drones vs. hand to hand-combat

[Dot Com]

This was brought up before the election in that 44 wanted to leave an updated guidlines for operating teh drones should his opponent win teh election.

On Point just had a good program @ drones and their legality & the impersonalization of killing.

Rules For Drones | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

American drones are a fixture of the global skies now. Pakistan and Yemen know it well. Hundreds of drone-fired missiles have come down out of the sky there. Thousands have died.

American drone warfare took off after 9.11, and accelerated sharply under President Barack Obama.

It has been Obama’s weapon of choice against Al Qaeda. But is it really legal, as 9.11 recedes and drone use spreads? And what kind of precedent is the United States setting for the future, when many nations have drones?

This hour, On Point: the law, and American drones.

Its analogous to guns in Japan back in the day. Way back when I was in Japan, guns were only used by people who couldn't fight. Add to this the kings ransom the tax-payers are paying for these from the *cough* "contractors". Imagine some pencil-necked geek w/ a pocket protector taking out a warrior. Somethin aint right w/ this picture. Should theh drone army be curtailed?

Discuss...

 

[waltky]

Mebbe is Israeli drone?...

Navy: No US drones missing after Iran claim
Dec 4,`12 -- A U.S. Navy spokesman says no American drones are missing in the Middle East following Iranian claims it had captured an unmanned American surveillance aircraft.

Cmdr. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, says all U.S. drones in the region are "fully accounted for." He also cast doubt on Iranian claims Tuesday that the U.S. ScanEagle drone entered Iranian airspace, saying U.S. operations in the Persian Gulf are "confined to internationally recognized water and airspace." He says that U.S. ScanEagles have been lost into the sea in the past, but none have gone down recently. Other nations in the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates, have ScanEagle drones in service. The 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Iran's state TV said Tuesday that the country's Revolutionary Guard has captured a U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf. The report quoted the Guard's navy chief, Gen. Ali Fadavi, as saying that the Iranian forces caught the "intruding" drone, which had apparently taken off from a U.S. aircraft carrier. Fadavi said the unmanned ScanEagle aircraft was now in Iran's possession. "The U.S. drone, which was conducting a reconnaissance flight and gathering data over the Persian Gulf in the past few days, was captured by the Guard's navy air defense unit as soon as it entered Iranian airspace," Fadavi said. "Such drones usually take off from large warships."

He didn't provide any further details nor said when the incident happened. The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said it was "looking into" the Iranian claims but had no immediate comment beyond that. But Al-Alam, the Iranian state TV's Arabic-language channel, showed two Guard commanders examining what appeared to be an intact ScanEagle drone. It was not immediately clear if that was the same drone Iran claimed to have captured. In the footage, the two men then point to a huge map of the Persian Gulf in the background, showing the drone's alleged path of entry into Iranian airspace. "We shall trample on the U.S," was printed over the map, next to the Guard's coat-of-arms.

If true, the seizure of the drone would be the third reported incident involving Iran and U.S. drones in the past two years. Last month, Iran claimed that a U.S. drone had violated its airspace. Pentagon said the unmanned aircraft came under fire - at least twice but was not hit - and that the Predator was over international waters. The Nov. 1 shooting in the Gulf was unprecedented, and further escalated tensions between the United States and Iran, which is under international sanctions over its suspect nuclear program. Tehran denies it's pursuing a nuclear weapon and insists its program is for peaceful purposes only.

MORE

 

[Old Rocks]

This is an asymetrical war. No uniforms, no rules, one side considers civilians, even children, legitimate targets. That side hides among civilians when they are not on the attack, using nations that hostile to us, or unstable enough not to be able to take them out.

Now, how should we fight them? Take out the cities that they are hiding in? Send in soldiers in an invasion and hope we can catch them before they escape? We have the military capability to do other, at least a couple of times. Both options would result in massive civilian causulties. The latter major casualties to among our sons and daughters in the military.

Or, we can use our technology, and catch them on road, or in an isolated area, and take them out. A much less costly option than the other two. And these people are not warriors. Warriors don't purposely target women and children. Whether our own murderers, like Timothy McVeigh, or members of the Taliban that shoot little girls for political reasons, we are not taking out warriors, we are serving justice on murderers.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

 

[AmyNation]

Drones allow the government more leeway to attack.

While I think drones are better than boots on the ground, I worry over the power the executive branch has with drones.

 

[Dot Com]

not saying they don't hit their target most of the time based on human intel, which can be flawed, just that they are legally dubious, an affront to civil liberties/big brother government, and create more enemies than they kill according to some accounts.

 

[AmyNation]

Notice how women and children are separate, but not men? All men hit in the zone are considered enemy combatants. Apparently men can't be innocent civilians.

