David Rittgers, a Cato legal analyst and former Special Forces officer, has an excellent op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on the use of Predator drones. He cautions, on the one hand, against reflexively regarding drone attacks as nonjudicial execution or, really, functionally different from other weapons that soldiers might use – as well as cautioning against the idea that Congress or courts could somehow micromanage the use of these weapons. On the other hand, he cautions against thinking that the problem of drones is that the US should be seeking to capture rather than kill because of the loss of intelligence; he notes that operationally, there are many reasons why capture is very often infeasible. It’s a good piece, measured and sensible, and I highly recommend it.
I’ve been quiet around VC in the last little while as I, too, have been writing about Predators and targeted killing – expanding and moving beyond my book chapter from last year on this topic. Barring some big news on health care or some such, the Weekly Standard will be running a piece from me next week arguing something I’ve developed here at VC and at Opinio Juris blog: first, that the administration’s lawyers need to step up to the plate and defend targeted killing using Predators and, second, the proper legal basis on which to defend it to the full extent undertaken by the Obama administration is the international law of self-defense, rather than simply the law of armed conflict, targeting combatants.
In another piece coming soon (this one a book chapter in a Hoover Institution online collection of essays from the Hoover Task Force on National Security and Law), I will be arguing a further step in this – one which relates to Rittgers WSJ op-ed. Underlying much of the argument over drone warfare is a submerged factual and normative frame about who, what, and where. Rittgers, for example, is drawing upon his extensive experience as a Special Forces officer, and reserve judge advocate, with three tours in Afghanistan, to point out that it is a mistake and really not possible to micromanage military operations in the field. Nor is the use of a missile fired from a drone in battle significantly different from a missile fired from a manned aircraft, or a helicopter, or some other place.
Critics who call the practice extrajudicial execution, however, are frequently focused upon another scenario. The version of it furthest from the hot battlefield scenario is a CIA directed drone missile strike upon a target in a compound far away from any theatre of active fighting, such as AfPak – someone in Yemen or Somalia, to take the obvious examples. From the critics’ standpoint, it is a bit of bait and switch to defend drone missile attacks on the basis of their use on a hot, active battlefield, or even in a general theatre of conflict – for which, the critic will note, one might or might not include the “Pak” part of “AfPak” – and then turn around and say, therefore, a CIA attack in Somalia is similarly okay. From the critics’ view, even if the theatre of conflict use by uniformed military is okay on traditional military targeting terms (and for the human rights monitors, it likely is not – or, more precisely, permissible in principle, but somehow not in any particular circumstances), that is not the same as the CIA’s global reach. From the critics’ point of view, that is, what goes on operationally at ground level in Afghanistan somewhat misses the point. From my view, too, what needs to be defended as legal policy by the United States is not principally that use of drone attacks – that is not at that point so much questioned, although perhaps I am too sanguine about it – but instead the CIA, covert action as a category, and targeted killing outside of the traditionally understood idea of a zone of armed conflict.
This is one of the reasons that I regard the proper legal basis for Predator targeted killing to be the law of self-defense – it is what the Obama administration really intends, if it is not to fall back into the idea of a “global” war on terror, and yet also intends to preserve the traditional sovereign legal right to strike at non-state actor terrorists in their safe havens, if the relevant state cannot or will not deal with them. The President and Vice President have said repeatedly – and in so doing, merely re-stating what ever president has asserted since transnational terrorism rose as a threat to Americans – that the US will take the fight to the terrorists, and pointedly said wherever that is and that terrorists will not be allowed safe haven, and that the US will strike on the basis of the terrorists’ intentions. Nothing new in that, but the legal basis for the United States to do so is different from the legal basis on which it is lawful to use drones and missiles from drones in a theatre of active armed conflict.
The legal, normative, and moral arguments over drones, then, are not so much about hot battlefields, nor even largely about theatres of active armed conflict. The arguments are about the use of drones and targeted killing by the covert services, the CIA, beyond those confines. Understood that way, this is about drone warfare as a form of strategic airpower. The attempt to dominate from the air on a global, or at least potentially extensive geographic, basis using unmanned airpower. Not all of this is about counterterrorism or the use of smaller and more discriminating, person-specific weaponry. The Israelis officially unveiled their massive, airliner sized drone aircraft, the purpose of which is presumably to be able to strike at nuclear facilities in Iran – not about targeted killing, but the classic projection of strategic airpower.
Again, one way of understanding the strategic frame is as strategic airpower – leveraging military capital over labor through drones, with the intention of developing a counter-raiding capability that extends over an ever greater geographic range, whether for large-weaponry anti-facility attacks or small-scale anti-individual targeted killing. Strategic airpower has long been a holy grail – but it has never worked quite as successfully as each new iteration hopes. The “light footprint” strategy based around counterterrorism, over the horizon drones and missiles, might or might not be a winning strategy; it might be, rather, that counterinsurgency through boots on the ground and denial of territory for safe havens is required, as many have believed in any sustained guerrilla conflict. I don’t know the answer to that question; the administration’s long delay in determining its Afghanistan strategy was presumably, at the most abstract level, about answering exactly that. What is clear is that whether pure counterterrorism without on-the-ground counterinsurgency, or counterinsurgency to control territory and population, drones are going to be important.
Put another way, particularly as they are used outside of the active counterinsurgency theatre of AfPak, drones, with sophisticated surveillance gear but also missiles, act as the lightest of light cavalry. They probe, surveil, and engage in pinprick attacks, behind enemy lines, far beyond one’s own lines. When the CIA engages in targeted killing against some Al Qaeda operative in Somalia, from a strategic perspective, it is a combat raiding strategy by very light cavalry indeed. But it is so far beyond one’s own lines, as it were, that from a legal standpoint, I would place it beyond the legal “armed conflict” altogether and treat this combat raiding use of force, as a matter of law, as an exercise in lawful self-defense.
But this will get discussed (in numbing detail, I’m afraid) in the Weekly Standard piece. How’s this for my proposed title – likely to be shot down – Predators over Pakistan, Lawyers over Langley? :)
BZ says:
Hmm, what about these alternatives for a title:
30 Seconds Over Langley;
From Nevada With Love;
What Happens in Las Vegas Stays in Pakistan.
And I understand (I think) the point you’re trying to make, but isn’t there also a substantial blurring of this point with the evolution of the theater-controlled drones and especially the man-carried UAV? The little ones are only recons now, but that won’t last long, and then we’ll have to have this whole conversation again.
February 25, 2010, 11:21 amSteve says:
I think it makes a LOT more sense to say we’re at war with al-Qaeda (based on the fact that they hit us first) and that because they’re a transnational organization, we have the right to go after them militarily wherever we find them. Of course this doesn’t mean we’ll be invading France to break up an al-Qaeda cell, but if we want a rationalization for going after al-Qaeda in the places where we do want to go after them, this seems to work.
Calling it “self-defense” basically suggests that every country has the right to use military force to go after any group of individuals, anywhere in the world, who it believes to be plotting against them. I don’t think we really endorse this theory and, given our position atop the world order, I’d think we would want to promulgate doctrines that lead to stability. A justification of the drone attacks in Pakistan that makes them seem like a perfectly ordinary exercise will be bad news if other countries decide to seize upon the same justification.
