(Jeff Danziger’s website)
Tom Junod, “The Lethal President Sends His Regrets”:
… President Obama was not the first representative of the Obama administration to offer a thoughtful and rather tortured public apologia for drone strikes. He was merely the latest and possibly the last, and as such his speech was remarkably consistent with what has come before. When administration officials have spoken of targeted killing, they have always spoken in the language of limits. They have never spoken in the language of expansion. But expand targeted killing they have, to an extent that has made some of their characterizations of a program marked by “precision” and “deliberation” sound like either a folly or an outright falsehood. To an extent unimaginable just a year ago, the president yesterday took ownership of his own Lethal Presidency. But while he took ownership of the policy that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, he did not take ownership of the policy that killed al-Awlaki’s son Abulrahman. And while he took credit for the policy that has killed “dozens of highly skilled Al Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers, and operatives,” he never came close to taking credit for — or acknowledging — the policy that has killed people by the thousand.
The speech, then, was not only notable for what the president said. It was notable — primarily notable — for the fact that he said it. The danger of the Lethal Presidency has always been its assurance that its killings are moral because they are accomplished by moral men. And so what critics of the president’s drone policy might have hoped from yesterday’s speech was that he would not merely portray himself as a moral man but rather offer to do the moral thing and submit to legal structures outside himself and the power of his office. He did some of that, saying that he asked his administration to “review” the feasibility of “a special court to evaluate and authorize legal action” or “the establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch.” He also said that he was declassifying information pertaining to the four Americans killed by drone strike and promised not to sign any bill that would extend the Authorization for Use of Military Force. But mostly he did what he so often does, at his best and at his worst, using his own moral standing to advance an overarching moral vision instead of a simply political one — in this case, the end of the “war on terror” that he did not invent but has done so much to amplify and advance…
Alex Pareene, at Salon:
… Hopefully the end of the CIA’s drone program will mean the end of “signature strikes,” in which anonymous foreigners who merely look like they’re up to no good are murdered, with bombs, by our intelligence agency. The Times says Obama has signed a new “classified policy guidance” that “will sharply curtail the instances when unmanned aircraft can be used to attack in places that are not overt war zones.”
But the president also “plans to offer a robust defense of a continued role for targeted killings.” We already know the basic rationale for drone strikes: They necessitate less risk (of American lives) than conventional military action and they remove the apparently uncomfortable question of what to do with terrorists who can’t be charged with conventional crimes. For the Obama administration, drones provide a handy replacement for the Bush administration’s use of indefinite detention, which was highly problematic, as various inmates at our Cuban military prison could tell you.
By focusing almost solely on U.S. citizens killed, purposely or not, in drone strikes, the press and the president’s political opposition have essentially ignored the most compelling moral arguments against the codification of a drone assassination policy. There are reasons countries like the U.S. do not officially assassinate individuals (even if, yes, the CIA has done so in the past, often unsuccessfully). There’s blowback, there’s “collateral damage,” there’s the threat that our policy will make Americans targets of other countries using the exact same rationale, there’s the fact that our military’s definition of “imminent threat” is laughably broad, and there’s the fact that extrajudicial assassination of individuals proven guilty of no specific crime is a pretty direct contradiction to our democratic tradition, a tradition we are regularly (and correctly) calling superior to the alternatives offered by various Islamic extremists…
And then there’s this guy, talking to the NYTimes — “The Drone War Is Far From Over”:
WHEN people in Washington talk about shrinking the drone program, as President Obama promised to do last week, they are mostly concerned with placating Pakistan, where members of the newly elected government have vowed to end violations of the country’s sovereignty. But the drone war is alive and well in the remote corners of Pakistan where the strikes have caused the greatest and most lasting damage.
Drone strikes like Wednesday’s, in Waziristan, are destroying already weak tribal structures and throwing communities into disarray throughout Pakistan’s tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan. The chaos and rage they produce endangers the Pakistani government and fuels anti-Americanism. And the damage isn’t limited to Pakistan. Similar destruction is occurring in other traditional tribal societies like Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen. The tribes on the periphery of these nations have long struggled for more autonomy from the central government, first under colonial rule and later against the modern state. The global war on terror has intensified that conflict…
In recent decades, these societies have undergone huge disruptions as the traditional leadership has come under attack by violent groups like the Taliban, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia’s Al Shabab, not to mention full-scale military invasions. America has deployed drones into these power vacuums, causing ferocious backlashes against central governments while destroying any positive image of the United States that may have once existed…
Drone strikes have made Waziristan’s already turbulent conflict with the central government worse. Almost 3,500 people have been killed by drones in Waziristan, including many innocent civilians.
Those at the receiving end of the strikes see them as unjust, immoral and dishonorable — killing innocent people who have never themselves harmed Americans while the drone operators sit safely halfway across the world, terrorizing and killing by remote control….
(Ted Rall’s website)
Corner Stone
But would Pareene prefer bootsonnaground ™ instead?
