ITH Poker Forum

[darvon]

Can we get some Euro comments?

I would think "The Troubles" in N. Ireland would raise some similar issues.

[Bullajami]

This doesn't strike me as much of a thought problem. The drone pilot is a valid military target. It would delight me if the terrorists would go after valid military targets, but this is quite rare. They prefer soft (defenseless) targets full of pink pudgies - putting the 'terror' in terrorist.

Does that mean murder charges would not be in the cards for our hypothetical terrorist?

You asked if it was ethical, not if it was criminal. I suspect this would be handled by the criminal justice system, but I am OK with it being handled by the military.

Well, and where the government lacks the ability to resist or we don't care what they think. There are plenty of potential targets in Saudi Arabia, for example, that the Saudis will not arrest and there is a 0% chance we bomb them.

I'll take your word for it.

This is the heart of the issue. If we had WWII today, would we expect Switzerland to arrest Germans soldiers?

Weren't the Swiss neutral?
I understand what you are writing, and I tend to agree with you about treating the terrorists as foreign combatants, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you're making it out to be. There are distinct differences between al-Qaida and the Wehrmacht, and those differences merit debating whether or not we pursue the same solution for the current problem as we did for the former one. (Which, to my delight, we are doing here.)

[darvon]

I understand what you are writing, and I tend to agree with you about treating the terrorists as foreign combatants, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you're making it out to be. There are distinct differences between al-Qaida and the Wehrmacht, and those differences merit debating whether or not we pursue the same solution for the current problem as we did for the former one. (Which, to my delight, we are doing here.)

Oh I agree 10000%. But we aren't having a debate, because one side doesn't see an issue. Nobody in the L camp is espousing a debate on which method would be better. The assumption that Criminal Prosecution is the only moral means is locked down and not open for debate. The only debate is can we reign in those military actions to get the combatants into the Criminal system.


And the L camp gets away with it because we haven't had to face the hard choices of invasionary war for 200 years, so everyone assumes it doesn't exist.


When 911 happened, the L camp had to sit quietly during a period of "Super Patriotism" until CNN could slowly work their magic on the Vast Majority.

But is wasn't "Super Patriotism. It was because the Vast Majority viewed the attack as an act of invasionary war and wanted a Response of War, not of Kojak. If we had some invasionary wars in recent history this would be better sorted out.

[leofric]

Can we get some Euro comments?

I would think "The Troubles" in N. Ireland would raise some similar issues.

I think the N Ireland issues are/were different (although sometimes the more I think about maybe they aren't!).

It could be viewed as purely political or purely religous but ultimately its a mixture of both. In effect there was a significant minority of Irish people who were happy to be part of Great Britain, whether this was originally all based on their religous beliefs as well is probably lost in time. Ultimately it comes down to a dispute over land - while the disputes were confined to N Ireland it was considered "ok" but the whole point of terrorism is to cause terror so it inevitably spread which is "not ok".

Since this is still really just a dispute over a piece of land its difficult to justify killing IRA members since this could be seen as an attack on all catholics or on the remainder of mainland Ireland. Of course it would be easier to justify during the attacks on mainland Britain but even then it was more a case of bringing those responsible for the attacks to justice rather than seeking to destroy the entire IRA.

In the US example, the terrorists are attacking US ideology rather than seeking to rid NY of all those nasty infidels, hence it can be seen as a wider attack on the Country as a whole rather than simply over a strip of land. (This assumes we ignore the role of Israel in maybe stoking all this hatred up but I leave that for others to decide - I've done enough thinking!)

[darvon]

Did UK use military action or criminal prosecution?

[nsidestrate]

Did UK use military action or criminal prosecution?

Yes.

[darvon]

Hey, I'm trying to learn something.

There's always one in the crowd.

[nsidestrate]

Hey, I'm trying to learn something.

There's always one in the crowd.

My sense is that they used the judicial system, infiltrated the IRA with agents of their spy network, and deployed their military in force. There is vigorous dispute over questions that they in effect acted as allies of and provided intelligence to the various loyalist paramilitaries (almost certainly true) or that they participated in sanctioned violence against the IRA that amounted to murder (certainly true that elements of the army participated, see for instance Glenanne gang but unlikely that these kinds of activities were officially sanctioned) to continued allegations of shoot on sight policies within the military (I have no idea, but it wouldn't shock me if it was authorized sometimes).

[PauliF]

I honestly feel strange about this...

on all levels I cannot find the liberal leftie in me at all...

I like it intuatively...

I like it from a boys own toys point of view...

