This guy has it right: Drone strikes, and 'bug splats'.

[Catfish]

.. because there is not even a firm accepted guideline, the evaluation of the legal aspect is a "work in progress".

Listen to what he says, exactly.


Now the question is, sure it was not an idea of the government, but of course the Pentagon and CIA. Politicians that change every few years cannot be molested (and trusted) with the nation's survival, which is known and planned best by more or less clandestine organisations being in charge for the 'greater good' and long-lasting policies.
They will not even tell you whether it was a "personality strike", or a "signature strike" (those words alone are as disgusting and atrocious), when the media ask how much civilians and US citizens have been killed by "collateral damage" in the latest attack abroad, because of course this is all a military secret.
Without Wikileaks, no one would even know about it. What exactly does that tell about the democracy ?
(I can only imagine of what public and propaganda outcry would have happened, had Germany used this method at whatever time - but your people KNEW about that, why didn't you DO something. But i guess i'm just falling for Godwin's law)

So, did Pentagon and CIA give good advice to the government, or may this decision how to kill backfire at the nation, because of international ostracism and undermining the own constitution.

Of course, the right of the stronger to do what he wants - but that may be a bad idea: Drones are cheap, and can be produced by any nation on earth. No expensive air force needed, and no airports.
Those drones will be used by anyone soon, to spy on neighbours in small scale, but there is no need to think terrorists will not also use them, along with nations like North Korea. So, apart from all humanistic and legal discussion (no trials), is using drones and taking killing civilians deliberately a good example ?

I found already the Apache attack disgusting, clearly the pilot did not know what to do, and got the order to kill the Reuters correspondent and a lot of bystanders, which of course he followed. Now it has become a habit, using dones alone ?

And please, listen to the videos before you explode in your self-righteous (ahem) self defense. He does not say that drone killings do not have merits against terrorists, along with the advantage of not exposing the life of soldiers. It is not about that, at least not alone.
The video game conduct, killing civilians as collateral damage and calling this a 'bug splat' ?


OT:
Oh, and now they want to give medals to drone 'pilots', for 'bravery' :

[Catfish]

Bump

[Tchocky]

Bump

[Skybird]

Drones com ein a wide variety. Some are controlled globally, others locally.

Drones can be build by more and more "players".

They can be operated by more and more players.

They are being build be internationally produced parts.

Identification of who build the drone and who controlled the drone willl become illusive.

Thus any player can strike at any other player, without being held responsible. Because they cannot be identified. Because the internationality of technological parts used for construction. That handful of chips could have been bought by just everybody. And many of them have "made in China" printed on them.

"Players" can be: nations' services on behalf of policies or private business and corporations, corporations themselves, mercenaries, bad states, groups, rich enough people.

The condottieri already are back, and more and more parts of military servicing gets externalised and privatized. Now they get drones.

Interesting times ahead, I'd say.

On the medal part. Medal for bravery, that is BS. However, drone pilots get marked by the intense contrast of switching between lives in two different realities, from one minute to the next.

Medals help there against the psychological dissonance like they help against battle-induced PTSD: not at all. . Medals are just the cheapest way for the military to get off the payers list. Colourful glass pearls are not as expensive as healthcare and therapy. Man, already as a small child I hated military decorations and medals. Like male birds fighting for the hens. Leave that fancy stuff to operettas.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...t=drone+stress

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

On the medal part. Medal for bravery, that is BS. However, drone pilots get marked by the intense contrast of switching between lives in two different realities, from one minute to the next.

Worse they rank the medal higher in precedence than the Purple Heart and a valorous Bronze Star.

[MH]

Seems like drones are sprking a lot of imagination competed to other types of warfare.
Must be terminator syndrome.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by MH

[...] drones are sparking a lot of imagination competed to other types of warfare. [...]

Not much imagination nedeed.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/20...led-by-a-drone

This might seem propaganda but it is murder, nothing to sugarcoat
http://www.collateralmurder.com/

[Skybird]

A new study, this time by the Pentagon itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us....html?hp&_r=1&

Psychological dissonance.

