Give Obama Credit: Drones Are Better Than Boots

[Kelvin Mace]

6. Well, no actually...

According to a recent report:

The Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killings using armed drones risks putting the United States on a “slippery slope” into perpetual war and sets a dangerous precedent for lethal operations that other countries might adopt in the future, according to a report by a bipartisan panel that includes several former senior intelligence and military officials.

The group found that more than a decade into the era of armed drones, the American government has yet to carry out a thorough analysis of whether the costs of routine secret killing operations outweigh the benefits. The report urges the administration to conduct such an analysis and to give a public accounting of both militants and civilians killed in drone strikes.

“There is no indication that a U.S. strategy to destroy Al Qaeda has curbed the rise of Sunni Islamic extremism, deterred the establishment of Shia Islamic extremist groups or advanced long-term U.S. security interests,” the report concludes.

The panel also said there was little reason to conclude that drones create a “PlayStation mentality” — turning war into a video game that eliminates the psychological costs to drone pilots.
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In fact, the report said, because drone pilots watch their targets sometimes for days and weeks before pulling the trigger — and then see them blown up on a high-resolution video screen — they are more susceptible to post-traumatic stress than pilots of manned aircraft.

The panel instead reserves the bulk of its criticism for how two successive American presidents have conducted a “long-term killing program based on secret rationales,” and how too little thought has been given to what consequences might be spawned by this new way of waging war.

The report also claimed that contrary to belief on the left, collateral deaths are less than "conventional" air strikes, but according to the Gen. Stanley McChrystal, "The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes ... is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one."

POTUS is a reasonable, logical and ethical man.

"Logical" is open for debate, but there is nothing "reasonable" or "ethical" about murdering people with drones, especially without due process or a formal declaration of war.

One of these days the "drone will be in the other country" and a terrorist group or foreign group will use a drone to attack people on American soil, kind of like the did 13 years ago.