TORTURE

In my classification, there are two types of torture: physical pain and mental pain.  The worst type is physical pain.  It seems hypocritical of us to try enemies for physical pain like waterboarding and then do it ourselves and say it legally is not torture.  Physical pain is torture.

Mental torture includes things like sleep deprivation which has been said to get the best results.  Our enemies have used it and we adopted it.  I'm not sure it is a crime.  I would tend to say it isn't.  I don't know what long term damage it does to the recipients.

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 firebombings 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.

* It seems like we dropped it because we had it.

AFRICAN WAR ON TERROR

Since posting the Drones Of War* just yesterday( I have read a most important article about the war in Africa 'How 'Benghazi' Birthed The New Normal In Africa.**  I find this article to be a MUST READ!  It not only gives credence to what is said in The Drones Of War, but adds considerably to it.

A rapid response team seems to have saved an embassy attack in South Sudan, for example

Here is an excerpt:
"While daily US troop strength continent-wide hovers in the relatively modest range of 5,000 to8,000 personnel, an under-the-radar expansion has been constant, with the US military nowconducting operations alongside almost every African military in almost every African country andaveraging more than a mission a day."

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-drones-of-war.html
** http://www.thenation.com/article/179883/how-benghazi-birthed-new-normal-africa?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%2020140515&newsletter=email_nation_tuesday