al-Qa'ida are the only ones supporting this family

[Brainwrong]

We dream about drones, said 13-year-old Yemeni before his death in a CIA strike | World news | The Guardian

Is this just collateral damage? Is this the only way we can fight this war? Using this approach, are we merely creating the next raft of easily guided [via genuine injustice, by al-Qa'ida) West hating victims of violence ready to wreak their own revenge for the abject, random injustice meted out by our governments & military in our names?

Thoughts?

- - - Updated - - -

It seems I'm not the only one questioning this approach:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/obama-drone-strikes/

 

[egb_hibs]

So, do you think the victims of attacks in London, Madrid, Paris, all of over Africa and the Middle East, etc, have suffered genuine injustice that would explain their guidance by the BNP, FN, reborn Falanges etc? Or when can we expect that far greater Islamist atrocities against Muslims to turn the later against the former in substantial number. Meanwhile, the world should be grateful that Christians, secularists, trade unionists, gays etc don't leap to violence to avenge 'their people' elsewhere.

I don't actually disagree with you but we can tend to look on this as a one way street - ie we look at the miltantising effect of only set of 'collateral damage' (ghastly phrase as I'm sure you'll agree).

Hard to know what to do, short of putting boots on the ground which only the Islamists will want to happen.

On top of that who knows what to believe to begin with. Hard to know who to treat with more scepticism here, the army reporting or the blame the west firsters at the G.

What a mess.

 

[gun ainm]

We dream about drones, said 13-year-old Yemeni before his death in a CIA strike | World news | The Guardian

Is this just collateral damage? Is this the only way we can fight this war? Using this approach, are we merely creating the next raft of easily guided [via genuine injustice, by al-Qa'ida) West hating victims of violence ready to wreak their own revenge for the abject, random injustice meted out by our governments & military in our names?

Thoughts?

- - - Updated - - -

It seems I'm not the only one questioning this approach:

Obama Drone Strikes

Obama is a war criminal in my eyes - the drone strikes are an affront to decency and expose us badly to claims of hypocrisy when we (rightly) condemn ISIL atrocities for example. we have to be very careful in not allowing a view to persist that a western life is worth more than an Arab one. Eye for an Eye doesn't work.

 

[egb_hibs]

Obama is a war criminal in my eyes - the drone strikes are an affront to decency and expose us badly to claims of hypocrisy when we (rightly) condemn ISIL atrocities for example. we have to be very careful in not allowing a view to persist that a western life is worth more than an Arab one. Eye for an Eye doesn't work.

What is your definition of a war criminal R?

Would it be possible to fight ISIL or whomever, if your definitions were applied and enforced? If we ever get boots on the ground our troops will be up against people you would not capturing you under any circumstances, and yet I expect they'd have to face that with a whole bourgeois establishment more eager to find fault with them than with ISIL.

I am not bracketing you with such fuds, but - and I am no fan of big Bazza - how do you get Obama as a war criminal?

 

[jockney green]

i thought war criminals by definition were the ones on the losing side :hmmm

 

[Brainwrong]

So, do you think the victims of attacks in London, Madrid, Paris, all of over Africa and the Middle East, etc, have suffered genuine injustice that would explain their guidance by the BNP, FN, reborn Falanges etc? Or when can we expect that far greater Islamist atrocities against Muslims to turn the later against the former in substantial number. Meanwhile, the world should be grateful that Christians, secularists, trade unionists, gays etc don't leap to violence to avenge 'their people' elsewhere.

I don't actually disagree with you but we can tend to look on this as a one way street - ie we look at the miltantising effect of only set of 'collateral damage' (ghastly phrase as I'm sure you'll agree).

Hard to know what to do, short of putting boots on the ground which only the Islamists will want to happen.

On top of that who knows what to believe to begin with. Hard to know who to treat with more scepticism here, the army reporting or the blame the west firsters at the G.

What a mess.

I just don't see the justification for these, seemingly almost arbitrary, solo drone death squads. To me, the way this is set up, this type of conflict, can't be won by killing a very high percentage of innocents and a very low percentage of the guilty. There's no way anyone can justify that. It makes no sense in anyone's book. The means are just not giving the returns that could feasibly justify them.

But, I take your points.

What is the answer?

Well, if we're short of one, it doesn't mean the least crap option necessarily becomes an option.

 

[gun ainm]

What is your definition of a war criminal R?

Would it be possible to fight ISIL or whomever, if your definitions were applied and enforced? If we ever get boots on the ground our troops will be up against people you would not capturing you under any circumstances, and yet I expect they'd have to face that with a whole bourgeois establishment more eager to find fault with them than with ISIL.

I am not bracketing you with such fuds, but - and I am no fan of big Bazza - how do you get Obama as a war criminal?

in my eyes (not in any recognised legal sense) its pretty much as Brainwrong describes - the grand theft autoesque approach to (arab) human life in the Middle East that is assassination by drone of innocents. I agree ISIL need to be defeated militarily and that there will be innocent casualties precipitated by the west if we choose to involve ourselves directly in that. While i couldn't tell you what civilian casualty rate is acceptable (without a much wider consideration), I could tell you that whats gone on with the drone strikes cited in the OP is to me unacceptable.

 

[egb_hibs]

I've no idea of innocents to enemies killed by drones - where does your info come from?

It's hard to blame Obama - he's not a dictator - not outside some areas of social policy anyway - and in a democracy the electorate he represents don't want soldiers coming home in body bags. That's before all other complications from boots on the ground. Drones must be a hard route not to take.