I find it interesting how some people* foam at the mouth against drones killing Americans or "innocent people" but then also foam at the mouth against sane gun control laws when guns kill many, many times more Americans and "innocent people" (most of whom are also American) than drones. Funny, that. *Just to be absolutely clear, I am not necessarily directing this at Shakey - unless he happens to fit the description, that is, and I do not know if he does.
Would anyone say they don't support "sane" gun control laws? So I'm in that camp. Generally, when someone shoots an innocent American, they face consequences, often quite severe consequences. Sure, it happens way too often, but even if they get away with it society doesn't celebrate them for doing so (except in some quarters in unusual circumstances like the Trayvon Martin case, but it stands out because it is so rare). When someone orders a drone strike on someone for the crime of acting in a way that person disagrees with, they get a new 4 year contract. When someone orders the dropping of bombs from aircraft flown by actual people, criticism is extremely muted outside of "fringe groups".
This is the rub, isn't it? Either you see this group as engaged in some sort of war with us or you don't. If you see this as at least a bizarre mutation of what we have traditionally considered war, then we are not talking about "crimes" and we are not talking about "a person you disagree with." By the way, I'm not answering that question here, but whatever this is it is more than simple crimes or view point issues in my view. I think it was y-lee who attempted to answer my question about bin laden earlier, but his answer was not satisfying intellectually. The strike on bin laden is not that much different than what we are doing with drones. So, if you supported that then it is hard to deal with all of the other similar strikes simply because we are not as familiar with the targets.
My opinion on the Bin Laden murder aside, I see a rather pronounced difference between sending special forces into a secured compound that was monitored and surgically invaded and flying robots in to kill people without any chance of casualty for the aggressor.
A) your numbers are inaccurate B) as has already been pointed out there is a false equivalency. on the one hand the drone strokes are considered to be sanctioned and legal and there are no repercussions, If people abuse their freedoms and break the law then there are severe sanctions against that behavior. No matter how you attempt to attach other peoples behaviors to my morals or ethics I feel no sense of responsibility in that whatsoever. None of those who are criminals are operating as my agent no matter how you try and rationalize it to make it so, the government on the other hand is in theory at least my agent. Thus i am incensed.
I wasn't specifically addressing you either, but since you've decided to bumble in... Source, please? Your paragraph literally makes no sense so I'm forced to guess what you mean by it. In your haste to defend your paranoid and self-loathing gun nuttery, you seem to object because you mistakenly believe that the difference is that if an American kills another American in the US, s/h/it should face "severe sanctions" because s/h/it "abused their freedoms and broke the law" but if a foreigner, say, organizes flying a plane into a building packed with people in NYC or sends suicide bombers to kill Americans overseas, that foreigner should go scot-free because s/h/it is not subject to US law. You also seem to be equating the US sending drone strikes against known terrorists and their associates who have chosen to hide in places they thought we could not get them with AQ committing 9/11 against innocent people. Either argument is beyond idiotic. I've said it before and I'll say it again now. I feel bad for innocent people who get killed by drone strikes. I also recognize that it makes it harder to win hearts and minds in the areas that get hit, not that those people are likely to support us in any case or else AQ wouldn't have picked those places to hide. I also want more oversight and checks on the process while also not sacrificing our ability to hit a legit target when s/h/it presents itself. But to pretend that drone strikes are solely illegitimate "murders" of peaceful political dissenters is sickening to anyone with any moral sense.
Disappointed is a strange conclusion. Nevertheless drone attacks are kind of a punk bitch way to fight a war. Having no real skin in the game changes everything. So equating flying robots and the Bin Laden raid is quite silly.
Obtuse much? Why you have to act like you are an idiot. you talked about my position on guns and my position as if there was some equivalency in me advocating gun rights and being okay with the government being to kill whomever wherever and whenever for whatever reason they decided. I didn't say a damned thing about 9/11 or innocent political dissenters so quit being idiotic!!
And as I understand it, without the AUMF, Obama would have to come up with new legal reasons and justification for drone strikes, most of 'em anyway. That's probably good for progressives in the long run, because at some point someone with an ideology more like Cheney than Obama will be in the White House, and drones just make war too easy.
1. We're still there. 2. Cheney would criticize anything Obama does. It's one of the many reasons Cheney is such an embarrassment.
One of the two presented acts of killing is fully sanctioned by the state and committed by the state in my name AND is wholly voluntary (i.e. it can be stopped at any time).
This is not true. This from WSJ ... not just any liberal pacifist source : Independent researchers that actually go on the ground in Pakistan estimate that as many as 98% of strikes are signature strikes. The way it works is basically a drone operator monitors suspicious people or groups of people without necessarily knowing who they are. How can they know if these guys are planning an attack in America if they don't even know who they are? The answer is they don't. They're targeting insurgents. Insurgents who most likely have no ties to any terrorist plot that is imminent inside the US. I mean the recent leaked memo should be all the evidence you need for what the government deems "imminent". That broad description of "imminent" was for American citizens. If that's how they treat Americans, how do you think they treat non Americans? For the record I have no problem with the 2% of attacks that are "personality strikes". The difference there is that after the attack they can release the name of the target hit and what the charges were against them. We know who Bin Laden is and what the evidence against him was. The majority of drone victims though are invisible people who will never get a voice. Their families will never be told what the charges were against them. Their orphaned children don't have a phone number to call to find out who killed their parent and why. How would you feel if every few days a house was blown up in your neighborhood and there's nobody taking responsibility or accountability to explain why the houses were targeted and by whom. Living like that basically injects the entire community with severe PTSD and paranoia. There is absolutely nothing about signature strikes that makes America safer or improves the lives of Pakistanis/Afghanis.