ITH Poker Forum

[Bullajami]

The United States, for those who might not know, has a new favorite weapon - The Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, commonly referred to as a Drone.
NY Times article on CIA drones

Essentially it allows the U.S. to track, fix and attack terrorist targets from a safe and very difficult to detect distance.

While I am confident the terrorists are plotting mean and nasty things, I am not 100% comfortable with the policy of preemptively assassinating them for it. Not only because you'll never have an error-free process that only kills certified terrorists*, but it also strikes me as unethical to strike remote parts of the world just because we can do it with relative impunity. There's never any video of the explosions, so these acts of war receive scant press coverage and almost no public reaction.

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.

Until Monday, Mr. Obama, who has overseen a dramatic expansion of the use of drones in Pakistan and on a smaller scale in Yemen and Somalia, had spoken only indirectly about the program.

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

*Whatever that means.

[darvon]

1) Love drones. Perhaps if we gave them more intelligence and connected them all together in some sort of a skynet. Whaddya think?

2) Preemption. One of the problems with where we sit now in how we treat terrorism is the fundamental difference between war and crime. Somepeople want to deal with foreign nationals blowing up US buildings by capture and trial, as if it were a crime. Some want to deal with the same as war and use military action.

It is a difficult issue. If the perp were a country, we would call it war. But when it is a group of people, even if it is a VERY LARGE group of people but not a geography, some want to call it a crime.

I lean more towards military action. I think anytime the group gets bigger than 100, its military.

As far as preemption, you get into two issues. Military action over time without a declaration of war, and war without countries. If a large organization, like Amway or the Catholic Church, sent over demolition experts to hit our cities, can we declare war on a group? What happens if the group is secret, like Skull and Bones, or the Masons?

I still think it military, but would think that Gulf of Tonkin resolution still holds (is that the right one?).


So if we are at war, or pre-war with these Amway insurgents, then preempt them, just like any other soldier. But 180 days and then you have to go to Congress for a declaration of war on Amway.

[Bullajami]

Thanks for engaging. More questions.

Does it matter that the CIA is conducting strikes and not the military? Do you lump it all together as "military action"? (I suspect international law makes a distinction, but I am not well-versed in such things.)

Does it matter that the evidence indicating someone had earned a preemptive strike will probably never get a public review?

Are we confident we are striking only terrorists planning attacks on the US? Would it be OK to make a few strikes on the political/insurgent opponents of the Yemen, Pakistan, or Afghanistan regimes in order to acquire and maintain drone basing rights? They'd be happy to label them "al-Qaida" for us.

How many "oopses" are acceptable?

Can we collapse a terrorist's house on his head if his family is also inside?

[darvon]

Does it matter that the CIA is conducting strikes and not the military? Do you lump it all together as "military action"? (I suspect international law makes a distinction, but I am not well-versed in such things.

I actually hadn't thought about it, but probably yes. The military has rules and procedures for killing people and breaking things. We probably should follow them. Which means that intelligence should be under the military, which is a debate that happened 60 years ago.

Does it matter that the evidence indicating someone had earned a preemptive strike will probably never get a public review?

Nope. This is not an evidentury proceeding. When we bombed a German city, we only needed evidence so as to not waste the strike. It is not a guilty/innocent issue anymore than military actions strive to avoid collateral damage.

Are we confident we are striking only terrorists planning attacks on the US? Would it be OK to make a few strikes on the political/insurgent opponents of the Yemen, Pakistan, or Afghanistan regimes in order to acquire and maintain drone basing rights? They'd be happy to label them "al-Qaida" for us.

Nope. You gotta actually bomb the named enemy. not the political enemies of allies which aren't the named enemy. This administration also cannot bomb FoxNews for the same basic reasons. How you handle Hitler's bank is a normal decision of war. Same here.

How many "oopses" are acceptable?

None. Collateral damage is not acceptable, but the measures which you take to avoid them are limited by decisions on risk/benefit.

Can we collapse a terrorist's house on his head if his family is also inside?

Same as bombing Hitler's home. Collateral damage decisions are made all the time.

[nsidestrate]

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.

Until Monday, Mr. Obama, who has overseen a dramatic expansion of the use of drones in Pakistan and on a smaller scale in Yemen and Somalia, had spoken only indirectly about the program.

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

On most subjects of international relations, this Obama supporter is unhappy with the direction he actually took as compared to the positions he claimed pre-election. Of particular dissatisfaction for me are Guantanamo, Libya, Iran, and the apparent new reality that we claim the right to use military force against anyone we claim is a "terrorist" anywhere in the world that lacks the will or ability to prevent us from doing so.

