I don't care about drone bombing

[LoneSage]

I don't understand or know the reasons for why drone bombing occurs, so I can not condone or refute it.

Obama is criticized for drone bombs but only because it was a new technology. It isn't going away. Each new president will continue droning.

Sometimes I wonder what Earth would be like if MacArthur dropped the bomb on Beijing in the 1950s.

 

[evil wasabi]

We should care because the balance of firepower becomes so lopsided when some regional militia bring their guns to a drone fight. The country with the drones don’t have to worry about losing lives, just taking them.

Another thought is that diplomacy will not likely happen without respect. When one side doesn’t need the people that it is killing, but just ants on a screen, what is to stop them from just killing and never listening? To take a life without looking into your victims eyes is cowardly and inhuman.

 

[SouthtownKid]

We should care because the balance of firepower becomes so lopsided when some regional militia bring their guns to a drone fight. The country with the drones don’t have to worry about losing lives, just taking them.

Another thought is that diplomacy will not likely happen without respect. When one side doesn’t need the people that it is killing, but just ants on a screen, what is to stop them from just killing and never listening? To take a life without looking into your victims eyes is cowardly and inhuman.

I agree with all of this, but when you take that argument to its logical conclusion, all war is cowardly and inhuman, since it's never the people who decide to go to war who do any of the looking into victims' eyes. Pushing a button or making a phone call is no less removed from the victims than piloting a drone. More removed, if anything.

 

[lithy]

Not quite on board with EWs logic, from a tactical standpoint, drones are good. But as someone who simply wants less American military intervention, drones are bad because it further abstracts war to the average American. A public that has no cost to war will support it at almost every turn. Bringing home boys in bags at least gives people pause to consider the cost and whether the cause is worth it. We have two 20 year wars that Joe Blow with a yellow ribbon on his truck doesn't think about most days. What does it matter to him if some wedding party is drone bombed in Mosul?

All this assuming valid military targets and not extrajudicial or political assassinations which have become the hallmark of drone 'warfare'.

Don't forget to thank your neighborhood drone pilot for their service tomorrow.

 

[Lagduf]

I don't understand or know the reasons for why drone bombing occurs, so I can not condone or refute it.

Obama is criticized for drone bombs but only because it was a new technology. It isn't going away. Each new president will continue droning.

Sometimes I wonder what Earth would be like if MacArthur dropped the bomb on Beijing in the 1950s.

Sounds like you should do some research.

We probably would have been better of using that bomb on Moscow in 1945 than China, if we’re going to make bad decisions.

 

[90s]

I don't think you can argue against the effectiveness of drones. The N-K conflict has demonstrated how their use can be a decisive factor in conflicts. I don't know what parties that don't have the resources to engage in and defend against drone warfare can do. As Wasabi suggested, it would seem to further skew the balance of power to wealthier nations. I'm not a military expert by any means, but what role can trench warfare play when your enemy has air superiority? The Armenian soldiers that were sent out into trenches were essentially sent out to be fodder.

I don't know about the morality of drone warfare. I don't know that being shot, hit with artillery, etc. is any more moral than having a bomb dropped on you by a drone. Maybe those other methods are less appalling? I can't imagine what is left of a body after a drone drops a bomb on it. And yet watching the drone videos itself is not as bad in a sense. Its almost like a movie. A game. Until you realize the targets are humans.

 

[fake]

Drones = outsized civilian deaths.

The Pentagon says airstrikes by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State killed at least 1,257 civilians in Iraq and Syria as of the end of January.

Airwars, a university-based monitoring group, estimates that those strikes killed at least 7,500 civilians in those countries.

Those disparities show how poorly the American public understands the human cost of an air war fought largely by remote-controlled drones. Drones have been the main weapon in the counterterrorism fight for more than a decade. They kill extremists without risking American lives, making combat seem antiseptic on the home front. But the number of civilians killed in these attacks is shrouded in secrecy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/opinion/drones-civilian-casulaties-trump-obama.html

 

[evil wasabi]

Not quite on board with EWs logic, from a tactical standpoint, drones are good. But as someone who simply wants less American military intervention, drones are bad because it further abstracts war to the average American. A public that has no cost to war will support it at almost every turn. Bringing home boys in bags at least gives people pause to consider the cost and whether the cause is worth it. We have two 20 year wars that Joe Blow with a yellow ribbon on his truck doesn't think about most days. What does it matter to him if some wedding party is drone bombed in Mosul?

All this assuming valid military targets and not extrajudicial or political assassinations which have become the hallmark of drone 'warfare'.

Don't forget to thank your neighborhood drone pilot for their service tomorrow.

Ultimately we’re on the same page here. When people stop seeing people, it becomes too abstract and we find extrajudicial executions become more and more common.

I don’t think anyone should kill anyone. Even if one is a killer. Find a different way to fix the situation. When death becomes an option, we stop looking for humane solutions.

 

[Tripredacus]

Drones = outsized civilian deaths.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/opinion/drones-civilian-casulaties-trump-obama.html

The is not an issue with the drones themselves or the use of drones in general. It is caused by the application. When attrition war is not being waged (there is no evidence that the US is killing civilians on purpose) it comes down to primarily intelligence. Was the target vetted? Was the target alone? How accurate was our information to know that a person would be at the target at that time? Maybe he left 20 minutes ago or 4 hours ago? We don't have people on the ground to verify targets, so we are going based off intel sources. These civilian casualty numbers are meaningless if we do not know what the percentage of accurate hits there were, or if targets were verified to be hit when these civilians were killed, or when they were killed there was no target there. What are the percentages of a target location/building actually being what we thought it was vs what it wasn't? What are the percentages where civilians were killed by faulty equipment?

We cannot know what these numbers actually are because they are "sensitive" and not available to the public. If we are to consider that the military is operating as a business would, as in, it would not use a product or method with a high failure rate, then it could be possible that the non-combatant deaths make up 1% or less compared to successful strikes. Or perhaps not, and it instead falls under the efficience of a Patriot missile being able to intercept a Scud, which sits around 10%. The same idea as Iron Dome, throw enough interceptor missiles at it and kill it with numbers.

 

[LoneSage]

I do care about drone bombings.

I don't see them stopping ever. There's a lot I don't know for why they happen.

The deaths of innocents is tragic.

 

[norton9478]

I'm all for drone warfare..... as long as they are only shooting at other drones.

 

[wyo]

Weaponized drones should be outlawed but that seems unlikely at this point. They are great for committing war crimes, terrorist attacks and assassinations.

I dislike drones in general as they are a tool of mass surveillance. At the very least, their use should be strictly regulated.

Is China using drones to monitor citizens yet? It's not hard to envision a dystopian future with automated drones everywhere.

 

[LoneSage]

Is China using drones to monitor citizens yet? It's not hard to envision a dystopian future with automated drones everywhere.

China has zero ethics. Where American scientists will question if they should, the Chinese will roll full steam ahead. Facial recognition is the next big thing. I see banks do it here, like instead of putting in your bank card at the ATM people just log in using their face, all Total Recall style.

Anyways no doubt they have military drones.

 

[Heinz]

We should care because the balance of firepower becomes so lopsided when some regional militia bring their guns to a drone fight. The country with the drones don’t have to worry about losing lives, just taking them.

Another thought is that diplomacy will not likely happen without respect. When one side doesn’t need the people that it is killing, but just ants on a screen, what is to stop them from just killing and never listening? To take a life without looking into your victims eyes is cowardly and inhuman.

I think they felt the same way when machine guns were introduced leading up to and during WW1.