 

[whitehall]

The opposite of drones is not hand to hand combat. There are other methods of eliminating the enemy cleaner and with better accuracy. Drones are nothing more than an updated video game version of the old WW2 tactic of "bomb them all and let God sort them out".

 

[TakeAStepBack]

That's the narrative presented by the pentagon anyway.

The fact is this policy is just as dispicable as when Bush was doing it. The only difference is now, we don't hear so much about it anymore. It doesn't fit the desired narrative in building perception.

 

[Dot Com]

Another nationally syndicated program brought it up tonight: The CIA, the Pentagon and Obama’s Drone War

 

[zzzz]

9/11 altered American perceptions and changed the definition of war in the twenty first century. The war against terrorism is not defined by fronts or armies marching and occupying territory. It is about body counts, the fallacy of Vietnam and we are gradually sinking into the quicksand of that mind-frame. The war cannot be won by drone strikes or military action but by dislodging the indoctrination process the Islamist extremists have imposed on the children of Islam.

By influencing the young they guarantee a long line of recruits to keep the conflict alive forever. They believe that sooner or later the western democracies will tire of the deaths and cost of the war and give up. Then they will gain the initiative and dominate the world.

Drone attacks help to alleviate the inherent malaise that democracies have in long running conflicts when citizens are dying over many years. With drones the citizens are not dying but the perceived enemy is and the public attention is vapid.

 

[Dot Com]

collateral damage is inherent in these strikes. Take out 15 people to get one then more are created. The contractors don't mind as they are getting paid and in turn financing their politicians next election.

 

[Montrovant]

I'm not sure how some of this is specifically drone-related. It's not as though we couldn't use manned planes to drop bombs if we really wanted to. Drones are a way to avoid casualties on our side (as well as other considerations I'm sure, cost probably being a big one). Unmanned vehicles and weapons were always inevitable, I think, as soon as they became viable. It does change the way battle is viewed and fought, but it's hard to argue that a country should put it's people in danger in manned vehicles rather than using drones.

 

[Dot Com]

I'm not sure how some of this is specifically drone-related. It's not as though we couldn't use manned planes to drop bombs if we really wanted to. Drones are a way to avoid casualties on our side (as well as other considerations I'm sure, cost probably being a big one). Unmanned vehicles and weapons were always inevitable, I think, as soon as they became viable. It does change the way battle is viewed and fought, but it's hard to argue that a country should put it's people in danger in manned vehicles rather than using drones.

drones can violate other country's airspace w/ less chance of being detected.

 

[Montrovant]

I'm not sure how some of this is specifically drone-related. It's not as though we couldn't use manned planes to drop bombs if we really wanted to. Drones are a way to avoid casualties on our side (as well as other considerations I'm sure, cost probably being a big one). Unmanned vehicles and weapons were always inevitable, I think, as soon as they became viable. It does change the way battle is viewed and fought, but it's hard to argue that a country should put it's people in danger in manned vehicles rather than using drones.

drones can violate other country's airspace w/ less chance of being detected.

Stealth planes could do the same when they were introduced, that doesn't mean anyone should have stuck with more easily detected vehicles.

 

[Billo_Really]

Drone warfare is terrorism!​

 

[9thIDdoc]

The drones are great and the future.

 

[Pogo]

9/11 altered American perceptions and changed the definition of war in the twenty first century. The war against terrorism is not defined by fronts or armies marching and occupying territory. It is about body counts, the fallacy of Vietnam and we are gradually sinking into the quicksand of that mind-frame. The war cannot be won by drone strikes or military action but by dislodging the indoctrination process the Islamist extremists have imposed on the children of Islam.

By influencing the young they guarantee a long line of recruits to keep the conflict alive forever. They believe that sooner or later the western democracies will tire of the deaths and cost of the war and give up. Then they will gain the initiative and dominate the world.

Drone attacks help to alleviate the inherent malaise that democracies have in long running conflicts when citizens are dying over many years. With drones the citizens are not dying but the perceived enemy is and the public attention is vapid.

Just for perspective, we've been using drones since Vietnam in war and before that in surveillance. They're not new.

 

[Old Rocks]

When we deal with people that coordinate terrorist attacks on our nation or people from the safety of areas in which we have no jurisdiction, then brag about it, inaction is not an option. I don't care if the base is in Moscow or Pakistan, we have to take them out.

Drones are far better than armed invasions. And, yes, inevitably there will be inocent lives taken. 10 or 15, rather than 10 or 15 thousand or more, as in standard warfare. It is an ugly business. All war is. But fail to teach the lesson, and 9-11 will be repeated.

 

[Polk]

Without diving in to the more practial consideration, have any of you who support the use of drones stopped to consider the risks to safety posed by them? Doesn't the ability to strike without taking significant damage make strikes more likely to occur, and as the technology progresses, the more likely for our own citizens to be harmed by it.