February 25, 2010, 11:26 amcommon_sense says:
BZ-how so? I don’t see how using a Raven or similar drone with some sort of weapon is any different than using artillery.
February 25, 2010, 11:33 amMark Field says:
Steve’s point is well-taken. Let me add that I think you need to explicate just what the international law of self-defense includes. For example, I doubt that the law of self-defense in any state in the union would permit me to use a drone to take out someone I believe might threaten me in the future, but who is posing no immediate threat.
In short, while self-defense is legitimate, the conditions under which self-defense applies need to be tightly specified, and it’s not clear that this has been done.
February 25, 2010, 11:35 amChrisHo says:
If the drones are clearly marked as property of the using country then it is little different from deploying manned aircraft. Now, if they are unmarked and the existence is denied then they are assassination devices and most likely violate many international treaties.
February 25, 2010, 11:42 amArthur Kirkland says:
Does anyone know whether these unmanned aircraft — which seem to be killing bunches of civilians — are more or less effective than manned missions (air or land), particularly with respect to the intended/unintended casualty issue?
I don’t believe the United States can kill its way out of its problems, or that these remote-controlled, non-battlefield killings will be free of blowback. Just as it seems reasonable to wonder whether Hamas will attempt to kill an Israeli official or two (perhaps even in the United States) to avenge the recent assassination in Dubai, one might be concerned that someone will kill an off-duty Predator operator (or his family) in a Las Vegas supermarket parking lot to avenge civilian deaths in Pakistan or anywhere else Predators are going off-course.
There is likely to be no such thing as an antiseptic killing. At some point, the United States is going to kill the wrong nine-year-old girl or seven-year-old boy, one whose relatives have the motivation and resources needed for revenge. In that case, having erased the battlefield lines and blurred the “fair game” issues could become a matter of regret.
February 25, 2010, 11:46 amorca says:
Seems like self-defense could be used to justify almost anything, including the 9/11 “far away from any theatre of active fighting” attacks.
February 25, 2010, 11:48 amAnonsters says:
Setting aside the targeted killing angle (i.e., setting aside the question of assassination), suppose drones are used against organizations with whom we are engaged in some form of IW. I’d actually support drone strikes, insofar as they offer the ability to make targeted, highly specific attacks, with the benefit of reducing collateral damage, etc.
The problem, though, is that that is not how we’ve been using drone and other air strikes. We’ve tended to be a little less discriminating in our use of them than we properly ought to be under LOAC. That’s not to say that every time we’ve ever used drone or air strikes in Afghanistan or Pakistan, we’re violating LOAC. But we’ve been a bit incautious in using them, and that is well-documented.
That, at least, is my problem with the whole thing. So, until we can demonstrate that we can target more responsibly, and limit collateral damage, the controversy not only will, but ought to continue.
February 25, 2010, 12:10 pmMike Giles says:
Contrary to a belief widely held by some, innocents do die when there is warfare going on. In addition, technological devices sometimes fail. I would guess that the best way to avoid having missiles landing in and around your home, is to not allow terrorists into the neighborhood. If they set up shop next door, and – for whatever reason – you allow them to stay, and you and your family also stay; I would then guess that the fault falls on your shoulders when the people the terrorists are “shooting” at, “shoot” back.
As for the revenge scenario; you believe it’s bad for their nine year old to be killed in a Predator strike, since this could make someone look for revenge. Therefore when the chance arises, we shouldn’t take action, even though they’re plotting to kill our nine year olds. You realize of course, that the knowledge that the US will not shoot if the terrorist are surrounded by civilians, would assure that any terrorist, with the sense that God gave a box of hammers, would always set up amongst civilians. Have I correctly stated your point?
February 25, 2010, 12:11 pmJMA says:
A lot of this discussion seems to be based on the idea that a Predator drone is more likely to hit the wrong person than a manned aircraft might be. I wonder if this is an honest position, or merely an excuse to attack the entire concept. Is this simply the same sort of backlash we see against snipers–that drones are merely a “dishonorable” method of conducting war?
…Blue-on-blue stats for manned aircraft and other vehicles make it pretty clear that even a guy who is on the scene in person will make mistakes, and I would suggest that being there in person–and being shot at in person–would make one more likely to screw up, more likely to use more force than is necessary, more likely to cause unfortunate collateral damage.
Remember: a drone operator will never fire a weapon in fear of his own life.
So, admitting that I haven’t bothered to look (because, like some other commenters, I don’t see a moral or practical difference between ‘drone’ and ‘cruise missile’ or ‘artillery’), does anyone have stats on just how inaccurate drone attacks happen to be? Because, absent that evidence, I’m going to say two things:
1) The target was going to get blown up one way or another.
February 25, 2010, 12:11 pm2) Anyone who believes that one who kills in war should have to open himself up to being killed back needs to watch that speech George C. Scott gave in Patton and recuse him or herself from any related discussions.
Mike Giles says:
One other thing:
Of course you can. That’s what war is. When one side runs out of people to kill or decides that it wants no more of its own, or the other sides killed, it quits.
February 25, 2010, 12:16 pmSteve says:
I would guess that the best way to avoid having missiles landing in and around your home, is to not allow terrorists into the neighborhood. If they set up shop next door, and — for whatever reason — you allow them to stay, and you and your family also stay; I would then guess that the fault falls on your shoulders when the people the terrorists are “shooting” at, “shoot” back.
Human beings with an actual moral compass see the death of the innocent family next door as a tragedy, albeit perhaps an unavoidable one. Rationalizing it to say “who cares, they’re guilty too” is pretty sick.
February 25, 2010, 12:20 pmAnonsters says:
Which is why our pre-COIN strategy of trying to kill our way out of the insurgency worked oh so well.
Tiem to grow up.
February 25, 2010, 12:21 pmAnonsters says:
February 25, 2010, 12:22 pmTamerlane says:
I’ve always wonderedv why no one has considered a federal law setting up a formal system for trying enemies of the United States in absentia and putting them on a permanent and well-publicized kill list. The formal procedure might involve a secret hearing governed by a set of published rules and managed by a permanent group including senior intelligence and military officials, legislators, and perhaps a Supreme Court justice or two. Persons being considered for or already on the list should, of course, be given some opportunity to put themselves under US jurisdiction for a more traditional procedure to determine their culpability.
And to forestall persons who are tempted to characterize this as a potential Star Chamber, I suggest such persons examine the history of that institution before posting.
February 25, 2010, 12:37 pmdoodahman says:
Enjoy your blog very much. However, w/ respect to this issue, I can’t say that I find anything that’s both coherent and meaningful in this post. The controversies as issue are, I think, two fold. First, the age old issue of “collateral damage” and whether as a matter of utility, UAV’s have a less favorable non-target to target kill ratio. Given the current ratios for most weapon systems and tactics, the differences are probably marginal between UAV’s and other forms of industrial slaughter.