I fear that the definition of "terrorist" has gone the direction of the definition of "communist" in the old days. Roughly, it seems to mean any Muslim who takes political positions in opposition to America. I'm exaggerating somewhat, I think.

As a thought problem, would it be ethical for terrorists to shoot a kid in Arizona who pilots a drone when he pulls into his driveway at home after a shift at work? Would a car bomb that also killed his wife and kids be "collateral damage?"

[nsidestrate]

Does it matter that the evidence indicating someone had earned a preemptive strike will probably never get a public review?

Nope. This is not an evidentury proceeding. When we bombed a German city, we only needed evidence so as to not waste the strike. It is not a guilty/innocent issue anymore than military actions strive to avoid collateral damage.

But in this (as well as your Hitler example) we are at war with the entire nation state. If we claim there is a coalition of bad guys who are out to get us, is there no burden to prove the guys we kill were really part of the bad guys? Your position that collateral damage and "oops" moments are unacceptable are at dramatic odds with this view. It is extremely easy to mistake one guy for another from an aerial view. We've famously accidentally blown up an innocent caravan of civilians in a tragedy of misinterpretation that we had under surveillance from drones for hours. I think we can be quite confident that errors are made in all phases of these operations. People are falsely accused of being terrorists by informants with a grudge or their actions misconstrued by those watching the drones or individuals misidentified as someone else or the target designation goes awry or the missile malfunctions or innocents wander into the wrong place at the wrong time. Supporting attacks by drone is supporting these kinds of mistakes because they are the inevitable byproduct of war. We can and do strive to minimize the mistakes, but they happen. Without any meaningful review, we can't even assess how often. Where targeting relies on intelligence from our allies (which I believe to be a key component of the targeting process nearly everywhere, it is certainly true that we rely heavily on Pakistan to ID targets in Pakistan) you have no way to assure that their goals always align with ours. In Africa in particular, the identification of which rebel groups are "terrorists" has been remarkably fluid.

[nsidestrate]

I planned not to engage in this discussion because I'm going to be traveling a great deal for the next few days, but I finally couldn't resist. I may not be very responsive.

[darvon]

Of particular dissatisfaction for me are Guantanamo, Libya, Iran, and the apparent new reality that we claim the right to use military force against anyone we claim is a "terrorist" anywhere in the world that lacks the will or ability to prevent us from doing so.

I fear that the definition of "terrorist" has gone the direction of the definition of "communist" in the old days. Roughly, it seems to mean any Muslim who takes political positions in opposition to America. I'm exaggerating somewhat, I think.

As a thought problem, would it be ethical for terrorists to shoot a kid in Arizona who pilots a drone when he pulls into his driveway at home after a shift at work? Would a car bomb that also killed his wife and kids be "collateral damage?"

My point and yours are not in opposition. I view this as war. You raise the moral issues raised in war.

Would it be right to kill the kid in Arizona? It is as right as a German spy killing the B-29 pilot stationed in Bedfordhire. Collateral damage? same.


There are two differences between the War on Terror (WOT) and traditional war (TW).

1) The combatants on the other side try to hide their "soldier" status.

This is just the concept of a Guerrilla war. The Non-Guerrilla side in a traditional war have the same issues of identification as we do in the WOT.


2) The combatants on the other side belong to a large group of people that DON't declare a piece of geography as sovereign. Thus some of the system we have built as a nation to formally announce/communicate with the enemy Nation have no one home on the other end of the line.

Even in TW, not all the members of the enemy nation take up arms. Yet when one of the member of the enemy nation DO take up arms against us, even if they don't wear a uniform, we consider them "soldiers". If in WWII a german banker made himself into a suicide bomber when visiting Wall Street, I think we would consider him an enemy soldier.

[darvon]

But in this (as well as your Hitler example) we are at war with the entire nation state. If we claim there is a coalition of bad guys who are out to get us, is there no burden to prove the guys we kill were really part of the bad guys?

My position is that we have the same burden in WOT as in TW. We try not to bomb the nursery in Berlin. We do NOT have a "burden of proof". Many items are both bad guy AND good guy. A rail depot in Berlin ships bullets and baby formula. Bombing it causes enemy civilian harm. This is the burden of war.

Our biggest issue with the WOT is that, because it is intellectually uncomfortable, we have omitted defining who we are at war with. We need a declaration of war. However we have used the concept of Criminal and Police Protection to avoid the national debate. But using that system simply doesn't fit with what we want to do militarily. We don't get to send drones pre-emptively against shoplifters. And we have to bring criminals to trial, whereas we simply kill enemy soldiers and break their assets.