For those are his two, and only two, options.
WereBear
Sigh. It is better to kill more people to accomplish the same thing?
And if the argument is that killing people accomplishes nothing, okay, let’s have that argument. Because that’s not the one we’re having now!
gogol's wife
@WereBear:
President Hillary Clinton’s policy will be one of total pacifism.
Corner Stone
@gogol’s wife: What’s amusing to me is that if President Hills did conduct this drone policy you would be peeing yourself in righteous indignation against it.
gogol's wife
@Corner Stone:
No. No, I would not. I have no irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton, and I would understand the constraints under which she would be operating.
Todd
Shorter Anne Laurie:
And that isn’t a compliment, by the way, even though this is your personal favorite trolling method.
Targeted drone strikes don’t endanger US troops (fuck this “honorable war making” fappage – it is only a unicorn fantasy brought about by the Mumia fellators on the left), and cause fewer collateral casualties than boots on the ground and dumb air strikes from USAF evangelicals. Looks to me like core leadership is gutted and organized terror actually diminished – a success by any measure.
I’m just sad that no drone strike will be called on McLaren or Greenwald, probably. The thought of GG squealing in terror in the final seconds of his life as the Hellfire shrieks in on his beach cabana gives me pleasure.
Marc
Yup, people would be far happier if we were dropping bombs or artillery shells on them. Clearly the drones are the problem.
You’d think that noticing that the rate of using them has dropped dramatically would count for something. Or that they replaced, well, bomber strikes under Bush. But for some folks the robots are uniquely evil. My suspicion is that the Obama=Bush crowd wanted some metric where he could be made to look worse, and if you ignore all of the other costs of war and include only drones you can scratch that particular itch.
Yatsuno
Yeah. We just need to get the fuck out of that part of the planet. In fact this is true for a lot of the parts of the planet.
MomSense
Between the hours working in the garden, the fresh air poisoning, and the beer I just drank–I’m in way too happy a mood for dronez.
gene108
If Pakistan wants drone strikes to stop within their borders, they can quit funding, arming and giving logistical and other forms of support for fucking terrorists.*
http://www.economist.com/blogs/clausewitz/2012/02/pakistans-security-state
*The link is about the support for the Taliban. This doesn’t go into the shit they’re pulling on with their eastern neighbor India.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
oh, this should be fun.
Corner Stone
@Todd:
You are my North Star. Brightly guiding me along my journey.
The prophet Nostradumbass
“Not Everybody Agrees Drones Are A Panacea” – does anyone, really?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@WereBear:
Wait! Reason? No way, man. It’s incumbent on us to help others write their own history no matter how much they hate us for doing so. And we write it with ordnance, baby. No discussion of why, just a discussion of methods, thank you very much.
Mnemosyne
@Yatsuno:
This right here. It’s not the drones. It’s the fucked-up foreign policy decisions. If we GTFO, the drone problem solves itself.
pokeyblow
Lordy, Danziger is a shitty cartoonist.
Corner Stone
@WereBear:
Killing an unending string of boogeyman #2’s while we further destabilize govts we really, probably don’t want to further destabilize?
Accomplish what “thing” did you have in mind?
burnspbesq
Sure, let’s continue to beat the statue that commemorates a long-ago dead horse.
Gin & Tonic
Killing people has been part of politics since about forever. Nothing new here.
Todd
@Corner Stone:
The only better part is that it would be President Closetcase Santorum giving the order, there having been no democrat pure enough for GG to offer written support to. In those final seconds, there would be time for GG to realize the utter pointlessness of his entire life, his complete absence of any accomplishment or completion of any task which could have made the world a better place – as the blast wave and heat reduce the physical matter of his body to molecules, it will render the world a better place for his absence.
Even then, the world will only be a modicum better (thereby highlighting his mediocrity in all things); it isn’t as if he is in the same league of asshole as Jabba the Rush.
Higgs Boson's Mate
CANNON, n.
An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
-Ambrose Bierce
Amir Khalid
@pokeyblow:
Still not as bad as Ted Rall.
rikyrah
wait hours for a new post and it’s about drones?
oy
Todd
Oh, and while I’m on the subject of paid pundits, can anybody tell me what singular accomplishments Pareene or Junod have had in life that qualifies them as authorities on matters of policy, whose voices must be heard an listened to and considered important? What organizations have they been responsible for?
Thanks a bunch in advance!
Omnes Omnibus
Bit of a strawman there, wouldn’t you say? Has anyone argued that drones are a panacea? I have seen arguments that they are better than other options, but that isn’t really the same as calling them a panacea.
Todd
@rikyrah:
Bolshevism is all about trashing moderation in policy, as success in moderation is antithetical to the dialectic.
In other words, Obama can’t be allowed to succeed with a quieter policy. He’s obligated to throw thousands of troops and airmen into mortal danger to show how much he supports him and wants to fight honorably.