The second issue, however,is one of due process. As I understand it, the CIA or whomever has a list of names, some of which are Americans. On some basis a decision to impose a penalty on someone is made that, in any case, is never tested even against as low a bar as getting a search warrant. Somebody, some unaccountable, anonynmouse somebody, asserts/authorizes the inclusion of Citizen A on this list. ID software then “identifies” (again, with no verification) a figure seen on a tv screen as Citizen A, and Citizen A is then executed by aerially discharged explosive.
And this is not the key problem in your eyes? Undoubtedly there are, and always have been, rationales for this type of efficiency in killing. Many autocrats and dictators have defended their regimes by extrajudicial execution of suspected enemies. However, those rationales are not American rationales. They are not even Enlightenment-friendly rationales. They are a claim of self defense that is so attenuated and so shady that the claim is really laughable if we hadn’t already gone so far down this execrable road.
If someone in gov’t believes that I am a terrorist or a “threat”, and I am not found bearing arms in a zone of active military conflict, there must be due process before I can be deprived of my life. The exigencies that give us moral comfort for collateral damage– the fog of war, the unavoidable proximity of civilians to legitimate military targets, the concept of “total war”– do not rationally apply. Under your version of the self defense rationale, if my neighbor is accused by the police of threatening to kill me, anyone should be able to go to their house and execute them.
Somehow, I don’t think this is a good idea. Likewise, pushing a button on a person who someone, somewhere, unaccountable and anonymous thinks is worth of death, is also not a good idea.
February 25, 2010, 12:42 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
I wonder to what extent opposition to drone-based killing comes from the romantic notion that war is a sporting event and not putting your own people at risk is cheating. A very Nineteenth Century notion but not one that warfare, even in the Nineteenth Century, ever embraced.
February 25, 2010, 12:46 pmChris Travers says:
Somalia lacks an effective government and is essentially a vast lawless zone, so I would agree with you.
However, suppose we were to launch a predator attack against an import AQ operative in Islamabad. You have previously suggested that this would be a choice driven by pragmatism. I would argue that given that Islamabad is under the proper control of a foreign law enforcement organization, that it would be an extra-judicial killing if such were to occur. I.e. I am willing to look the other way regarding lawless zones, but would consider it well beyond the self-defence right where foreign governments are properly in control. Do you disagree?
(BTW, the major difference I can see between targetted killings by US forces and those by Israelis is that the US tends to limit such activities to actual war zones or areas beyond the control of foreign governments’ law enforcement organizations while Israel does not. I think Israel’s policy for this reason is far more suspect.)
February 25, 2010, 12:52 pmAnonsters says:
Never mind the imminence requirement for self-defense.
Kenneth Anderson’s “Everything is self-defense, if you’re scared enough!” theory.
And we awe reawwy reawwy scawed.
February 25, 2010, 12:57 pmSteve says:
I would argue that given that Islamabad is under the proper control of a foreign law enforcement organization, that it would be an extra-judicial killing if such were to occur. I.e. I am willing to look the other way regarding lawless zones, but would consider it well beyond the self-defence right where foreign governments are properly in control.
Complicating the issue is the fact that at least some of our operations in Pakistan are condoned by the Pakistani government, even though for obvious reasons they have to maintain the fiction that they object to everything. You and I are in no position to know exactly how far this authority extends, but it’s clear that it exists on some level.
February 25, 2010, 1:07 pmMark Field says:
Way to assume your conclusion. Part of the debate is whether the targets are, in fact, terrorists. You’re just assuming they are.
February 25, 2010, 1:19 pmyankee says:
At one point feminists tried to argue that a woman who she shot her sleeping abusive husband had a valid claim of self-defense. The courts uniformly rejected this argument. Even though her husband had been beating her, was virtually certain to continue beating her, and had threatened to track her down and kill her if she fled, she was guilty of murder. The defense of self-defense was available only when she was actually being threatened or attacked.
February 25, 2010, 1:20 pmOrenWithAnE says:
And if you give the Yemeni intelligence specific information that a suspect will be in a particular location at a particular time, and they reply that they would like to snatch him but it’s too risky?
I would call that “not properly in control” and blast him.
February 25, 2010, 1:22 pmSteve says:
I would call that “not properly in control” and blast him.
Are you willing to apply the Golden Rule here?
February 25, 2010, 1:41 pmCheckEnclosed says:
Before we go too far in arguing for the use of UAVs on the basis of thinking that they are being used by the good guys, it seems like they will someday be a valuable part of asymetric warfare.
Imagine a swarm of radio controlled, GPS guided, toy-sized aircraft heading toward a US warship in the Persian Gulf, that all look alike on radar, any one of which might be carrying explosives or a chem/bio agent. These things might each cost a few hundered dollars at most. THen think about firing U.S. air defense missiles at them. Even at one shot, one kill, the cost of our ordinance will be immense, and after the first hundred or so shots, even an aircraft carrier might be running low on missiles by the time anyone starts lobbing in exocets.
Of course, the bad guys could also have a few RF controlled “model” airplanes loitering above our bases and roads, etc. both for intel. purposes and to strike at soft targets of oportunity.
Let’s think about how we would want to respond in those situtations before we commit to a doctrine consistent with unlimited use of UAVs.
February 25, 2010, 1:42 pmRelic says:
A note: drones are not unmanned in the sense that they are uncontrolled by human beings. At most, you can program the drone to go to a certain area, drop a bomb, and come back. They aren’t AIs. Often times, they’re remotely piloted. Essentially, the only difference between a Predator and an F-15 is the location of the pilot.
February 25, 2010, 1:46 pmorca says:
IIRC, Hezbollah already took out an Israeli ship using a drone.
February 25, 2010, 1:47 pmyankee says:
Not at all. The people with the romantic notion of war are those who imagine swooping into a country, handily eviscerating the opposition, and watching the people greet us, their liberators, with open arms. The romantics are the ones who imagine that the death and suffering of “unavoidable collateral damage,” long-term loss of power, absence of clean water, cut-off food supplies, and the total absence of rule of law are insignificant and easily justified by the nobility of our cause.
In reality, war is hellish and the horrors of life under an authoritarian dictatorship are nothing compared to the horrors of life in a war zone.
February 25, 2010, 1:50 pmRelic says:
In reality, clean water and steady food supplies are usually found in first world, non-authoritarian-dictatorship countries. Hell, Mexico barely has clean water. But just as a question, have you lived in either an authoritarian dictatorship or a war zone?
February 25, 2010, 1:55 pmAllan Walstad says:
1. If Al Q et. al. are such dangerous and resourceful purveyors of destruction as we’ve been led to think, then drones are going to be used against us too. Large radio-controlled model-airplanes have been around for a long time. Combine with modern cell-phone camera technology and you can build vehicles that will carry bombs right in through government building windows from out of sight miles away. When this happens, will we be told that, well, we are at war against resourceful adversaries and must expect tit for tat? Or will it be the bloody shirt, the hypocritical outrage over dastardly, cowardly murders, with demands for even more latitude to strike anywhere, anytime, anybody the CIA decides in secret should die?
2. If an armed thug breaks into my house and I shoot him, that’s self-defense. Assassinating people in their homes or at social gatherings is rather more akin to something from The Godfather. It might be justifiable in a limited campaign of retribution, say for the 9/11 attacks, where you can prove that OBL and certain henchmen were behind them and you can’t capture and bring them to justice but you have a shot at killing them. It’s quite another thing to invade, occupy, and attempt to politically re-engineer countries thousands of miles away for years on end, directing hit-bots against anyone who resists.
