War on Drugs Filipino style

[Oberon]

Collateral damage rarely helps a war effort.

[Betonov]

Exactly.

It's the thought of how many we're killed by mistake, malice or crossfire that prevents me from completely relishing that someone finally started whacking lowlifes from the face of the planet.

[Von Due]

One of my main concerns is when will we see the targets being critics of the president, or the chief of police, or the highest bidder? As for collatoral damage, the Miami drug wars in the 70's and 80's saw people being murdered by the hundreds, including toddlers. Murder is a basic, first-to-go-to tool in the drug traders' tool kit. Then the drugs themselves. Drugs wreck havoc on families, communities, regions and countries.

I am against going around killing, for whatever reason but I also wonder, what has not been tried in the war against drugs and is killing the dealers constructive in that sense? I'm not convinced it is but it is a tough question that puts the saying "the end justifies the means" to the test and I don't have a very good answer to that as it stands.

Will he be able to rid the country of drugs? No. Too much money involved and too powerful criminal organizations (and entire countries: North Korea's Room 39 leaps to mind) have an interest in it for one country and a maverick president to kick out the dealers. Eradicate local drug businesses and foreign drug businesses will move in and some of them are pretty well equipped for a war against the Philipino Govt.

Did these murders solve the drug problem then?

[Schroeder]

The problem I have with that is that police officers and self appointed "deputies" become law enforcement, jury, judge and executioner in one person. No hard evidence needed. What happened to the right of a fair trial (if there was such a thing in the Philippines)? How are innocent supposed to defend themselves from wrong accusations if being accused already gets you a bullet to the head? How is made sure that no one is using the whole mess to get rid of unwanted business competition, critics etc?
What's going on there has nothing to do with a nation of law.

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Collateral damage rarely helps a war effort.

No, but realistically collateral damage and War effort, one doesn't come without the other as that's the price to pay in any War just make the end of it worth that price and keep it as low and unintentional as possible.
I Doubt it though that this is the case with this but it seems the people are supportive of his methods so well they think it's worth the price so far but that'll change if he goes to far which I suspect he will one day.

Anyway besides that I don't agree that someone can just hand out a license to kill to a police force who is to serve and protect and that includes the rights of suspected but not confirmed felons...you can put the druglords, dealers, cutters & brewers or what you call them against the wall for all I care but only after they've been confirmed to be guilty with solid evidence of the crime and not before.

[Jimbuna]

It would appear this guy is 'deadly' serious in any sense of the word...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to "separate" from the UN after it criticised his war on drugs as a crime under international law.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37147630

[Ashikaga]

A very dangerous man with dictatorial aspects.

A killer without remorse.

Worse than Marcos if you ask me.

Ashikaga

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Collateral damage rarely helps a war effort.

Yeah, tell that to Hiroshima.

One of my main concerns is when will we see the targets being critics of the president, or the chief of police, or the highest bidder? As for collatoral damage, the Miami drug wars in the 70's and 80's saw people being murdered by the hundreds, including toddlers. Murder is a basic, first-to-go-to tool in the drug traders' tool kit. Then the drugs themselves. Drugs wreck havoc on families, communities, regions and countries.

I would be very concerned too, this kind of thing can get out of control, with police becoming a hit squad for non-criminal related activities. Still, if the govt there is managing this carefully, the 1900 bodies would be drug criminals who were the cancer eating away their communities.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

No, but realistically collateral damage and War effort, one doesn't come without the other as that's the price to pay in any War just make the end of it worth that price and keep it as low and unintentional as possible.
I Doubt it though that this is the case with this but it seems the people are supportive of his methods so well they think it's worth the price so far but that'll change if he goes to far which I suspect he will one day.

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to reduce that price, after all, isn't that exactly what we've striven to do in warfare technology since the Second World War?

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Yeah, tell that to Hiroshima.

If the bombs had been dropped in 1941 or 1942 at the extent of Japans victories and not at the nadir of her fortunes, do you think that Japan would have surrendered?
What about the people of Dresden, Hamburg, Coventry, London, Berlin, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Guernica, Frampol, and Kassel achieve for their nations war effort? Was the end of the war in Europe hastened by Bomber Commands attacks on civilian targets? Did Britain capitulate when the Luftwaffe bombed London?

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to reduce that price, after all, isn't that exactly what we've striven to do in warfare technology since the Second World War?

Didn't I mention too keep that price as low and unintentional as possible? That implies the use of better tech and methods.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

Didn't I mention too keep that price as low and unintentional as possible? That implies the use of better tech and methods.

True, true, although as Sun Tzu put it 'The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting'.

[Platapus]

If you were addicted to drugs, would you suddenly stop using drugs because some government guy started killing people?

If you were making tons of money in the drug trade, would you suddenly stop because some government guy started killing people?

I suspect the answer is no.

[Mr Quatro]

China is starting to be a big supplier of drugs
Illicit drugs killing Americans aren’t always from Mexico

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ug-connection/

The substance that killed Prince was a so-called “designer drug,” meaning it was made in a laboratory and wasn’t derived from a plant like heroin or cocaine. In this case the drug was “fentanyl.”

All illicit fentanyl comes into the United States from China, either directly or indirectly through the Mexican cartels.

Some of the victims die as Prince did, while others are injured for life. Even babies are being born hooked on it, often prematurely

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Originally Posted by Platapus

If you were addicted to drugs, would you suddenly stop using drugs because some government guy started killing people?

If you were making tons of money in the drug trade, would you suddenly stop because some government guy started killing people?

I suspect the answer is no.

People still try to smuggle drugs into Singapore.

Of course, the most pragmatic way to deal with the drug war would be to legalize everything. Of course, that would impact someone's profits, somewhere, so that won't happen.

[Osmium Steele]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to reduce that price, after all, isn't that exactly what we've striven to do in warfare technology since the Second World War?

What about the people of Dresden, Hamburg, Coventry, London, Berlin, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Guernica, Frampol, and Kassel achieve for their nations war effort? Was the end of the war in Europe hastened by Bomber Commands attacks on civilian targets?

A certain Star Trek episode comes to mind, and remember, that series was written by WWII veterans who saw the horrors up close.

WWI was a relatively clean war. Static fronts, mainly warfighters dying in the millions, and just 20 years later WWII broke out.

With the above carnage you mentioned, there hasn't been another war on the continent for 70+ years and Germany has a phobia of being seen as too aggressive. Yet elsewhere, the American war machine has made war clean, precise, with minimal collateral damage and fighting flourishes in endless streams of violence.

War SHOULD be horrible. It should affect "those back home" in very real and visceral ways so as to minimize the tendency to wage it.

I think it was Robert E. Lee who said, "It is good that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."