Gin & Tonic
@Todd: I’ll bet a bottle of good hooch that if you stopped 100 people at random in the street perhaps one (if you’re lucky) would have heard the name Alex Pareene. So “listened to and considered important” is pretty circumscribed.
Hungry Joe
I can’t understand why drones are such an issue. Does the manner really matter?… When the subject is targeted killing, that is, and not “What is the best (‘best’!) way to go about doing it?” That’s something altogether different, and that argument (although it wouldn’t be mine) might go something like “It’s not sporting”/”It’s too cold and clinical.” I suspect the first employment of the longbow inspired similar chin-scratching.
In short: 1) Is targeted killing okay? If No, end of discussion. If Yes, then on to 2) What is the best way to go about it?
hildebrand
I am absolutely stunned, stunned I tell you, that Junod finds an Obama policy lacking.
eemom
@Todd:
Careful, there — she might call you out in one of her dreaded FP Smackdowns of Annoying Trollz….. and in her own words…..so Be Afraid.
MikeJ
Sunday strawman read.
I don’t think anybody thinks drones are a panacea, anymore than people think eating spinach is a panacea. Both might be very helpful though.
Roger Moore
@WereBear:
This. The problem with our drone war on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border is that we’re in a war on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, not that we’re carrying it out with drones.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Hungry Joe:
When Dr. Gatling first proposed his eponymous gun he wanted it to fire one inch square bullets. His idea was that a rapid firing gun whose ammunition would tear a human being to pieces would render war unthinkable.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hungry Joe:
When Thak first picked up a pointy stick and jabbed Ugg with it, Ugg was outraged that Thak wouldn’t fight fairly with handheld rocks.
On drones though, I think that we are doing enough damage to our national interest by using them that we should stop.
gnomedad
@Omnes Omnibus:
I do, I do! I think drones are a panacea!
WereBear
Very true. Demographics and health trends being what they are, I’m very likely to outlive him. So I’ll be seeing the end game…
The day his contract is not renewed.
The day he moves to internet, like Glenn Beck.
The day he’s not invited to CPAC.
The day his cache of kiddie porn is discovered.
The day he passes on, a bloated sack of protoplasm, screaming in fear of all his sins coming home to roost.
Hopefully, in that order. But I’m not fussy.
JWL
“And so what critics of the president’s drone policy might have hoped from yesterday’s speech was that he would not merely portray himself as a moral man but rather offer to do the moral thing and submit to legal structures outside himself and the power of his office”.
There it is.
President GW Bush.
Need I say more?
[time travel to January 20th, 2016, only to hear]: “I, Scott Koch Walker, do solemnly swear..”.
Need I say more?
Even so, I will. The nuclear age and the fear it birthed served to gut the Constitutional dictate that only Congress can declare war. That same fear has metastasized, and is the cancer that now threatens (at the very least) our (always dubious) bragging rights as the “..last, best hope of mankind”.
Baud
@gnomedad:
I heard that drones cure cancer.
Todd
@Gin & Tonic:
I know, which is why pundits aren’t deserving of the sweat off my balls, and why I wonder why AL insists on posting their goofy shit.
Whenever I think of paid pundits, I think of this scene, by the great Mel Brooks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl4VD8uvgec&sns=em
Dole Office Clerk: Occupation?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher.
Dole Office Clerk: What?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension.
Dole Office Clerk: Oh, a *bullshit* artist!
Comicus: *Grumble*…
Dole Office Clerk: Did you bullshit last week?
Comicus: No.
Dole Office Clerk: Did you *try* to bullshit last week?
Comicus: Yes!
Hungry Joe
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Dr. Gatling was probably wrong about that.
Todd
@WereBear:
Forget it – there could be videotape of Jabba snorting cocaine out of the asscrack of a dead underage rent boy (Jabba’s credit card having been physically swiped for payment at the location, his wet ink signature on the receipt which describes the party in detail), and his defenders would say that he’s just a flawed, fallen man, but that the hate he spews is culturally and morally timeless and thus important.
srv
As long as you have two completely seperate programs (CIA and DoD) with different lawyers and different rules, you are going to have a mess.
The CIA needs to get out of the ‘war’. Drones are too convenient/lazy a tool for covert FP means. This goes all the way back to our attempts on Nasarallah back in the 80’s – blowing up a couple hundred to miss one guy and damage a mosque.
Would that we had professionals in charge, but there’s no evidence that has ever been the case. They should release the Benghazi drone videos just to show how innefective they ultimately are in the real world.
raven
Cheery bunch.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Todd:
Yeah, that time he was popped for illegally obtaining Oxycontin and hydrocodone really hurt his career.