3. The obvious costs of war include soldiers killed and riches squandered. The less obvious costs have to do with the expansion of arbitrary government power and secrecy, the militarization of one’s own society, the marginalization and suppression of criticism and dissent, the habituation of the public to all the above, their desensitizing to carnage and torture. Bands of pathetic barbarians, who offer near-zero real threat to our country and way of life, do not rise to within light-years of justification for the global and interminable so-called “War on Terror” that our pols and their military-industrial co-connivers have foisted on this country. The main significance of the drones at this point is simply as another step in our descent into the abyss.
February 25, 2010, 2:13 pmG. May says:
Some posters here like to suggest we’re dealing with neanderthals in caves. Clearly these cavemen have neither the will nor the means to fly commercial planes into a major metropolitan area, causing a billion or so in physical damage while almost wrecking our national economy in the process. Their second attack on the WTC was successul, so I’m sure that now they have it out of their system, they have no more interest in wreaking havoc upon their mortal enemies.
After all, these are just cavemen, right? They don’t have access to international funding or hundreds of thousands of sympathetic followers around the world, right? These folks are still carving off the heads of their captives and shooting adulterous women in soccer stadiums. Obviously they are no threat to the civilized world, since they have no intention of ever doing anything outside their own borders.
Yes, history has shown that if we let these cavemen run amok and just get these impetuous urges out of their system, their benevolent and tolerant temperament will come to the forefront sooner or later and we may all rest in peace. Until then, we should continue to expose our soldiers to grave danger, even though we have the technological means to lessen their personal risk.
/sarc
If captured, our soldiers face the risk of having their heads removed while they’re still conscious. Their executioners are lauded as heroes by their peers. Our brave and professional soldiers make every reasonable effort (and then some) to reduce the chance of civilian deaths. In their non combat time, our soldiers participate in trying to rebuild the very land they’re in. These latter two facts are unprecedented in the conduct of large scale war.
Meanwhile, our enemy risks Miranda rights, waterboarding, and being made to feel very uncomfortable when captured. If mistreated in captivity, their captors are punished by their peers. The enemy routinely and purposely put innocent civilians at risk. They have attacked us without provocation and have never needed the death of one of their children as a motivator.
As a recently retired Marine, I speak for myself and for my friends over there as we speak who are putting their lives in such grave danger, that those of you who are concerned for the cleanliness of war have are grossly ignorant of war itself, this particular war, or the professionals who conduct it on our side.
February 25, 2010, 2:25 pmPubliusFL says:
If the drones are GPS-guided, moving the target ship should work to avoid being hit. But electronic countermeasures would probably more effective than air defense missiles against a threat like that. Jam their control/guidance systems then start evasive maneuvers. Anyways, if the bad guys have access to weapons like that in the future, would they be likely to refrain from using them if we restrict our use of UAVs now?
February 25, 2010, 2:31 pmBruce Hayden says:
I don’t really see this as viable. Even if there is a person on the ground providing laser guidance, it is likely that he hasn’t been looking at that target nearly as long as the drone people have.
I think that one of the funniest things about the drones is what they see on the ground. Apparently, in that area of the world, there is a bit of bestiality going on. They figure that since it is dark outside, no one is the wiser. Unfortunately, the drones are not limited to natural light, and so this is all quite visible to the operators back in the U.S.
We used to say this about Wyoming, but now can say this about Afghanistan, and maybe the tribal areas of Pakistan – where men are men, and the sheep are nervous.
February 25, 2010, 2:35 pmdoodahman says:
G. May: Gosh, I guess I’ve had it wrong all this time. I thought the military was there to SERVE, not be served. Under this misperception, I thought that allowing actions that undermine core US values, and that shred the most basic and important due process rights under the Constitution, would be counterproductive both in terms of service to America and the military oath to preserve and defend the Constitution. I would also suggest that Gen. McCrystal is also confused, as he has putatively decided that the errant killing of civilians is such a setback to the overal mission that rules of engagement will change. This inevitably increase the personal risk of the military involved. But then, you are supposed to charge machine guns to achieve mission, are you not? So I can’t see that restraining the use of UAV based extra judicial killings in areas remote from active combat zones does much in regard to measurably increasing the personal risk faced by our troops. What you are left with is the position that any person who someone, somewhere, who is unaccountable and anonymous thinks is a threat should be freely killed all to reduce risk to both military and civilian personnel– an argument that is illogical, anti-American, and in the long term, going to guarantee overall failure in achieving our security goals.
I mean, what is the actual risk to us as individuals posed by even the most dangerous of these “terrorists” killing or injuring us? .0000000000000000001%? Is it even that much? And to reduce the miniscule risk, you want to ignore or even justify the right of the gov’t, who is here with us right now and forever, to kill us on the untested say so of a bureaucrat or low level military official? Is that an intelligent or worthwhile tradeoff? I doubt it. I hightly doubt it.
As for the comment regarding whether we “know war”, I would suggest it is far better to know what the war is supposed to achieve and understanding that in many cases, indulging in reckless “messiness” undermines the entire fucking purpose. Otherwise, those soldiers still die, and do so truly in vain.
February 25, 2010, 3:01 pmbailey says:
You’re in the wrong place, G May. This is a legal forum where legal types who believe the answer to all things is more legal process. This includes war, where each troop will be assigned a lawyer who will have to clear and vet each round of ammunition fired. Further, the rules of war, such as they are, are actually in place to handicap your ability to fight a war and, if the enemy violates those rules, too bad. They still get more due process than you might if you were involved in some infraction.
February 25, 2010, 3:08 pmSoronel Haetir says:
Sure, he who has the gold makes the rules. As stated in one of the other threads, the reason US actions are legal under international law is the fact that the US has a permanent veto vote on the UN Security Counsel. If at some point in the future that is no longer true for some reason or is simply unimportant than obviously the world political situation will have changed enough that the US won’t be in much of a position to get its complaints addressed. Heard, possibly, but not addressed.
And what possible example can you point to that gives you any confidence that a UAV ban would be honored if one were created? I would think its been shown by Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Chechnian rebels, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia and just about any other group of terrorists you care to name that if they can get ahold of a weapon and think there is advantage in using it they will. If agreements like the Geneva accords on POWs protected our captured soldiers (even when fighting a more regular force as in the first Gulf War) you might have a point but as it is I just don’t see it.
February 25, 2010, 3:14 pmBZ says:
Yes, Common, but that’s my point. I was reacting to Prof. Anderson’s parallelism of the massive Israeli drone and his characterization of UAV warfare as the “lightest of light cavalry.” His point, as I read it, was that this is strategic airpower using light cavalry, a fascinating concept. Your point is that the effect is less that of cavalry (either horse- or Airborne) and more like artillery. My point is that the newest technology blurs these lines altogether, much as grunts today pop snipers with Javelins rather than countersniping. My grandfather rode horses, my dad rode planes and parachutes, I worked with technology to direct air and land assets, and my grandsons will use their thumbs directly. It used to be that “pressing the button” meant nuclear exchanges; now it means something else, from top to bottom of the services.
