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5. I think that your reasoning about the constitution and democracy is sound

Last edited Sun Feb 10, 2013, 12:18 PM - Edit history (1)

. . . I'm not sure that Pres. Obama is using drones to 'advance democracy;' in that he expects democracy to be advanced behind their use. I think he's made the calculation that they are a more effective and efficient means of dealing with individuals he's convinced threaten the U.S. or our interests at home or abroad. I also believe he's made the calculation that the use of the drones is preferable (in the preservation of American troops' lives and limbs) to the deployment of military personnel or government agents who would carry out the task of apprehension or confrontation of these individuals.

Now, believing this is not an endorsement at all of the Obama drone policy. I'm strongly opposed to that choice. I don't think that opposing drones (and the CIA control over their operation) is enough. There is an entire 'war on terror' philosophy and practice that underlies the very idea of a need to pursue and kill or capture these individual suspects. Drones have evolved out of the military and government's response to Americans' aversion to sacrifices of troops outside of accepted and established theaters and fields of war.

I mean, after accepting that there is a problem with folks 'plotting' to do harm to America or our interests, there is little political room for our elected officials to be indifferent or oblique to all of that. What choices do they have, after accepting that there is a threat? They can opt for some sort of proxy pursuit of these suspects by other nations. That carries with it a lack of control over circumstances and means.

You can opt for some sort of declaration of military intent from Congress - like we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan - and troops can be mobilized. We can have a Somalia-like intervention where we send some quick-strike team into some harboring nation and stage a bin-Laden style mission.

We can wait for courts and other nations to reign in these individuals; much like we did with the individuals deemed responsible for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole; hoping we can keep something like 9-11 from following in those careful footsteps of ours.

My point is, once our elected officials and our military and intelligence agencies have identified a threat, they are challenged to act (politics these days demand dispatch and swift response). We're so deeply wedded to the perception and the reality of outside threats to the nation that it is inevitable that our government does more than just acknowledge them and move on.

Let's be real about this. The administration's embrace of the drones is more an acknowledgment of the political realities surrounding both the public's (experienced) anxiety about outside threats and their attitudes toward war and overt military action involving troops in the field, than it is some zeal to subvert the constitution.

Pres. Obama, evidently, sees drones as shorthand for the Iraq and Afghanistan invasion. He's accepted that there's a threat to the nation, and he's using drones as a substitute for deploying troops. It's more complicated than that, to be sure, but he obviously sees this as averting the disastrous deployments that marked and defined the previous administrations' terms; possibly obviating the need for the one he's trying to unravel right now.

Again, drones would not be my choice. If it were my call, drones would still be used for gathering weather info and other benign uses; not warfare. The collateral damage (killings of innocents) is just appalling. The effects, in the long run, in these regions and countries where we've used these drones, is counterproductive (as you say) to the promotion of democracy. If there was a threat that I accepted as valid, I'd want Congress involved in the response. (Is Congress any more responsible in all of this?)

But, if you ask me what I'd do about the perceived threats to the nation from abroad? After advocating diplomacy, I've got nothing; and, I strongly suspect that any expectation that our nation's restraint or comity in our approach to many of these individuals targeted will produce some sort of truce or armistice is just pissing in the wind.