AP IMPACT: study suggests drones kill far fewer civilians than many Pakistanis believe

[limpyhobbler]

45. I think I disagree with your position on drone strikes.

Geez, you sound like the rest of the jingoist idiots in this country. Full of piss and vinegar, willing to kill others for no good reason.

I'm not jingoistic. Not full of piss an vinegar. Also not willing to kill others for no good reason. I think your comments are getting kind of personal. By the way if you are saying these things about me then are you also saying them about the vast majority of the American people who agree there is a real terrorist threat in Pakistan.

"In a February 2012 poll, 83% of Americans (77% of the liberal Democrats) replied they support the drone strikes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan

Have you ever been to war? Have you ever cowered in fear as the bombs fell? Somehow I doubt it, otherwise you wouldn't be so consign others to death.

No. But I disagree with this formula where if somebody has experienced war then they will not support policies to attack terrorist groups. I don't think there is a real point there besides the personal dig against someone for not having experienced war.

We are fighting in a battle of ideas, not bullets, but instead we brought an army to this battle of ideas, and are consequently losing this fight.

How are we losing? I thought Al Qaeda had been decimated. We got Bin Laden. There have not been any successful major attacks in the US. If that's losing, what would be your definition of winning?

You don't win a battle of ideas by killing people, but by coming up with better ideas.

We do have much better ideas than the Talibans, AlQaedas, etc. We have the ideologies that underlie our way of life. I don't always agree with those ideologies, but they are certainly better than the ideas proposed by the Taliban.

We faced this situation once before, in Vietnam, and we lost, badly.

There are some valid comparisons to Vietnam but there are also some differences. I think the differences are greater than the similarities.

Every person we kill means we're losing this war of ideas, because every death means that another person, at least, is turned against us.

I don't believe it but I'm willing to maybe be convinced if you show me evidence that terrorist groups or religious militant groups are growing in size.

You don't win wars of ideas with bullets, but ideas.

I believe there are terrorist groups in that region that region who don't care about our ideas. They are all hopped up religion and they want to take over governments like in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons. I'm OK with stopping them by any means necessary.

(I suggest you read the Ugly American, an old, but still relevant classic).

Thanks for the suggestion.

Sure, we can scorch the earth and call it peace

What is this scorching the earth? You see earth scorching, I see fighting fascists.

but all we're doing is creating problems for ourselves in the future.

If we go into isolation mode that would create even worse problems in the future.

Have you no since of history?

Yes I have it.

Why do you think these people are attacking us to begin with?

I take them at their word. They say it plainly.
1) US support for Israel.
2) US support for Saudi and other oil kingdoms.
3) US support for other nation-states.

In other words, they view us as supporting repressive governments that are blocking them in their goal of establishing a global religious dictatorship. That's not a guess, that is the reason they give for attacking us. And they are correct, we have been doing that. In my opinion we mostly just do it to sell guns and get oil and protect Israel. So our motives in the region have been suspect to say the least.

Oh, yeah, because we've been fucking around in that part of the world for decades, killing innocents and destroying countries.

OK you have a good point there. But I'm still thinking we should attack terrorist groups. I perceive them as fascist militants hell-bent on bringing down governments and destroying civilization as we know it.

You think that more of the same is going to solve the problem?

No. I think we should change our role in the middle east (and everywhere) to a benevolent or at least a benign role where we do not seek to exploit other nations for their resources. We should not rob others of their natural wealth or encourage repressive governments.

You are woefully ignorant on this situation.

whatever.

Two million dollars. $2,000,000. That is how much it would cost to prevent 911. Looking back, would you have paid two million dollars to prevent 911?

I think this line of reasoning about the $2,000,000 is weird and might belong in creative speculation.

You see, we used the Afghan people, the mujahideen, to fight our proxy war against the Soviets back in the late seventies and early eighties. We provided them with arms, supplies and money, but little humanitarian aid. Still these people(including bin Laden), fought on and beat the Soviets. Once the peace held, we left, left the Afghan people to bury their dead, left them to rebuild their country, which had been blown back to the Stone Age.

I agree with that history lecture. Personally I think we were on the wrong side in the Soviet-Afghan conflict. We should have supported the Soviets instead. We could be living in a very different world today.

The mujahideen wanted, needed help, and turned to the US. But we wouldn't give it to them. The act that really pissed off bin Laden, the one thing that turned him against the West, was school funding. We, the richest country in the world, the one outside country who had benefited the most from the Afghan victory, refused to loosen our purse strings and provide two million dollars in order to build schools.