[u crank]

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Not much imagination nedeed.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/20...led-by-a-drone

This might seem propaganda but it is murder, nothing to sugarcoat
http://www.collateralmurder.com/

If in a war unimportant/non-mission-objective/non-combatant/civilian persons get targetted for the sake of killing these very persons, without a military objective being tried to achieve, it is "murder" indeed. If this happens, it does not matter whether the shooting platform is a live-manned plane, or a remote controlled drone. The intention is what decides the moral dimension of the crime, not the weapon used.

If above mentioned persons get targeted for misidentification reasons, bad intel, fog of war or such, it is tragic, but an event of war. War is no police law enforcement. War is war. That's why we have a separate name for it.

If you have a military objective or target and want to achieve that, and in doing so former mentioned non-combatant persons get hit by crossfire or by random chance stand in the fireline or inside a blastradius of an explosion that indeed precisely hit the target, they are unlucky and tragic victims. Still: no murder.

If an enemy intentionally hides behind above mentioned possible groups of persons to gain military advantage from hiding behind them or in their middle, maybe even forces them to stay close to himself and expose themselves, then he is the one qualifying the best for being called a murderer.

Asymmetric warfare makes tremendous use of this, for it does not care for the educated differentiation between war and murder, like you do.

Throwing it all into one pot, stirring it, and then claiming there are no such differences to be made, may fulfill a moral desire or an ideological mission. But it does not become less meaningless by that.

What comes it down to? Intentionally aiming and shooting at an known civilian non-combatant who has nothing to do with any of the fighting side'S casues, and aiming at an indentifed enemy and shopoting at him and by crossfire or mistake accidentally causing the killing of said civilian bystander as well, morally is not the same thing. Not at all. If I stumble over my feet, fall down and by that cause a glass of wine spilled over your shirt, that is something different than if I stand before you, take the glass and intentionally empty it over your shirt.

[Skybird]

What can - and mjst - be discussed, however, is the question in what way and to what degree the distance between the trigger and the effect and the possibility to keep the actions outside a bigger public awareness focus reduces political inhibition to take such actions, and makes such wars more likely to be waged becasue they appear to be more acceptable: "out of sight, out of mind."

Here, the debate indeed leaves a lot to be desired. The old and new studies I linked to, showing the stress and psychological dissonance in drone pilots, also indicates that drone wars are much more "real" than on first sight they may appear to be to the unsuspecting eye.

The idea to have a international legal framework on how to use drones, I consider to be as absurd as other, earlier treaties of that kind. In war, the value in use decides on the methods, even more so if fighting an enemy who himself neither cares for Hague Landwarfare Convention or the Geneva Convention at all.

[Catfish]

The government itself says it is not legal, whether this kind of killing is declared as legal or not is a "work in progress". They do not even have a clear legal code of conduct, while they still kill civilians. 36 for one terrorist or so statistics say.

Originally Posted by Skybird

[...] If above mentioned persons get targeted for misidentification reasons, bad intel, fog of war or such, it is tragic, but an event of war. War is no police law enforcement. War is war. That's why we have a separate name for it. [...]

There is terrorism, and there is war. Both are not the same by definition.
Drones are just that: Police enforcement, worldwide, by your own police rules.

So if you send a drone into another country to kill own or foreign residents without knowing or approval of said country's government, not having declared war to them, even unknown to your own people and violating your own jurisdiction in clandestine operations, how do you call that ?

If you have a military objective or target and want to achieve that, and in doing so former mentioned non-combatant persons get hit by crossfire or by random chance stand in the fireline or inside a blastradius of an explosion that indeed precisely hit the target, they are unlucky and tragic victims. Still: no murder.

BS. You do it against international law, you did not declare war to said country, but you are killing its residents.
Is that murder or not ? Or is it a war of aggression ?
By modern standards, and by standards being applied after WW2 ?

Your problem is that you are talking about a war, using warfare to accomplish goals, but this is not a war. What is it ?

Quite conveniently, Bush's advisors said it was a war against terrorism. If this implies warfare against neutral or even befriended countries and inhabitants you did not declare war to, what does that say about international law and your own signature under such treaties, while incriminating other countries of doing what you yourself do.

I take it you do not have children, but if a drone accidently killed your girl friend or parents who were so unfortunate as to be near an assumed "terrorist" (which may even turn out to have been a mistake or just bad info), what would you do. I take it you would still appreciate signature strikes as they call it, call them "unlucky and tragic victims" and then explain publicly why it was the right thing to do ?