And it affects, and is beyond, much of the discussion in this thread. When an individual fighter can launch smart weaponry at distances ranging from thousands of miles up to pointblank, is it really productive to distinguish one as “assassination” and another as “normal” combat? And how does that elastic proximity affect “self-defense?”
This is not a new form of evolution in warfighting; in fact, it’s common (sorry for the pun). There have been a variety of sci-fi books on that evolution. But it is something I hope Prof. Anderson deals with in his longer article, since it seems to work against his analysis and I’m hoping he can clarify.
February 25, 2010, 3:20 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I do not know whether unmanned aircraft are more dangerous to civilians than other weaponry — that is why I asked. That is an important question to associate with a solid answer (similar to the question of whether launching a lethal attack is appropriate).
It stands to reason that one should be concerned by the risk that a decision-maker who perceives no risk of prosecution, return fire or other negative consequence of a mistake, a poor performance, or even an intentional misuse of force might become undesirably trigger-happy if enabled to accomplish or defend as he likes by push-button.
If the United States continues to kill civilians by the score, using remote-controlled weapons, in locations not part of any reasonably defined battlefield, many years after any attack against the United States, in pursuit of people indirectly (at best) connected with anyone who ever attacked the United States, in the wake of a discredited invasion and the extended detention of innocents and mistreatment of captives, I find it difficult to conclude that (1) most decent people will consider this effective, (2) most decent people will consider this just, (3) none of the afflicted will seek revenge, (4) none of the afflicted will fail to accomplish revenge, or (5) the United States will not come to regret it sorely.
I see no sensible argument that the United States could kill its way out of this, at least not without a tolerance of American civilian casualties (not to mention a morally casual attitude) that seems unthinkable to me — and, I am confident, to the informed judgment of most Americans.
February 25, 2010, 3:25 pmSteve says:
Sure, he who has the gold makes the rules. As stated in one of the other threads, the reason US actions are legal under international law is the fact that the US has a permanent veto vote on the UN Security Counsel.
Well, you seem to be taking a position contrary to Prof. Anderson, who appears to believe that we can promulgate a self-defense rule of general applicability that would apply to these drone attacks.
Maybe you’re right that there is no legitimate argument and the only justification is that we think we’re in the right and no one has the power to stop us. That’s fine, but in that case I don’t see the point in coming up with the nice-sounding legal rationalizations that we’re not really willing to live by if anyone else tries to take advantage of them. Instead, we should just do what we feel we must, and history can be the judge.
February 25, 2010, 3:27 pmChris Travers says:
I see there being a strong distinction between military and military intelligence organizations on one hand and civil law enforcement organizations on the other. If the choice is between their military and ours, the correct response is to ask nicely for permission and then launch a strike regardless of whether that permission is granted.
If the choice is whether to allow, say, the civil police forces of a country to apprehend an individual and then file for extradition or to send in a predator, the predator is NEVER the right way to go (even if extradition proceedings are unlikely to give us what we want) absent something akin to a declaration of war against that nation. Remember that in such a case, we are carrying out a clear act of war against a sovereign nation.
February 25, 2010, 3:29 pmtde says:
Mr. Anderson –
Do you agree that a country can legally kill anyone it deems a legitimate target anywhere in the world?
February 25, 2010, 3:29 pmChris Travers says:
I would add that even severe casualties, I don’t think we can kill our way out of the problem.
I do think that military actions have a role to play in the larger strategic picture, and at the same time, the “war” will be “won” by diplomats rather than soldiers. The only problem is what you do about places in the world where there is nobody who one can negotiate with because the state doesn’t have effective control over the residents?
February 25, 2010, 3:32 pmChris Travers says:
Follow-up question:
Certainly an argument can be made that Litvinenko’s murder was in the self-defence interest of the Putin administration. Does this make it legal?
February 25, 2010, 3:33 pmChris Travers says:
Most of the questionable cases have still occurred in areas where Pakistani control is questionable at best. There is no way that a democratically elected government will tolerate foreign military activities in well-controlled population centers, though. Even if they agree to such an attack, it would be nothing more than a diplomatic trap for us to engage in it.
February 25, 2010, 3:39 pmcommon_sense says:
BZ-
February 25, 2010, 3:59 pmI think we having differing views of what Prof Anderson is suggesting. I was replying that I don’t think that the small drones are any different, legally, from artillery. Its all law of war stuff–I see someone, I kill them. Was that a legal kill, was it proportional, etc. I don’t think the way we catagorize the killing matters. When I’ve called in artillery in the past, it was sometimes on a radar signature without eyes on the target. Now, there were plenty of other safeguards I’m not going to get into, but I think that is a far more interesting case than using a Raven where I can actually see what I’m shooting. The Raven doesn’t change the legal analysis.
What I see Prof Anderson talking about is self defense- not in the individual sense, but in the national sense. He wants to test whether a kill in a country where we are not in a state of conflict against principles of national self defense. Personally, I think he extended the analogy too far and confused the issue. Drones have significant military application, and we will use them on the battlefield. We can call them cavalry. That is a different discussion than whether we use them in Yemen. Calling them light cavalry there does the opposite of what he wants–it blurs the line between the law of war and national self defense. When we use drones in Yemen, it is a targeted killing. Call it that. Then we can get to the national self defense questions.
Bob from Ohio says:
I agree.
Its just not possible to come up with a theory that will hold up.
There is no way that we would tolerate a drone attack in the US or against a US interest.
If a drone came from a terrorist or a weak state, we would simply use greater force in response. States like Russia or China that have real power are just not going to do it, in the same way we are not going to do it in their terrority, too much risk to all involved.
We will continue to use drones in the third world as we will. We will determine whose soverignity we will recognize.
February 25, 2010, 4:58 pmPLR says:
Not all of us award brownie points for candidness about one’s Machiavellianism.
(But many of us can thoroughly refute a WSJ editorial piece or op ed by simple reference to the rule of law, as distinguished from the Rule of Made-Up Laws.)
February 25, 2010, 5:27 pmArrowSmith says:
Can someone please show me the Enlightment text that bans extrajudicial executions? Last I checked the idea was to break the monopoly of violence that the Church had.
February 25, 2010, 5:34 pmG. May says:
I considered typing a point by point rebuttal, but then it occurred to me that you:
A) Didn’t read the entirety of my post,
B) Failed to comprehend my post,
C) Both – failed to comprehend the parts of it you actually read.
February 25, 2010, 6:35 pmArthur Kirkland says:
And some — those who dislike our political positions, those who object to our military actions, those seeking political advantage elsewhere, those seeking to avenge victimization — will respond by thinking about poisoning our reservoirs, or attempting to destroy our occupied buildings, or poisoning Americans in subway stations.
The more often we use drones, the more innocents we kill, the less defensibly we use the drones, the greater these risks may be.
