Unmanned aerial vehicles

Death from afar

America uses drones a lot, in secret and largely unencumbered by declared rules. Worries about that abound, not least in the administration

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Readers' comments



Carlos65 in reply to maximus zeebra

We are talking about some thousand of deaths, not millions. We are talking about armed gangs of fanatics, not unarmed civillians. How can u compare such world of differences ? This is not exaggeration. This is BS.

holy cow, people on this post have Nazi Tourettes, uhm which is better red or blue; you like red?! Nazies like red you Nazi!!
I'm guessing you watched one episode of the history channel and think you can transfer it to every other political or historical event that occures.

AtlantisKing in reply to Lubumbashi

You seem to understand well the mindset of those combatants. Would you please ask the to kindly stop mingling with innocents and using them as human shields? THAT would minimize the impact on civilians.

BTW, your last comment about Pakistan is a bit of a mystery. Is it supposed to taken as a threat? Couldn't that comment be seen as a justification for considering the option of incinerating the threat while it is possible?

PRuland in reply to Lubumbashi

The best way to prevent terrorism is to give these people other and better options. Something the local authorities should be offering.
Give a poor farmer education and foremost security, a stable government who gives these things will prevent people joining any terrorist group.
Ofcourse this will take much longer and will be more difficult to take effect instead of sending some little planes over with some rockets attached to it...

SCnation in reply to Spectacularj1

Yea the sufficient necessary question is in play here. If have been killed by a drone then you are a terrorist. If you are not a terrorist then you have been not been killed by a drone. This assumption is simply false. Without question there is collateral damage from these strikes. This is why America must be meticulous and careful when carrying out these missions.

Michael Dunne in reply to bkerin

The phone functionality is the result of communications infrastructure. Non state actors would still not own the infrastructure, and would be vulnerable to various means of electronic monitoring. Doesn't sound like a viable long term practice (maybe get some dramatic incident in).

If a drone is meant to be armed, a level of robustness is required depending on the weaponry. For instance, the Hellfire missile for Predators weighs a hundred pounds. Smaller missiles like Spike are 75 pounds or so.

And it would require additional components to launch from a drone.

Then there are questions of desired range and needed fuel capacity.

Michael Dunne in reply to nombrilisme

It isn't going to the lowest common denominator. The US is still operating along contours of accepted international principles of self-defense.

And they are actions against illegal combatants that are violating international norms.

And it seems the US is exercising self defense in a pretty pragmatic manner (as opposed to much more violent conventional incursions of ground and air attacks),

And possibly with the consent of the Pakistanis at one time at least (according to wikileaks).

And the US probably doesn't require consent of the Pakistanis in light of unwillingness to surpress extremist, illegal combatants within its borders. Pakistan has a responsibility under international law to do that (Hague Convention I believe mandates that).

The Yeman operations seem to be taking place with the concent of the Yemeni governement.

So there is much more legal support for the US' actions that certain impassioned opponents to drones tend to dance around.

Michael Dunne in reply to Lubumbashi

So you can't defend yourself because possibly someone will get angry at your for doing so?

No offence, but that region had been a source of support for the Taliban's rise to power in the 1990s, and still hosts an array of extremists groups that could fairly be described as barbaric by any objective measure.

Seems all the concern for civilian casualities doesn't extend to Afghan civilian victims of terrorist bombings and assassinations.

I think people should be working to get the Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, to end support/links with such groups and having the Pakistan authorities suppress their activities.

Michael Dunne in reply to Lubumbashi

The use of drones is probably the most pragmatic measure for exercising self-defense against illegal combatants, operating in territory where governing authorities are either unable and/or unwilling to bring them under control and cease hostile operations.

First and foremost, it is self-defense, a natural right.

And many of the percentages estimates on civilian casualties and unknowns are actually lower than 20% (see The Long War Journal and New America Foundation).

Your statements criticizing "extraordinary care" could be deemed equally speculative unless you were physically at many such events.

In the end, I believe the proof will be in the video footage taken from the UAV platforms (or their version of the old gun camera).



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