Josie
@Corner Stone: This is exactly what I was thinking. If there are people plotting terrorist attacks (and I believe there are) then we have to kill or capture them to stop them. This can only be done by drones, bombs or soldiers with guns. I vote drones – less collateral damage and fewer American soldiers killed or wounded. It may not be moral, but it is damn sure rational.
raven
I wish I had been closer to this hawk.
cyntax
@Hungry Joe:
They way we’re currently going about it blows. We’ve got a technology that radically alters our capabilities to conduct warfare and our policy, laws, and thinking hasn’t caught up yet. Just look at comments upthread about how if it wasn’t drones it would be artillery (really?) or bombs. It wouldn’t be either for reasons that should be pretty obvious. Artillery means boots on the ground within about 30-40 miles of the target and someone much closer than that to direct fire. Bombs mean aircraft that are much harder to sneak into another country’s airspace and all sorts of other issues both diplomatic and logistic in nature.
So we’ve got a transformative technology that we’re using like an older technology and we’re creating a whole host of collateral problems we’ve never thought much about before. The “not sporting” argument isn’t the real argument. The real argument is how we know go after a lot of targets that we would have otherwise had to take a pass on, and whether killing those people and all the other civilians is really a good idea or if it’s actually helping terrorists with their recruiting quotas without making us safe enough to justify what we’re doing. Keeping the drone program hidden prevents us from being able to ascertain whether the costs (ethical and otherwise) are really worth it.
Tim O
If we were actively working to get off of fossil fuels, we’re not even having this conversation.
raven
“There is a difference between good storm tracking and dying”. Got that?
Todd
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
It was pretty fun to watch the FReaks twist themselves into pretzels defending and expressing pity for him. I had heard snippets of the show for a few months, and noticed he’d been slurry and more unhinged than usual.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: While I was out on my bike today, I saw a hawk swoop in in a golf course grab a squirrel and fly off. Pretty cool. Of course, I did not have a camera with me and, even if I did, I could never have gotten it out in time to get the pic.
Hungry Joe
@cyntax: Hmmmm … good points all.
Dude in Princeton
@Corner Stone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Marc
@cyntax:
But it was bombers in Afghanistan before it was drones. And the rate of killing dropped when we switched from A to B. There are other places (like Yemen) where it would be harder, yes – but we’ve been doing things in placed like that too (e.g. Libya in the 1980s.)
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: The great wheel of life strikes again. Who was it that freaked out when I used it in reference to what killers cats are?
Todd
@raven:
That TIV footage I saw was frightening. We once got stupid and drove after a tornado. I’ll never do that again – we could have died, stuff was forming all around us.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@raven:
One afternoon my machinist buddies and I were having lunch at the company picnic table and a hawk swooped down POW! and flew off with one of the scavenging sparrows. That bird was a blur.
raven
@Todd: The piece on CBS was all about these guys that were true scientist that aimed to save lived through their work. I guess we need folks like that.
Todd
@raven:
Thing is, these were the pros. They’re a lot more careful than the amateurs who angle for insane video.
raven
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: After watching the various species go after the owl in our yard I have a better perspective on this whole deal.
Amir Khalid
@Todd:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, become pundits.
raven
@Todd: Yea, tough deal for sure.
Omnes Omnibus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I used to work on the 24th floor in a building that had a peregrine falcon nest, and occasionally I would see one of them take out a pigeon outside my window.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Mobbing the owl.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Being a predator is hard work, Jack.
TFinSF
I, for one, am immensely grateful that someone is brave enough to finally stand up, alone, against the hordes of people who say “Drones — now there’s a panacea.” It’s something that no one has ever had the guts to say, and I salute you for it.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Look what they did to the back of his head. I was surprised he (or she) hung around for 2 days, the attacks were relentless and the big dude just seemed to take it.
and look at that claw!
Todd
This was video from the middle of the tornado inside the TIV2 on May 27. Pressure changes played hell with the microphone and caused ear popping.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LobCDYO78Us&sns=em
Self-Righteous Little White Guy
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Shhh, Anne Laurie can only win an argument when her opponent is made of straw.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Omnes Omnibus:
What amazed me was the speed and agility of the hawk. That rascal came down very fast at a steep angle, grabbed the sparrow, and went back up nearly as fast as it had descended. I had the good fortune to ride in some pretty high performance aircraft and we ain’t got nothin’ like that hawk.
cyntax
@Marc:
When you say the rate of killing dropped what are you comparing to? What’s the set A of killing we did before? You certainly can’t be taking just the total number of deaths in Afghanistan and compare that to the deaths caused be drones; the two aren’t in anyway comparable.
The drones have greatly increased the number of targets and the kinds of situations in which we can go after those targets. And with drones you don’t have to worry about casualties on our side. Drones allow us to go after a lot of targets in Afghanistan we wouldn’t have, and they allow us into theaters we would almost never go into (Yemen and Pakistan). Now maybe that’s a good thing, but what we shouldn’t do is take our old rules of engagement and our old notions of what’s acceptable or not and apply those to this new technology. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, and right now the shiny new technology is blinding us to other exigencies.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Ow.