February 25, 2010, 7:17 pmRPT says:
Your snark is misdirected. If only the last administration had listened to Gens. Sheiseiki and others, instead of Condi Rice, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, David Addington, “Curveball”, Paul Bremer, PNAC, and the Heritage Foundation, among others, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Which lawyer gave the order not to capture OBL at Tora Bora? Which lawyer directed the resources from Afghanistan to Iraq? Which lawyer allowed Baghdad to be trashed? The failures are the fault of those who made really bad decisions in 2001 and thereafter
February 25, 2010, 7:18 pmG. May says:
As common_sense already stated above, this is no different from indirect fire (artillery, mortar, heavy machinegun plunging fire, etc). The rules that govern those who “push the buttons” for UAVs/RPVs, as well as the safeguards in place to protect the innocent are just as stringent as those for more traditional methods of indirect fire. The odds of killing innocent civilians are decreased with the use of UAVs instead of more traditional weapon systems, while the risk to our troops is also decreased.
Your overly simplistic characterizations of those professional U.S. military personnel and the various consequences they face for poor performance make it difficult to believe you’re really interested in anything other than grinding your usual personal axe.
Why don’t you enlighten us all of your extensive experience in reasonably defining battlefields? Then perhaps you could elaborate on the specific theater of engagement and provide us with your explanations of how the battlefields are so “reasonably” demarcated.
Your definitive knowledge of who is where and what they are responsible for is truly amazing. Then of course, you’re right, we should probably just pull out and let the place go to rot again. That worked out so well for us before.
…in your humble opinion.
But after all those interesting qualifiers, it’s no reason you:
Oh how cute. Most “decent” people.
Because the only decent thing to do is hold your point of view.
Because revenge is what played into all the attacks up to and including 9/11 right?
Oh dear, then I’m sure we should have refrained from taking any action in Afghanistan whatsoever. I’m sure that the Taliban would have entertained our peaceful overtures had we simply engaged them. I’m sure they would have apologized for enabling AQ, and handed them right over.
I think the United States (and the international community) already regrets letting Afghanistan fester and rot. While you’re in a speculating mood, I’d speculate that any of those regrets you’re wringing your hands over won’t be near the regrets of 9/11.
I can almost smell the anti zionist rant approaching.
You see no sensible argument against your position and are unable to think certain things because you’re too busy asserting that anyone who disagrees with you is indecent and uninformed. As long as you believe this nonsense, I guess that’s all that matters.
February 25, 2010, 7:21 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Nonsense?
Arguing — or, worse, believing — that endless killing in places like Pakistan and Iraq, eight years later, can sensibly be claimed to be directly related to the September 11 attacks is nonsense.
Believing it likely that those responsible for wrongfully killing civilians by the score is nonsense.
Believing that civilian homes in residential neighborhoods in Pakistan are part of any battlefield is nonsense.
Believing that Americans can keep killing civilians — with our without groveling apologies from the U.S. commander — without provoking understandable desire for revenge is nonsense.
Believing that the United States can kill its way out of the mess it has created in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is nonsense.
An assertion that the justifable hot pursuit of the relatively small group of people responsible for the September 11 attack bears any resemblance to the wholesale clustermuck of treading sand and killing daily the United States finds itself in eight years later is nonsense.
Recent reports of repeated botched American attacks, in which hundreds of innocents have been maimed and killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, make this
February 25, 2010, 8:16 pmassertion difficult to accept.
orca says:
Are you saying the Marines are going around Afghanistan lobbing artillery and motor rounds into funerals attended by civilians?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/asia/24pstan.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
February 25, 2010, 8:41 pmbailey says:
RPT-isn’t snark deserved when you have folks basically spouting the terrorist line here. The “we don’t have real weapons or power so we have to poison reservoirs (or blow up pizza shops full of jewish kids)” is spouted here. I don’t see any reason why it has to be responded to with anything approaching respect. I also see the drone argument as a way to do one more thing to hamper our ability to fight our enemies. You know the lawsuits on them are coming and you know who will be filing them. We weren’t using drones in 2001. Somehow, the heroes of at least one of the posters still managed to find a grievance.
February 25, 2010, 8:42 pmMark Field says:
Vattel, The Law of Nations, Book III, beginning with Sec. 155:
“I give, then, the name of assassination to a treacherous murder, whether the perpetrators of the deed be subjects of the party whom we cause to be assassinated, or of our own sovereign, — or that it be executed by the hand of any other emissary, introducing himself as a supplicant, a refugee, a deserter, or, in fine, as a stranger; and such an attempt I say, is infamous and execrable, both in him who executes and in him who commands it. Why do we judge an act to be criminal, and contrary to the law of nature, but because such act is pernicious to human society, and that the practice of it would be destructive to mankind? … Let it not here be replied, that it is only in favour of the cause of justice that such extraordinary measures are allowable: for all parties, in their wars, maintain that they have justice on their side. Whoever, by setting the example, contributes to the introduction of so destructive a practice, declares himself the enemy of mankind, and deserves the execration of all ages. …
Assassination and poisoning are therefore contrary to the laws of war, and equally condemned by the law of nature and the consent of all civilized nations. The sovereign who has recourse to such execrable means should be regarded as the enemy of the human race; and the common safety of mankind calls on all nations to unite against him and join their forces to punish him. His conduct particularly authorizes the enemy, whom he has attacked by such odious means, to refuse him any quarter.”
Of course, if you mean execution of our own citizens, that’s banned by the due process clause (see paragraph 39 of Magna Charta).
February 25, 2010, 8:51 pmG. May says:
No, Orca, I’m not saying that, and honestly, I don’t quite know the point it is you’re trying to make either. Care to explain it in your non-trolling way? Or is that too much to ask?
February 25, 2010, 8:52 pmbailey says:
So, we needed a warrant to kill those American citizens that fought on the side of Germany in WWII? Who knew how unenlightened we were in that era. Shame. Shame.
February 25, 2010, 9:01 pmorca says:
Well, G May, you said the button pushers who bravely fly the drones operate under the same restrictions as your Marines.
I linked to a report of a drone attack on a Pakistani funeral that killed over 60 people, many of them civilians, and asked if your guys were allowed to lob artillery and mortar rounds into funerals.
Seems like a simple question:
Are the Marines allowed to attack funerals attended by civilians?
February 25, 2010, 9:03 pmArrowSmith says:
Funny I thought Al Queda declared themselves “enemy of the human race” with their actions. We are simply treating them in kind. BTW, “The Law of Nations” or The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
February 25, 2010, 9:10 pmbailey says:
You don’t even understand the quotes you throw around. Reading the whole paragraph, it even distinguishes killing by surprise, something the writer considers legitimate, from “assassination”.
February 25, 2010, 9:14 pmArrowSmith says:
Because of course it’s FAR better to send our troops into a hail-storm of bullets. That way at least we’re being honorable right? Personally I’m glad we’re more innovative and developed the drone technology. That makes us better then them.
February 25, 2010, 9:14 pmorca says:
Actually, it was the Nazis that developed drone technology.
February 25, 2010, 9:20 pmbailey says:
Did you see this one-this is stuff you can do to a country that is barbarous and unjust. Our terrorist friends aren’t even nations-I imagine we can do even worse to them.
§ 167. Ravaging and burning.
