about the same thing as I am, thanx for your well-expressed opinion.