I don't really think it is accurate to portray Bin Laden as simply fighting for school funding. No offense but to me that sounds like goofy talk. Where did you hear this? What if they then asked for more money? But on the broader point that we should have remained engaged in Afghanistan after the Soviets left, I agree with that. I also agree social aid can be more effective than bombs.

So where is the disagreement? We seem to agree on many things? Except for that I think we should disrupt terrorist groups by any means necessary, and you think we should restrain ourselves from violence against them. Is that a fair assessment?

We're still involved in that war of ideas, and we're still losing it badly.

How are we losing the war of ideas? You think the terrorist groups have a better health care proposal or something? I'm still not following that. I think you are just saying that by using violence we are losing credibility in asking other people to lay down arms.

The only way we can win, the only way we can stop terrorism, is to stop the killing. Stop turning people against us out of rage and anger. Stop the killing, apologize for what we've done, and try to make amends.

My opinion is that if we stop disrupting terrorist groups, they will regroup and get stronger. I think they will try to take over whole countries and attack us in our own countries. The idea that if we be nice to them they will be nice to us doesn't add up for me. Sorry.

Your portrayal of who we're fighting is woefully inaccurate. We aren't fighting "fascist terrorist&quot whatever that is), but rather ordinary human beings who suddenly find themselves being invaded by a much larger military power.

Nope there are terrorist groups very active there. It may not be the textbook definition of fascism, but it's close enough for me. They are pretty similar to a nascent Nazi Party, or the KKK, or Aryan Nations, in my opinion. That's why I call them fascists. Why drag "ordinary human beings" into this? I guess they are ordinary. I'm not referring to the average residents of Pakistan. I'm talking about terrorist groups. Can't you make that difference in your thinking?

After all, the actual number of al Qaeda, the actual number of the Taliban at the beginning of this war was laughingly small. Less than two thousand people all told.

You say the Taliban was less than 2000 people. Doesn't make sense to me. Where did you hear that?

Yet we have unleashed our full military might on this country.

We certainly have not.

What would you do if you were in their shoes? Oh, yeah, like most people, you would join the military and fight back.

No. Speak for yourself. I would join a secular leftist democratic party and try to work with the international community and NATO forces to protect my family from the fascist Taliban. What happened to the war of ideas?

We're not talking terrorists here, we're talking about people fighting for their country.

I am specifically talking about terrorist groups. In my view they are not fighting for their country. If anything they are fighting to overthrow their country and replace it with a religious dictatorship. Pakistan is basically a semi-failed state. Left unchecked these extremist groups could stage a coup and take over the government there. I hope you can agree that would be a negative development.

In fact, the Afghan people would, justifiably so, call us the terrorist, since we invade their country without good reason

I think we did have a good reason.

use "Shock and Awe" to terrorize the people, and proceed to kill innocents and destroy a country, all for what? To bring justice to a literal handful of people? Sounds like terror to me.

You make a good and valid point. In my view targeted killings such as by drone strikes or special forces are better than the "shock and awe" campaigns. But you seem to be against all military activity in the area, no matter how targeted or precise. I would much rather be having a conversation about WHICH TACTICS we should use against these terrorist groups. Instead of WHETHER we should do anything, and merely trying to convince people that there is an actual threat.

And again, citing what political leaders, and even the brainwashed masses of American people, believe doesn't justify what we've done. After all, military and political leaders alike, Republican and Democrat, supported the Vietnam war for far too long. And the American people, well hell, just a few short years ago they voted a congenital idiot back into the highest office in the land.

Yeah you are right about that. I mentioned it because I know my view on this issue is a minority view on this discussion board, so I wanted to point out that in the broader community my view on drone strikes is shared by the vast majority of Democrats. I don't think much is accomplished by calling people we disagree with "brainwashed".

Sadly however, you are like far too many Americans, ignorant of our history, ignorant of other people, and in possession of only one answer to any problems, the military.

I think you are making a lot of unwarranted assumptions about me personally. We probably agree on most issues, but I just disagree with you on this one issue regarding the drone policy in Pakistan. And apparently maybe the broader issue of the justification for the war in Afghanistan. I'm certainly not "in possession of only one answer to any problems". Not sure what gave you that impression.

I suggest that you educate yourself, equip yourself with some other tools, so that you can start truly discerning what our problems are.

It is possible for informed people who agree on most things to still come to different conclusions on some issue. Apparently we have a disagreement about the correct policy towards terrorist groups in Pakistan. My views are always evolving and changing. Thank you for your valuable insight on the issue.