February 25, 2010, 9:21 pmOn certain occasions, however, matters are carried still farther: a country is totally ravaged, towns and villages are sacked, and delivered up a prey to fire and sword. Dreadful extremities, even when we are forced into them! Savage and monstrous excesses, when committed without necessity! There are two reasons, however, which may authorize them, — 1. the necessity of chastising an unjust and barbarous nation, of checking her brutality, and preserving ourselves from her depredations. Who can doubt that the king of Spain and the powers of Italy have a very good right utterly to destroy those maritime towns of Africa, those nests of pirates, that are continually molesting their commerce and ruining their subjects? But what nation will proceed to such extremities merely for the sake of punishing the hostile sovereign? It is but indirectly that he will feel the punishment: and how great the cruelty, to ruin an innocent people in order to reach him! The same prince whose firmness and just resentment was commended in the bombardment of Algiers, was, after that of Genoa, accused of pride and inhumanity. 2. We ravage a country and render it uninhabitable, in order to make it serve us as a barrier, and to cover our frontier against an enemy whose incursions we are unable to check by any other means. A cruel expedient, it is true: but why should we not be allowed to adopt it at the expense of the enemy, since, with the same view, we readily submit to lay waste our own provinces?
bailey says:
Yep, it was the Nazis. But, please, don’t ever get the idea that folks spouting these lines are doing anything but what is best for this Country.
February 25, 2010, 9:23 pmorca says:
How timely:
The US drone program in Pakistan has probably reached the “outer limits of its utility” and robs intelligence forces of valuable information while angering Pakistanis, a new report said Thursday.
http://tinyurl.com/yasuqom
February 25, 2010, 9:32 pmArthur Kirkland says:
If a botched American mission kills innocents, and a friend or relative of a victim kills some Americans in the United States for vengeance, would that person be a terrorist? Any more or less than the Americans who launched retributive attacks in the wake of the suicide bombing of a CIA location recently?
I don’t consider Iraqis fighting invaders — those Iraqis who had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks or bin Laden, but were radicalized after we starting killing Iraqis and occuping Iraq — to be terrorists. They never attacked us. They were responding to an unprovoked attack.
Dismissing anyone the United States attacks or dislikes, anyone the United States purchases from bounty hunters, or anyone who seeks vengeance, as a terrorist was not a persuasive argument, even before the reasons for attacking Iraq turned out to be falsehoods, most of the people sent to Guantanamo turned out to have been detained mistakenly, and the ostensible mission to avenge the September 11 attack expanded beyond recognition or reason.
Dismissing those who object to highly dubious American policy and conduct as “spouting the terrorist line” is similarly unpersuasive.
It will be interesting to observe when, if ever, some people’s tolerance for the loss of innocent civilians and American soldiers reaches its limit.
February 25, 2010, 9:40 pmG. May says:
Endless killing? Your hyperbole is mediocre at best.
Characterizing a situation like Iraq or Afghanistan as if we’re just over there killing people because they’re indirectly related to 9/11 is such an absurd oversimplification of a complex issue. You’re either unequipped or unwilling to engage in a meaningful discussion on the matter.
I’ll readily admit that it might just be my reading of it, but this makes no sense to me.
I didn’t say that civilian homes in Pakistan were necessarily a part of a battlefield. Though I’m still eagerly awaiting your expert knowledge on the subject.
Strawman.
Strawman.
How is it nonsense to assert that Afghanistan cannot be left in the condition in which it was found? How is it nonsense to assert that the Taliban (who, by the way, enabled and assisted that “relatively small number”) should not be allowed to regain power? How is it nonsense to assert that armed conflict seems to be the only way to ensure it? You may disagree with those assertions, but they are hardly nonsensical.
Do you think war is conducted free of error?
Why do you find it difficult to accept the undeniable fact that fewer American lives are in danger through the use of UAVs? We could be lobbing artillery fire into the target. It’s far more traditional but less discriminate.
February 25, 2010, 9:40 pmArthur Kirkland says:
The “them” we have been killing lately are innocents — plenty of children and women — in Pakistan. Better than them? Based on recent evidence, I’m not so sure we are even their equals.
February 25, 2010, 9:45 pmG. May says:
And I already gave you a simple answer. Did you miss it? Go back and check again, the answer is there for you.
Would you care to make your point, or would you just like to continue trolling?
February 25, 2010, 9:45 pmArthur Kirkland says:
civilians by the score is nonsense.
I’ll readily admit that it might just be my reading of it, but this makes no sense to me.
It does not make sense. It should have been: Believing that those responsible for wrongfully killing civilians by the score with drones will ever be held to account, in any way approximating justice, is nonsense.
February 25, 2010, 9:48 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Eight years later, how many innocents did the United States kill this week? 25? 50? Eight years into this mess, is the end in sight?
Endless seems apt.
February 25, 2010, 9:50 pmorca says:
Not really.
There are some people who amazingly think Vietnam would be better off today if we were still fighting there, thirty five years after we cut and ran.
As if being in the middle of a battlefield was somehow beneficial to Vietnamese civilians.
And I presume you’ve admitted that the drone operators aren’t working under the same constraints as regular U.S. military units?
February 25, 2010, 9:50 pmScott Eudaley says:
Arguing — or, worse, believing — that endless killing in places like
Pakistan and IraqFrance, Italy, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Phillipines and New Guinea,eightfour years later, can sensibly be claimed to be directly related to theSeptember 11Pearl Harbor attacks is nonsense.Believing that civilian homes in residential neighborhoods in
PakistanFrance, Italy, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Phillipines and New Guinea are part of any battlefield is nonsense.Believing that the United States can kill its way out of the mess it has created in
Iraq, Afghanistan and PakistanJapan and Germany is nonsense.An assertion that the justifable hot pursuit of the relatively small group of people responsible for the
September 11Pearl Harbor attack bears any resemblance to the wholesale clustermuck of treading sand and killing daily the United States finds itself ineightfour years later is nonsense.FIFY.
February 25, 2010, 9:52 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I would argue that the issue of whether a private residence in Pakistan is part of a battlefield eight years after September 11 is a matter for judicial notice, not expert testimony.
Of course, John Yoo could probably whip up a memo if necessary.
February 25, 2010, 9:53 pmArthur Kirkland says:
FIFY?
I find it hard to believe than anyone outside a Project For A New American Century reunion banquet believes it worthwhile to compare current circumstances to World War II.
Some people must regret that we didn’t start a 40-year war throughout the Caribbean after a few Puerto Rican extremists attacked our Capitol in the ’50s.
February 25, 2010, 9:56 pmbailey says:
Judicial notice? Expert testimony? Have you slipped loose from rationality even more?
February 25, 2010, 9:58 pmbailey says:
Current circumstances to WWII? Is the enemy less evil (of course, if you are of a certain twisted mindset, you might think they are the good guys)? Do they have goals that include killing as many people as possible? They are certainly trying to control countries, at least one of which, Pakistan, has nukes. But, hey, it’s perfectly rational to think they are the good guys. Of course, our enemies in the former war didn’t have lawyers working on their side in this country.
February 25, 2010, 10:13 pmScott Eudaley says:
And the strawmen keep coming. My snark notes that your simple-minded view of war essentially invalidates all war. If these are the standards by which you view a war, then certainly WWII must be considered unjustified.
