A hypothetical question for anyone who supports the use of drones/summary executions

[Nuclear Unicorn]

30. The OP is so flawed as to be unanswerable. I reject the premise on several points

For one thing, I'm not long time supporter of summary executions; or even a short time supporter for that matter.

For another thing, a would-be dictator will manufacture such evidence as they require to affect their schemes. It doesn't really matter if they send a drone or a lone gunman or microwave my brain from outer space.

I suppose I could be mis-identified and a court of appeals process would be nice but I suppose that's the risk you live with if you're stomping around the hinterlands of Pakistan and Yemen.

As a matter of fact there is a constitutional prohibition to summary executions. However, killing people engaged in acts of war is not considered summary execution. This is known as a categorical error. You may want to call it that, and in some cases I might even echo your call, but unless you're mad at congress for failing to impeach Obama -- or you're mad at us for not calling on congress to impeach Obama -- I'm not sure what the grand display of indignation is supposed to accomplish.

Now, as to my question -- why does the fact it is a drone matter so much? There was chest-thumping aplenty when Osama bin Laden was dispatched and it was renewed on the anniversary of his dispatch. Had bin Laden been killed via a drone would that have diminished the hoots and high-fives? I doubt it. Are we supposed to flagellate ourselves over collateral damage when less than a century ago we would level entire cities, killing tens of thousands of civilians, to scratch a ball bearing factory? Feel free to call FDR a war criminal if that's your professed principle.

War strikes me as a nasty, horrible, vile, wasteful, cruel endeavour. It lowers good people and it elevates the evil. It ruins everything it touches. War is, as an essential fact, the engineering of destruction and killing on as broad and efficient front as possible. It seeks to either compel an enemy's surrender or outright destroy him if he refuses. It is not Monday Night Football where stats are compared and one season gives way to another. I have long held misgivings about our response to 9/11 in moral and practical terms.

However, if you're accusing Obama of being the sole, unilateral propagator of the on-going conflict please say as much. Please tell me and everyone here that you think al Qaeda and the others would disarm today and return to their homes to pursue peaceful ends if only Obama would stop antagonizing them. Please stop tip-toeing around these silly hypotheticals and just say what you actually want to see as a practical result. Until then, Obama will continue to fight the war as a war with all that entails.