[Vision2020] drones

[Art Deco]

@Joe:

Where has that worked globally in the long run?

w.


On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>wrote:

> I think it is a nice world. Unfortunately some of the people in it are
> psychopaths and some of those end up running terrorist organizations.
>
> But most of the folks who join terrorist organizations are not
> psychopaths. How many innocent people from the Middle East have died since
> 9/11? Does anyone know the number? Such "errors" are a great tool when it
> comes to recruitment tool when it comes to building terrorist
> organizations. That is the pragmatic reason for being against drone
> strikes. In the end, it is a zero sum game: we're creating as many enemies
> as we're killing off. Actually, that is an underestimate. We're likely
> creating more enemies than we are killing off.
>
> The fact is, very few people respond toward aggression with anything other
> than more aggression. That doesn't make them bad, just human. But it does
> mean that if you want to stop aggression you should try another approach.
>
> On Feb 12, 2013, at 4:21 AM, Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sunil,
>
> I cannot defend all the individual uses of drones.  There is without doubt
> horrible consequences to innocent people.  Nor do I have nearly enough
> information to analyze whether each drone attack as fits into the part of
> US foreign policy that is driven in part by self-defense.
>
> Have/are errors of judgment been/being made in the execution of that
> policy?  Most likely.  Faulty and very faulty intelligence combined with
> paranoiac, overzealous persons in certain positions are part of the
> problem.  [We have that problem with law enforcement in our own country,
> state, and county.]
>
> What about the policy itself?  Obviously it needs judicial oversight on
> matters of executing specific actions/attacks to help guard against errors
> and over zealousness.
>
> To the extent the policy forwards the goals of self-defense and other
> national goals, and what these other national goals should be, and whether
> the cost is lesser or greater than the benefit of the actions resulting
> from the policy goals are questions that no one can answer with certainty,
> it is a debate of issues which have been with us almost since the beginning
> of civilization.  We can hope that rigorous debate will help create better
> answers in the future.
>
> Few people (myself included) want to see innocent people killed and
> maimed;  it is a moral outrage.  Few Americans want other events of the
> nature of 9/11.  Can both goals be achieved?  I don't know; I hope so.
>
> We don't agree on this:  some drone attacks are justified given the
> credibility and high probability of the threat being addressed.
>
> We probably agree on this:  The policies driving drone should be very
> carefully reviewed to see if they really forward the alleged national
> goals, to see if those alleged goals are in our long term interest, to see
> if those long term goals can be morally justified, and to see if their are
> nicer, less destructive ways to achieve those goals.
>
> It'd not a nice world.  Neither for us nor, as you point out, the victims
> in other parts of the world of this lack of niceness.
>
> I have no intention of trying discourage you from pursuing your point of
> view, and in fact welcome it since the real issues that we are attempting
> to deal with are huge life/death/quality of life issues upon which
> humankind has made little progress with since the beginning of human or
> near human existence.
>
> w.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 1:10 AM, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com>wrote:
>
>> On 2/11/2013 8:56 AM, Joe Campbell wrote:
>>
>>> This is the trouble with wasting time on philosophical debates like gun
>>> control and gay marriage. There are things that all of us should rally
>>> around, issues that matter.
>>>
>> <[snip]>
>>
>> From WBUR Boston, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, 11 February 2013:
>>
>> The Obama Administration, Drone Strikes, And The Law
>>
>> The Obama administration’s argument on drone warfare. Even against
>> Americans. We push deeper on drones, killing, and the law.
>>
>> It’s been a great ride for advocates of America’s booming
>> kill-‘em-where-they-stand drone program. Kill lists. Targeted
>> assassination. Death from the sky. No muss, no fuss. All secrecy, and then
>> the public victory dance when a big al Qaeda kill is claimed, somewhere
>> “over there.” Even of American citizens.
>>
>> Barack Obama skewered George Bush and Dick Cheney for going
>> “extra-legal,” but President Obama has been the champion of drones. And
>> “don’t ask” has been the policy when it comes to legal rationale.
>>
>> This hour, On Point: we’re asking, about American law and death by drone.
>>
>> http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/**02/11/drone-strikes<http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/02/11/drone-strikes>
>>
>>
>> Ken
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>
>
>  =======================================================
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>


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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