THE DRONES OF WAR - II

I have written on drones before and my views haven't changed.*  An excerpt is below:

People speculate on how more modern parts of warlike drones - will be viewed in 10 years, largely because of collateral damage.  It is naive to think that using group troops instead of drones would result in no collateral damage or even less collateral damage.  Plus how many of our troops are you willing to sacrifice to get the target?  I  support drones, but not indiscriminately.  If in 10 years it is decided that they should be illegal, then so be it.

It is incredible to think that war should be done in a surgical manner involving only military personnel.  War is messy and violent.  In WW-II, how would you classify the Dresden and Tokyo fire bombings and the Hiroshima and especially Nagasaki* atomic bombs?  Such events were not made against military targets but in an attempt to break the will of civilians and their leaders.


Since troops are taught to kill, not all are well behaved and there are civilian casualties from our troops aside from war and they also leave behind children they have fathered either through "love" or rape.  And it isn't just the woman of the invaded country that are at risk but our own women serving in war zones as well.

Drones may also be used in cases where we would be reluctant to send troops, but maybe should to get some bad guys.

There is the claim that, since no American lives are lost using drones instead of troops to get who we think are bad guys, there will be a temptation to use drones more than we would have if we were using troops.  Yes, I think this is a danger, but one we must face.  It could have been said that we would use atomic bombs more to settle scores more than troops, but we haven't done so although at times, there are those who wanted us to do so.  So I think the temptation to overuse drones can be handled.

I think that when civilians go into war zones to do some good, they must accept the possibility of capture (kidnapping) or death.  To think that you can just safely wander around in a war zone with no threats to life or limb is just incredible.  War is a failure of humanity, but, unfortunately, it is real.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-drones-of-war.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/12/torture.html