Corner Stone
@Josie:
Indeed. When violence is the only option then we must focus on how best to execute that action.
Omnes Omnibus
@cyntax:
This is one of the reasons I have come to be against the current drone policy. We are making it up on the fly and I am not sure we are getting it right. Better to take a step back and figure out if, how, and when to do it.
Josie
@Corner Stone: Was that a shot? That felt like a shot.
floridafrog
@raven
I’m pretty sure that is an osprey not a hawk and not all that closely related to them. Ospreys are cool predators, the only members of their genus. They have specially adapted feet that let them hold onto slippery fish. Sorry for the pedantry.
raven
@floridafrog: Not at all, I googled white chested Hawk just to try to figure it out. Thanks.
Josie
@Omnes Omnibus: Do you think that is what the president is moving towards with the change from CIA to DoD oversight of the drone program?
Omnes Omnibus
@Josie: Hopefully, but I have no idea.
Marc
I think that we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan any more, and that it’s the war that’s the problem. Drones are a tactic – and, yes, they did replace plane strikes that were killing more civilians and which were also very unpopular. I don’t think that people realize just how much damage the Bush tactics were doing.
The anti-war argument is stronger and more direct than a dispute about tactics. That’s why I think drones are fundamentally a distraction in this context. More broadly, yes, we do need to rethink the endless war tactics, and this includes drones. But the problem in Afghanistan would not go away if we stayed there and just changed methods.
cokane
I still fail to get what specifically is outrageous about drones. I mean, we land some helicopters in Pakistan, and kill bin Laden and his family, and virtually no one objects. We drop bombs or missiles, and much fewer object. But because a remote controlled device does it becomes outrageous?
I’m all for scaling back our footprint overseas, mind you.
raven
@cokane: Because people don’t know shit from shineola.
Marc
@raven: And also because it’s been used as an effective anti-Obama rhetorical tool on the left.
cyntax
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed. This is pretty much how we engage with all new technologies but figuring out the best way to use Facebook on the fly is somewhat less ethically fraught (though still worth thinking about).
raven
@Marc: Can’t argue.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@cyntax:
One of the many bad things about the Civil War was that the weapons had in a few years advanced well beyond the tactics. Thus you had orderly rows of men marching into withering fire from shoulder held weapons that could accurately throw a .56 caliber 1 oz.Minié Ball 500 yards.
raven
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: The Dead Angle
cyntax
@Marc:
I disagree that drones are fundamentally a distraction. They aren’t being swapped out for airstrikes or artillery as so often gets characterized. Look at the Bin Laden raid, that was a one off event that most people would agree was of extreme importance. Drone strikes happen with much more frequency, killing many more civilians than would otherwise die because drones seriously lower the cost for us of going after those targets. It’s a real change to how we can prosecute war.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@raven:
“The ground was piled up with one solid mass of dead and wounded Yankees.”
– Confederate Pvt. Sam Watkins
Baud
@Marc:
I am saddened that the President broached the notion of repealing the AUMF, and it has been greeted by collective silence by those who should care.
raven
@cyntax: “Drone strikes happen with much more frequency” than what? Citation please.
raven
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I have and ancestor killed with the 11th Tennessee at Peachtree Creek and he was at Cheatham’s Hill that day.
Todd
@cyntax:
Another Mumia fellator heard from. You can tell by the breathtaking display of drum-circle level stupidity.
cyntax
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
True. Also the same for WWI and the machine gun. This is another one of those times. And because the nature of this war is so different from those previous wars, it’s worth thinking about whether going after all these new targets is actually worth it. It may be, but without really looking at the issue and weighing what the pros and cons to our national security are, we don’t know. We’re just forging ahead because we can, and the question of whether we should keeps getting obscured by arguments about whether Obama’s just like Bush or how bullets are just like drones. Both arguments really miss what’s important here.
raven
@Todd: I was gonna say that!
cyntax
@Todd:
Nothing like dogmatism, ad hominem, and strawman fallacies all rolled into one.
raven
“We’re just forging ahead because we can, and the question of whether we should keeps getting obscured by arguments about whether Obama’s just like Bush”
We who? The people arguing about whether Obama is like Bush are the people executing the policy? What are you babbling about?
cyntax
@raven:
How many raids do we conduct in Yemmen and Pakistan without drones?
Corner Stone
It’s with no small amusement to see people here now saying that drones are a tactic and we should be talking about the policy.
Really?
News for you, no one will engage on the policy. The constant mention of drones, err DRONEZZZ, is the only way to get people to even acknowledge what our country is doing in this semi-war posture.
The parameters that are to be discussed wrt the “policy” is that some people, some where, need to get dead. They must be eliminated.
And so that is our desired outcome, the “policy” is about how best to erase people from the face of the earth while minimizing our exposure as we eliminate no one really knows who.
