Edit:
Yikes, the downvote brigade is swift. Here is what I'm saying: Compared to traditional war. Where we lose tens of thousands of people or more on both sides, targeted drone strikes are a net positive. I'm not for perpetual war in the middle east, but realistically speaking we can't just pull out everywhere and targeted drone strikes are better than conventional responses.
I agree, we should fix our diplomacy and hopefully we'll live in a world without drones one day. But in the mean time, fixing our prisons is more important.
Even "more targeted" would be sending in operatives to only kill those directly identified as combatants; no collateral damage at all to civilians, double-tap to the head and job done. Mossad used .22 pistols from point-blank distance for this purpose as their bullets posed no danger of exiting the skull and injuring bystanders.
But the USA doesn't do that, at least not for run-of-the-mill bad-guys, apparently because they consider the life of a soldier-citizen more valuable that a non-citizen.
That's what causes such distaste. One guy controlling a drone from Nevada is considered more important than some human-shield hostages in Pakistan.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-am-on-the-us-kill-list...
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone...
That no more an excuse than "we were following orders" has been.
That is to say, how peaceful is it to put Damocles swords over people? Maybe it is similar mine laying which was also promoted as a form of peacekeeping, done by neutral countries during world war 2. Surgical, targeted activity, against combatants that are currently a threat against civilians. Just don't mind how it effected fishermen when 1% of those mines got loose and started to drift.
Or for example my fathers house being bombed in ww2 - they lived close to the biggest spitfire plant in the UK.
An attempt to give an analysis would be asking: what was the good reason to do it? I think that the answer to that question in the case of the drone strikes is not satisfactory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_US_dr...
And that's OK because?
Not to mention the absolute horror that is Death Row, even without execution.
Not to mention that having 5 times more prisoners per capita than any other country (or 99% of other countries) is already a bad thing. Or the horrific prison conditions for a developed western country, including private prisons and forced labour.
Or the absolutely astounding (compared to any developed Western country) numbers of police shootings...
I can't understand why American society has this need for narrow-focus in ONE specific issue at a time, is there a reason for this cultural approach?
This isn't an American phenomena, it's a human one. EVERYONE can only focus on one issue at a time. It's a delusion that we tell ourselves that we can focus on more than one thing at a time:
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2012/04/24/yanss-podcast-episod...
(That doesn't mean we can't talk about one and then talk about another, which is probably what you meant. But you still have to do one at a time, or make a comparison, you can't just consider all issues simultaneously)
Why do international megacorporations like it so much? Probably some tangential hangover of union busting.
If that means what I think it means I'm sure you have some more valuable insights to share on the topic, biased or not.
Stopping going to war is much harder and there are only a few countries that have done so. [2]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_countryDrone strikes just come out of nowhere and with no warning when you are having a nap or sitting down to a cup of tea or attending your cousins wedding because someone with a dossier on the other side of the world decided you had to be killed without any of the above recourses to argue your case.
Then you also have the process of appeals which slowly torture you with uncertainty until you are finally executed.
In the end, somebody die of course.
Pretty sure no one has fully recovered from a Hellfire missile through their kitchen or car window when someone checks the dossier later and goes "Oops, that was the target's brother, who happened to have his wife and kids with him at the time..."
This was the experience of people threatened by the Nazi V-weapons ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-weapons ), and it is still the fear of people threatened with aerial bombardment.
You are implying that one way of dying is better than the other but what do you know about the stress of living in Syria or Afghanistan? Have you ever taken a life?
If you're using that kind of rhetoric itself, why are you pointing it out as if it's a flaw in someone else's reasoning?
(My opinion on the subject is that neither the death penalty nor drone strikes should continue.)
I think it is much harder for the person I was responding to to prove that somehow being on Death Row is more stressful than living in a war zone.
...and I take it by your comment that it is perfectly fine if another country sends drones into the US to take out 'suspected operatives'?
But drone strikes and other military actions are distinctly outside the realm of criminal law. It is a category error to try to apply the concepts of a 'fair trial' to these situations.
There are entirely different set of rules and agreements that are associated with armed conflict. Even the moral/ethical arguments are entirely different within the context of armed conflict vs criminal law.
One of the reasons our public discussion on these issues is so muddled is that these two contexts are often confused.
As an example, many critics of the US policy regarding detainees at Guantanamo Bay will argue that we have failed to give them a 'fair trial'. But that is attempting to insert criminal law concepts into an armed conflict. It isn't necessary to prove that a crime has been committed in order to detain people in an armed conflict. Different rules apply.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't arguments to be made against the detainee program, but those arguments need to be made in the scope of the legal framework accorded armed conflict not in the scope of the legal framework for criminal activities.
I cannot point to a stranger in the street and say "That man is a murderer" and have an official immediately go over and dispatch him with extreme prejudice.
If we say that 'point and kill' executions are OK outside the realm of formal war, then pretty much _everyone_ in the world is living with a sword of Damocles over their heads.
What "suspected operatives" in the US would you be talking about?
You know, the EXACT same definition that is used to select targets for US drone strikes.
Can you answer these questions for us? Do we strike targets without high enough precision, or wrongfully? Who exactly are we fighting? Can you link us to some sources we might not have already seen?
Yes, there have been lives snuffed out with drones, and yes, there might have been collateral damage. I think it's safe to assume in most cases it's a "them or us" situation.
"War is hell." - Sherman, and yes it's an ironic quote because like the earlier context it contains, I've never experienced war.
That has been shown to be true, whether in Yemen, Iraq or Afghanistan.
That doesn't mean that 'anything goes' or that there aren't arguments to be made to minimize civilian casualties or just plain strategic arguments against the practices, it just means that it isn't helpful to try to frame the discussion as if we are talking criminal actions.
That was my point, even if I didn't make very well.
The American government isn't supposed to be some even-handed dispenser of global justice; its job is to protect American citizens and their interests.
Are you implying that you can dispense with human rights when it comes to foreign civilians? I am also very frightened by the fact that you are, apparently, condoning it to "protect [American citizens] interests". I hope that interests means safety here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrajudicial_killing#United_S...
Not so bad compared to drone strikes: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/dron...
The really horrifying thing to me is that drone strikes aren't even a serious topic this election cycle. HRC is in favor for more. Trump wants to commit war crimes. Perhaps I am biased because I helped to do a lot of them.
In the end it comes down to the same thing, judging the value of other people's lives, or perhaps more callously never thinking about their lives at all.