Senate Drops Bid to Report on Drone Use

[Core Imposter]

I am deeply disturbed by this. In my mind the use of drone attacks has as many potential costs as any strategy we could utilize.

The Senate has quietly stripped a provision from an intelligence bill that would have required President Obama to make public each year the number of people killed or injured in targeted killing operations in Pakistan and other countries where the United States uses lethal force.

The move highlights the continued resistance inside the government about making these operations, primarily carried out using armed drones, more accountable to public scrutiny. In a letter to the Senate earlier this month, James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, expressed concern that a public report would undermine the effectiveness of the operations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/w...ire-disclosure-on-drone-killings.html?hp&_r=0

I think it would be paramount to use drone attacks very sparingly. It is appalling to recognize the total incapacity of our leadership to understand the effect that drone use has on the population. We are multiplying the number of terrorists every time we deploy one of these weapons. It is madness to use them indiscriminately as appears to be the desire if not the current deployment.

This one will come back on us with a vengeance.

 

[Commodore]

I am deeply disturbed by this. In my mind the use of drone attacks has as many potential costs as any strategy we could utilize.

The Senate has quietly stripped a provision from an intelligence bill that would have required President Obama to make public each year the number of people killed or injured in targeted killing operations in Pakistan and other countries where the United States uses lethal force.

The move highlights the continued resistance inside the government about making these operations, primarily carried out using armed drones, more accountable to public scrutiny. In a letter to the Senate earlier this month, James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, expressed concern that a public report would undermine the effectiveness of the operations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/w...ire-disclosure-on-drone-killings.html?hp&_r=0

I think it would be paramount to use drone attacks very sparingly. It is appalling to recognize the total incapacity of our leadership to understand the effect that drone use has on the population. We are multiplying the number of terrorists every time we deploy one of these weapons. It is madness to use them indiscriminately as appears to be the desire if not the current deployment.

This one will come back on us with a vengeance.

Nope. I was in the Army and I can tell you drones were one of our most effective intelligence collection and lethal targeting assets. Also collateral damage from drone strikes is a lot lower than a conventional air strike or sending in ground troops for a clearing operation. We also do not use them indiscriminately, and the fact that you think we do shows you do not know the first thing about how drones are used or how the military operates.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Surely it is a bad idea to allow something without any other-party control (eg senate), when it involves orders to kill? As in this drone business.

To allude to a supposedly benevolent leadership controlling the killing machines, well, is not a good stance on such issues.

 

[Commodore]

^Surely it is a bad idea to allow something without any other-party control (eg senate), when it involves orders to kill? As in this drone business.

To allude to a supposedly benevolent leadership controlling the killing machines, well, is not a good stance on such issues.

But there is actually a lot of oversight when it comes to drone use. In fact, there is a lot of oversight when it comes to conducting just about any military operation. It's not like we were a bunch of cowboys out there just doing whatever the hell we wanted and shooting at anything we wanted.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Maybe, but drones are machinery and surely a lot less people 'in-the-know' are needed so as to order/materialise a drone strike, next to an actual warband strike. So it gets even easier to manipulate if it is so secret and away from the public or the regulators voted by the public.

 

[Millman]

Or better yet...

 

[peter grimes]

@commodore:
Do you think reporting the numbers killed would undermine the drones' effectiveness?

I don't trust a word that comes out of Clippers lying mouth.

If anything, it could only help correct people's impressions. Publish the number, then show how many would have been killed by ground troops or traditional air strikes.

 

[Commodore]

@commodore:
Do you think reporting the numbers killed would undermine the drones' effectiveness?

I don't trust a word that comes out of Clippers lying mouth.

If anything, it could only help correct people's impressions. Publish the number, then show how many would have been killed by ground troops or traditional air strikes.

No it wouldn't undermine the effectiveness of drone strikes and I'm not entirely against reporting kill numbers to the Senate. What I am arguing against is Core Imposter's attempt to make it seem like we are just wholesale slaughtering people over there with our drones. This is simply not the case and it is gross exaggeration and intellectually dishonest to suggest it is the case.