Tom_B
@cokane: “we land some helicopters in Pakistan, and kill bin Laden and his family, and virtually no one objects” Apparently, the Pakistanis were humiliated that they were too inept/corrupt to nail him themselves, inasmuchas, instead of making the doctor who helped us find OBL a national hero and giving him a parade, they tossed in the klink. The Paki gov’t. is basically from the same poisonous rootstock as our beloved GOP.
WRT drones: cleaner than B52s or boots on the ground, and safer than leaving dangerous thugs at liberty in failed/near failed state sh1tholes like Pakistan and Yemen.
cyntax
@raven:
Is this really that hard? There’s the side like GG who think that drones are the greatest crime ever and further proof that Obama has failed us. Then there’s the other side that gets their hackles up about that and wants to equate drones to other existing armaments like bombs or artillery.
Drones are here to stay. They’re part of our arsenal and they’re not going away. But they give us tactical capabilities the implications of which need to be thought through and haven’t been yet. But the implications are worth thinking about.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@cyntax:
Sweet heaven, so many died in WWI because those in charge, generals and politicians alike, failed to discern that the changes in weaponry since the last war had altered the nature of warfare. I own a WWI vintage Lee-Enfield rifle. Using a steady rest I can hit a man-sized target over the standard iron sights at 1000 yards. The bolt action on that rifle is so fast that it doesn’t need to be semi-automatic. To throw masses of men armed with such weapons at each other was fucking criminal.
cyntax
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Wow. 1000 yards with iron sights? That’s amazing. I was happy when I hit the 300 meter target with iron sights in Basic.
gogol's wife
@Josie:
He is always hostile, especially to anyone who may seem to be female. Don’t worry about it. You agreed with his initial comment, but his initial comment was trolling.
Josie
@gogol’s wife: Ah, ok. I thought the original comment was serious. Won’t make that mistake again.
ETA: I still stand by my comment.
Amir Khalid
@Tom_B:
CleanER, but not clean in an absolute sense. Which, of course, no weapon system could ever be. Nothing, not drones or anything else, is going to free you from questions about collateral killings/damage, misidentified targets, or military and political blowback. So it’s worthwhile to think about what drones are good for, and the when and how of using them.
Now, about the term “Paki”: I’ve said here before, this is an ethnic slur, not an acceptable abbreviation; it should be avoided when discussing Pakistan and Pakistanis.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@cyntax:
Hell, give yourself a pat on the back. That’s good shooting considering that the piece you were using had been dropped at least once.
The 1000 yd shots can be done with practice. It’s a bit easier with the 03-A3 Springfield and even easier with a good M14. A family friend was a fan of the Lee-Enfield and when he passed they gave me the rifle and 20,000 (Damn!) rounds of military ammunition. What I eventually discovered was that the rifle doesn’t hold zero well with the military stuff. Handloads, which you can optimize to work best with the rifle’s headspace, yield the greatest accuracy. With standard rounds it’s difficult to shoot tight groups at anything over 400 yds.
ChrisNYC
@Baud: I was surprised by that. That was a pretty momentous speech and the *yawns* or fist shaking in response seemed strange. For a few days, I thought the lazy, tired response was important, a lost opportunity, would have some outside effect. But now it seems to me just illustrative.
I think our populace really doesn’t have (or want) much of a voice in our foreign policy. Even, egads, on the sacred left. Lots of people want to yell and write about “unconstitutional” stuff. But the hard part, the drudge work — satisfying competing aims, weighing options, looking at actually difficult choices, having those conversations (though I despise that turn of phrase) — is left to others. Self governance is hard and eminently avoidable.
Still v important that Obama put the issue on the table, I think. Maybe in 5 years it will gain enough cred among foreign policy thinkers who engage and who are interested in something more than every increasingly fiery rhetoric to actually do the repeal.
kc
@Todd:
Fuck you.
different-church-lady
I’m confused: is there anyone out there who does believe drones are panacea?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@different-church-lady:
I thought that they were a placebo. Or was it a palliative? A pullman car? Something.
burnspbesq
The definition of government waste: using a $70,000 Hellfire missile on Greenwald.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone:
Maybe we could have a drum circle instead.
different-church-lady
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: All I know is you can get them cheaper in Canada.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@different-church-lady:
Dammit! Topped again.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
One would have to be quite simple-minded to believe such a thing. So yes, there probably are those who believe drone strikes are a panacea.
Mino
If you want to rehabilitate drone warfare, use them to take out rhino and elephant poachers.
sacrablue
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Oh, thank you for this. It is the kind of response I am never quick enough or clever enough to make myself. Maybe at some point we can get a nice enjoyable open thread that doesn’t mention GG or Sully or anyone else that will make the rest of this weekend ease on by.
PIGL
@Todd: pie and cookies taste real good, eat some more, you know you should.
Cassidy
This is a funny topic. Not to make fun, but there is a difference between the DOD and the CIA waging war. Where they intersect is called JSOC and they gives a fuck what anyone thinks.