Given your great strategic and geo-political acumen, how would you protect the United States from suicidal Islamic fascism?
February 25, 2010, 10:20 pmbailey says:
He wouldn’t because we would deserve anything done to us. That’s the twisted mindset that these folks bring to the table. If you can find a way to excuse suicide bombing of innocents in a pizza parlor, there is no level you can’t sink to.
February 25, 2010, 10:24 pmArthur Kirkland says:
As detailed in previous discussions, I believe our government should have engaged in a prompt, focused “hot pursuit” operation to identify, locate and kill (or apprehend) the people responsible for the attack. It should have refused to tolerate obstacles (shielding of perpetrators, denial of airspace, etc.), while scrupulously refraining, in exchange for extraordinary license, from settling old scores, acting on unrelated information, and any other distractions or abuses. It should have aimed for a prompt, just, effective resolution that would demonstrated national resolve, capability and judgment — and the counterproductivity of attacking the United States.
I also wish our government had avoided polarization of its public and had used the opportunity to make progress on energy independence.
February 25, 2010, 10:41 pmScott Eudaley says:
In other words, you have no clue what to do. A “hot pursuit” (how? where?) but no other concrete action, not one other concrete step you would take? A “prompt, just, effective resolution that would demonstrated national resolve”? How? And what then? What about the others, who have not attacked us, yet. How do you stop them? Or are we supposed to just wait to be attacked again, then have another “prompt, just, effective resolution that would demonstrate national resolve”? Sounds just like the reactionary, law-enforcement approach which succeeded so spectacularly in the 90′s!
A “hot pursuit” as a response to an attack which dramatically exceeded the damage done to this nation by Pearl Harbor?!? A “hot pursuit” of the narrowly-defined perpetrators of that attack even though it was motivated by a brutally oppressive and murderous ideology that aims to bring down the United States?!?
Even by your own standard (“a prompt, just, effective resolution that demonstrate national resolve”) you couldn’t possible achieve that via a “hot pursuit” of the perpetrators. And it would have absolutely no impact on the realpolitik of the broader issues.
Pathetic.
February 25, 2010, 11:20 pmMark Field says:
The better response when you’ve been pwn3d is to admit it and move on. Or just slink away. Trying to bluster your way through isn’t very persuasive.
Yes, I saw it. It doesn’t support you as you seem to think, and there’s nothing in those paragraphs which applies to Afghanistan or anywhere else we’re fighting now. Oddly enough, our military doesn’t seem to share your enthusiasm for depopulating Afghanistan (or Iraq or Pakistan, for that matter).
February 25, 2010, 11:33 pmwiil jones says:
“Strategic airpower has long been a holy grail — but it has never worked quite as successfully as each new iteration hopes.”
Strategic air power won the cold war with and every major and minor American conflict from the end of the cold war until the insurgency stages of the present conflicts. Importantly, our strategic airpower has deterred any modern state actor from developing conventional military forces to challenge America’s conventional military dominance.
I’m not saying strategic airpower is the solution for counter-war and counterinsurgency operations, that the American military should continue to rely on airpower as a one-size fits all deterrent, or that America is not over-invested in airpower. I merely write to refute the statement that strategic airpower has been less effective than anticipated.
I suppose that next the author will assert that space power is not worth its salt either.
February 25, 2010, 11:53 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I gather you prefer a plan in which we rely on a foundation of falsehoods to attack the wrong country, expediting warmongers’ decade-old dreams but enabling bin Laden to escape, then botch an attempted occupation while the distraction causes Afghanistan to drift for the better part of a decade?
Billions of dollars wasted, uncountable persons killed or dismembered, national standing squandered, many enemies created.
To some, that must sound like a sound plan.
February 26, 2010, 12:07 amPlugInMonster says:
let’s be clear:
liberals think that UAV operators have no honor. As if war is about anything but killing more of them, then us dying.
February 26, 2010, 12:08 amorca says:
I think the U.S. Navy gets credit for that.
February 26, 2010, 12:37 amSoronel Haetir says:
If you are talking conventional forces then the Navy is a huge part of US air power. No other nation has even one carrier of the sort the USN is fond of (though I think India may have something similar soon — a ship the Russians were never able to put into service). Even the Brits are stuck with much smaller carriers. It would be interesting to see how such ships fare against missile attack if a hot war between the major powers ever did break out but in the meantime the 11 carrier groups are a huge strategic and even diplomatic asset.
Now, if you were to claim that the Navy gets most of the credit for keeping conflicts conventional, that I could agree with.
February 26, 2010, 1:48 amOrenWithAnE says:
I agree in principle, but mainly countries don’t have the strict military/police distinction we have.
Agreed with the caveat that we have decent faith that their civil police will do a decent job here (and not, say leak the information so the guy disappears).
100% certainty is not necessary but enough evidence could be adduced that the police are either so incompetent or corrupt as to not be effectively sovereign (e.g. the Somali government outside their little Potemkin village). I would not consider an act of war for the US to strike in any area in which they cannot effect an arrest.
February 26, 2010, 10:49 amBob from Ohio says:
They were thinking of doing these things before Predators existed.
What US atrocity was the murder of our Ambassador to Sudan in response to?
What US atrocity was the WTC attack in 1993 in response to?
February 26, 2010, 11:00 amStones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e107v5 says:
[...] Drones. [...]
February 26, 2010, 11:24 ambailey says:
Bob, you aren’t arguing with rational people. Some of the posters here have a degree of hatred for this Country and the West that I doubt even these jihadists could match. At least some of the latter are uneducated throwbacks. If you can find excuses for folks who blow up kids in pizza parlors, you are pretty much a moral zero.
February 26, 2010, 12:38 pmArthur Kirkland says:
How will you revise your assertion, if not your worldview, if the next Predator strike hits a group of children celebrating a birthday in a Pakistani or Afghan restaurant (instead of in a home full of innocents, or at a funeral, or in a marketplace)?
Shall I presume that the all-important falafel-pizza distinction will govern your thinking?
February 26, 2010, 1:44 pmUrsus Maritimus says:
Curtis-Sperry Flying Bomb 1917, Kettering Bug 1918, Larynx 1925.
February 26, 2010, 2:04 pmPoint to the nazis involved in those?
Mark Field says:
I’ve noticed that too. Sad, that.
February 26, 2010, 3:13 pmArrowSmith says:
They don’t hate America. They hate American government and the people who elected them. Big diff!
February 26, 2010, 3:19 pmArthur Kirkland says:
They also hate most of what it stands for. Especially when they get scared.
February 26, 2010, 4:24 pmArrowSmith says:
You mean lefties like you admit you just hate America and everything about it?
February 26, 2010, 4:29 pmArthur Kirkland says:
No, I meant the people prepared to abandon this country’s laws and morals the moment they get frightened, or willing to send American soldiers to die and kill in a fruitless attempt to salvage their battered ideology.
Survivors driven to revenge by Predator attacks were prescient, enabling them to think about avenging those attacks before they occurred? That seems unlikely.
February 27, 2010, 1:42 amPlugInMonster says:
Because the survivors are just hardy Pakistanis NEVER involved with Al Queda or the Taliban.
February 28, 2010, 8:22 pm