[Vision2020] drones

Tue Feb 12 06:57:10 PST 2013

What is the evidence that the atrocities you defend are working, Wayne? 

Sunil

Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:43:44 -0500
From: art.deco.studios at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] drones

Your response in the form of a question is simply a failure to give reasonably requested evidence for a position you advocate.  

If you are suggesting an alternative to what is going on, and I sincerely hope there are many better alternatives, then you need to give some evidence that your suggestion will work.

w.

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 9:37 AM, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com> wrote:

Can you tell me an instance where someone tried this strategy globally and it failed? I'm not saying it always works. I'm not suggesting we always be Chamberlain to to the world's Hitlers. But who is Hitler in this case, now that we've killed off most of the despots?

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 6:18 AM, Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com> wrote:

@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

Ken

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Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
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=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet,

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art.deco.studios at gmail.com

=======================================================

 List services made available by First Step Internet,

 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.

               http://www.fsr.net

          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com

=======================================================

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

=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet,
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
               http://www.fsr.net
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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