I like it because this war... this "global terror war" ... is a new kind of war....

I like it because when the insurgants clearly had the upper hand.... I mean hijack aeroplanes and fly them into important buildings.... wowsers.....

genius.,. really... ..... so whilst we were all bithcin about increased airport frisks and whatnot...

what happened was the US military (with a bit of help from us and especially the special kind of boffins they keep at BAE).... they just got on with it and...

basically said... "Retort Mr Terrorist.... OH Retort".... I will call your fly jumbo jets into buildings... and I will raise you a shit storm...

you aint getting on no more planes Mr Terrorist... I am frisking... every one... I am frisking my grandma... fat ginger twins from Iowa... I am friskin my congressman....

you Mr Terrorist... are not getting on any planes....
and wait I dont raise you just that... I raise you supersonic frickin remote control killer drones...

operated by a crack team of America's brightest raised on a diet of video games and misinformation....

the killer killler planes are frickin hooked into a ready made sattelite system...

I strike you down wherever I choose.... any time ... any where.... Mr Terrorist

you plot... you even think of plotting... zap... eat that....

no one cannot like that... really deep down....

I like it because after all that.... the West is still not anything like all in.....

I like it because of the irony.... oh the irony .... planes vs planes.... I dont think symmetry will be lost on future historians...

I like it because it says Mr terrorist what is your move? four bet? I dare you....

I like it because it is daring... it is clever... very clever and very cool....

I like because as a liberal I should want the West to win this thing for sure....
I like it beacuse this war aint over but the balance of power is swinging back to the good guys...

I like it because sometimes I like to disagree with the liberal establisment...

sometimes... due process .... yada yada....

I like it because.... Mr Terrorist .............. Bazinga

[CroMagnon]

I like it because.... Mr Terrorist .............. Bazinga

+1. Not entirely painting my own picture, but a good piece of it, and damn fun to read.

[PizzaByNight]

I am also somewhat surprised President Obama is comfortable with the policy of preemption, given my perception that most of his supporters have a dove (vice hawk) point of view.

Anyone have any thoughts on the subject? Any Obama supporters happy with this change you can believe in?

My guess is that an emphasis on drones and preemption could be palatable to a liberal if it carries with it the prospect of significantly less future dollars being allocated to military spending and more $$ available to spend on social programs.

[darvon]

I somewhat disagree. I think it is more palatable to everyone if it doesn't risk American lives.

For 50 years America has shifted on the Tech vs people scale in war even if it costs a lot more $$$. Now we are about 6 sigma to the tech side.

[nsidestrate]

I somewhat disagree. I think it is more palatable to everyone if it doesn't risk American lives.

In terms of drone attacks vice traditional bombing runs, you are clearly correct that this is a massive driver from everyone's point of view. If we had a pilot downed in Iran and captured by their forces, we'd have a very serious change in the situation. In fact, it might have pushed us into a massive escalation of the conflict. It would be a potential leading news story every single day from the day the pilot was captured until the day they were released. This would make us orders of magnitude less likely to ever attempt the mission.

As it is, we can start out denying that Iran really found anything. Once that doesn't work, we can then claim that it must have been some kind of malfunction and the drone just wandered into their airspace by accident. Even once we tacitly admit we are actively flying drones over Iran in volume, no one (outside of Iran!) seems to consider this a provocative action or even care a great deal. I was surprised that Obama eventually acknowledged the program and said something like we keep a very tight control of where and how we use these drones.

Its unclear to me why we keep demanding the return of the downed drone. It seems certain that will never happen, why bother asking?

[nsidestrate]

Also, since there have been reports of bomb strikes in Iran and we admit that we are sending military aircraft into their airspace on an ongoing basis, does that mean we are "at war" with Iran? What legal basis could we possibly have for that? Is that why we now have this remarkable claim in the US Senate?

U.S. intelligence agencies said Tuesday that they now believe Iranian leaders are willing to launch attacks against American targets.

The top U.S. intelligence official, James R. Clapper, told a Senate hearing that a purported Iranian plot to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in Washington in the fall convinced U.S. officials that leaders in Tehran are increasingly likely to support bombings on U.S. soil, especially if they feel that their hold on power is threatened.

"Some Iranian officials, probably including supreme leader Ali Khamenei, have changed their calculus and are now willing to conduct an attack in the United States," said Clapper, director of national intelligence.

[Bullajami]

Has Pauli been at the Scotch again?

... and we admit that we are sending military aircraft into their airspace on an ongoing basis...

The CIA is not the military.