FlipYrWhig
You know who wants tighter regulation of drones, assassinations, and other counter-terrorism policies? Barack Obama. Kind of gave a speech about it, in which he called for the repeal of the AUMF. Which was a big fuckin’ deal that pretty much no one noticed, and which I didn’t expect, and which whenever we have discussed it around here, both Obama critics and supporters have thought would be a crucial step to making things right.
You know who doesn’t give a shit about it? Every other politician in Washington.
Clearly, Obama is the problem.
Tom_B
@Amir Khalid: sorry. Slur not intended. Typing from a got lazy.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: If one is simple minded, one probably does not know what the word “panacea” means.
PIGL
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: This is true. Well trained rifle units were (I have heard) so fast and accurate (30 aimed rounds per minute) that opposing German units thought they were facing automatic weapons fire.
different-church-lady
@FlipYrWhig: It’s Obama: you need to listen to his speeches through the GG decoder device. Which is functionally identical to the “invert” command in Photoshop.
/reverse-threaded-wingnut
CarolDuhart2
I think we are also forgetting that there have been advances on the other side of the coin. If terrorists in 1913 Yemen wanted to do something on American soil, they would have had to come out from their hiding place in Yemen and come here. Bombs effective enough to blow up a target here were too large and bulky, and transportation too slow.
Now terrorists in 2013 don’t really have to set up a base of operations here and recruit locals and create local supply lines: they can use failed or weak states as hideouts and send people to do havoc.
Drones solve this problem by making it clear that there’s no real hiding place for a terrorist anymore.
FlipYrWhig
@Baud: I missed your comment when I was writing mine. Yes, that ought to be a huge deal, and while the warmongeri-est Republicans deplored it in their usual smeary way, no one on the liberal-to-left side really seemed to notice.
I had said many times that presidents aren’t in the habit of rolling back presidential powers. Proving me wrong, Obama just made a case that he would rather not have some of the ones he currently has. That’s significant. At least you’d think so.
different-church-lady
@CarolDuhart2:
Totally should have droned the fuck out of that boat in Watertown. What a time for Obama to lose his nerve.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
They might not know the word, but they’d definitely know the idea.
FlipYrWhig
@CarolDuhart2: Of course the problem is that there’s a difference between a terrorist who’s just on the verge of a mass killing, a terrorist who might arrange a mass killing in the future, and a suspected terrorist who can’t be linked to any bad acts yet and may never commit any.
fuckwit
@ChrisNYC: That’s how Obama rolls. He’s always willing, even eager, to take on the serious, hard, damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t, no-correct-answer, grinding-schlep kinds of challenges.
At first I didn’t appreciate the man’s ability or inclination for such things, but I get more and more glad that he’s our President every time he does. I was less thrilled with in economic context because I see strong moral lines of right and wrong there– and his unwillingness to take a hard stance for my position pissed me off something fierce. But really, Medicare for All was not going to happen, a new WPA wasn’t going to happen, nor was throwing all of Wall Street in jail. Sadly.
But in areas of foreign policy, I’ve always been more inclinded to see moral quandaries and conundrums– I’m more hardcore socialist than hardcore pacifist– and I think of it in less absolute terms. And it stands out to me how good he as at dealing with those.
The man seems utterly unafraid of navigating difficult tradeoffs, and doing deals with evil to accomplish good. Probably because he doesn’t think of it such cartoonish terms as good and evil. He thinks almost like an engineer, far more than like a lawyer or a politician. It’s all about optimizing tradeoffs for a particular result.
Hence, we get a new drone policy, a correct call to Congress to close Guantanamo, the end of OBL, we’re out of Iraq and getting out of Afghanistan, and we’ve got Obamacare and a stimulus, two great new Supreme Court Justices, etc.. Overall, a win, though on far less than ideal terms. Cards played with hands dealt.
Keith G
@Baud:
Unlike you, I have heard and read abundant support for this. I am looking forward to this President putting together a proposal and then having a supporting legislator “drop it in the bin”
CarolDuhart2
@different-church-lady: We didn’t need to. American law enforcement is sufficient to deal with those guys. The operating principle is that we were dealing with a failed, ineffective state that was unable and unwilling to take action.
People seem to forget that the folks that were droned were actively planning to kill Americans, and at least one had twice done so and would have had another success over the skies of Detroit if the bomber had been more adept. He was also training others to do the same. Should Obama have ignored that fact and done effectively nothing?
different-church-lady
@FlipYrWhig:
Firebaggus professio reliquit and others of their genus are not about to do something that interferes with their food supply.
cyntax
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Yeah, I’ve heard that handloading is supposed to yield the best results. Not that I’d know. But tight groups at 400 yards is pretty good too.
I was talking to one of my former students who had done five tours between Afghanistan and Iraq as a sniper and he said the longest range that they trained on at Benning was 1800 meters. And though that seems long to me, that might be right up your alley.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
No. This has crystalized into the common belief but it’s bullshit. The generals knew well in advance how bloody it was going to be. Their analyses of the U.S. Civil War, the Boer War, and the 1905 Russo-Japanese War left them with no illusions as to what was going to happen.