Your position that collateral damage and "oops" moments are unacceptable are at dramatic odds with this view.

Sorry for the sloppy verbage. I don't think oopsies are unacceptable. I think TW and WOT are both war, wherein we, as humans who need to live with ourselves, weigh the oopsies with the military benefits. It's Risk/Benefit analysis, not moral absolutes. WAR is when we declare that against Citizens of X, oopsies ARE acceptable, regrettable but acceptable.

It is extremely easy to mistake one guy for another from an aerial view. We've famously accidentally blown up an innocent caravan of civilians in a tragedy of misinterpretation that we had under surveillance from drones for hours. I think we can be quite confident that errors are made in all phases of these operations. People are falsely accused of being terrorists by informants with a grudge or their actions misconstrued by those watching the drones or individuals misidentified as someone else or the target designation goes awry or the missile malfunctions or innocents wander into the wrong place at the wrong time. Supporting attacks by drone is supporting these kinds of mistakes because they are the inevitable byproduct of war. We can and do strive to minimize the mistakes, but they happen. Without any meaningful review, we can't even assess how often. Where targeting relies on intelligence from our allies (which I believe to be a key component of the targeting process nearly everywhere, it is certainly true that we rely heavily on Pakistan to ID targets in Pakistan) you have no way to assure that their goals always align with ours. In Africa in particular, the identification of which rebel groups are "terrorists" has been remarkably fluid.

Absolutely agree 1000%. Risks of war. Now one might argue we aren't doing a proper job of RBA, but I have no info to contribute to a discussion of that.

[darvon]

This whole issue boils down to the fact that, in order to avoid a moral discussion of WHO we are at war with, we want to treat WOT as a police matter.

And police matters beyond our borders are really non-sensical, but we haven't had THAT discussion either.

Which is why bringing killing back under the military might make real sense.

Plus the idea of fully armed EPA drones gives me the willies.

[darvon]

Back to the OPoster.

Who is the MILITARY allowed to kill in a foreign land, and under what restrictions is this ability?

[nsidestrate]

Back to the OPoster.

Who is the MILITARY allowed to kill in a foreign land, and under what restrictions is this ability?

It is the current US position that we are in a legitimate state of war with someone (whether that is specifically only al-Qaeda or it includes any "terrorist" is actually a bit unclear). The actual resolution provides "the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons" Emphasis mine.

The problem is that the last clause allows wide latitude. For instance, I think it could very easily be read as permitting an invasion of Saudi Arabia, although that would obviously never happen. This is the basis in international law for our actions in Africa against al-Shabaab, who are clearly ideologically allied with al-Qaeda and collaborate closely with them. But they weren't really a part of al-Qaeda (as far as I know, Bull may be able to correct me) prior to 9/11. Certainly you could much more directly connect the Kasmiri terror groups with al-Qaeda, but we aren't joining India in fighting those guys (again, as far as I know).

Anyhow, once a group has been designated a party that we are at war with, actions of the military are controlled by rules of engagement, essentially acting at the direction of the President. Folks in the military are not generally in the position of saying "Hey, I'm not convinced we have a legitimate legal basis for this engagement"

[kinnipak]

Back to the OPoster.

Who is the MILITARY allowed to kill in a foreign land, and under what restrictions is this ability?

It is the current US position that we are in a legitimate state of war with someone (whether that is specifically only al-Qaeda or it includes any "terrorist" is actually a bit unclear). The actual resolution provides "the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons" Emphasis mine.

Anyhow, once a group has been designated a party that we are at war with, actions of the military are controlled by rules of engagement, essentially acting at the direction of the President. Folks in the military are not generally in the position of saying "Hey, I'm not convinced we have a legitimate legal basis for this engagement"

Forgive my naivete, but it has always been my understanding that in order for the USA to declare an actual state of war, Congress has to agree. So what the "actual resolution" refers to is something that Congress has passed to allow the President to bypass having to bring Congress into the process of declaring war?

[darvon]

....This is the basis in international law for our actions in Africa against al-Shabaab....

I am sorry but I always grin when I hear that phrase. al-Shabaab always reminds me of....

[darvon]

Forgive my naivete, but it has always been my understanding that in order for the USA to declare an actual state of war, Congress has to agree. So what the "actual resolution" refers to is something that Congress has passed to allow the President to bypass having to bring Congress into the process of declaring war?

The Authorization for Use of Military Force [1] is a joint resolution passed by the United States Congress on September 14, 2001, authorizing the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001.