What they got wrong was the ability of modern states to mobilize huge masses of troops over and over. The reason they thought it was going to be a short war was because they thought that the soldiers would be killed so fast that it would be impossible for any of the countries involved to keep up and one side would be destroyed within weeks or a few months.
That’s what didn’t happen. It turned out that, as horrific as the casualties were, all of the countries involved could keep mobilizing more men. And so it turned into a war of attrition. Within that war, innovation continued the whole time. The tactics of 1917 really looked very little like the tactics of 1915, for either side, though the Anglo-French army evolved in very different, and ultimately more successful, ways than did the Germans.
different-church-lady
@CarolDuhart2: I totally should have droned the fuck out a snark tag.
Nonsense — everyone we drone is innocent. I read that right here on the internet.
CarolDuhart2
@FlipYrWhig: Nobody sends an expensive drone after a “maybe”. Someone who is merely suspected can simply be watched remotely if necessary. A person who might, ditto. If nothing ever happens, so be it.
I
MomSense
@different-church-lady:
HA!!!
Corner Stone
@Josie: Listen, don’t give in to gogol’s wife nonsense. That offhand slur against me is bogus. Unless Gen Stuck, Cassidy, Thymezone and a host of others all present as female as well.
I’m of the opinion that we should entertain a full spectrum response, even when that response may be “no response”.
Why do we start from the default position that people have to die at our hands/actions? Because we can? Because we are existentially threatened in some way? Or is it because no one can stop us?
I contend that if we’re spending almost a trillion dollars a year on defense, and incentivizing unaccountable third party interlocutors to carry out our intended “will” via the drone “policy”, then maybe we should understand why maybe 2% of all the dead people can be identified as actually potential bad guys.
And I say “potential” bad guys because we have a full fucking plate full of men in gitmo that are all “potential” bad guys.
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady: Maybe we should. We could hold it in CO or WA.
Probably more beneficial for our national security policies than what we’re doing now.
Keith G
@gogol’s wife:
Good golly, don’t type as if you are dense and please put away the victim card. C S has shown the same cheerful theatricality to either gender and all colors. You don’t have to like it, but don’t make it what it is not.
gogol's wife
@fuckwit:
Very well put, and close to my own position.
Cacti
Shorter Anne Laurie:
Free Mumia!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@PIGL: I haven’t heard that, but it’s worth noting that as World War 1 progressed, riflemen were consistently de-emphasized. The majority of casualties were caused by artillery, and machine guns did in a lot of the rest. By the later stages of the war, the Germans had drastically thinned out the number of riflemen in their front lines, defending them primarily with machine guns. Among the attacking British, about a quarter of them didn’t carry guns at all, just grenades; their basic tactics involved using Lewis guns to suppress fire to a point where the bombers could get close enough to German pillboxes to throw grenades through the slits.
different-church-lady
@fuckwit:
But he didn’t throw CEOs in dungeons and end capitalism. I mean, what’s Hope and Change supposed to mean if not that?
different-church-lady
@Keith G: Cheerful?
gogol's wife
@Keith G:
I’m not his victim. In this case, Josie was. I based my comment on what I’ve observed over many, many threads. He reserves a special sort of viciousness for female commenters.
But I have no idea why I’m discussing him. I was just trying to make Josie feel better. She felt targeted.
gogol's wife
@different-church-lady:
I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@PIGL:
Yep. They were reloading with srtipper clips that enabled them to reload within a few seconds. The box magazine on the Enfield held ten rounds and most of the stripper clips held five rounds. Using them, you can reload the rifle in the time that it takes you to run your thumb down the clips.
Corner Stone
@CarolDuhart2:
This is an interesting comment. They were “actively planning” ?
How could you possibly know this with enough certainty to type it out here?
Keith G
@CarolDuhart2:
Really?
Have you heard about signature strikes?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@cyntax:
The only time I’ve been able to reliably make shots over 1000 yds was with a heavy barreled Remington rifle or with weapons that fired the .50 cal BMG round. All were scoped. I consider my best shots to have been accomplished with a Ruger .44 magnum revolver. Firing handloads, over iron sights, I’m able to knock a spray paint can off the 200 meter rail consistently within four shots. That’s shooting in the Creedmoor position which doesn’t exactly make me look like John Wayne.
ETA: I was pretty impressed with a couple of Dragunov sniper rifles I fired but the quality of the 7.62X54R ammo was so erratic that that I gave up.
eclecticbrotha
I think we should turn the drone program over to the IRS. Yeah, hat’s the ticket.
cyntax
The Creedmoor position? Isn’t that the one where you’re lying on your back and you have one hand sort of propping your head up? Not only does that not look like John Wayne but at first glance it appears really awkward, like it would create all sorts of micro muscle movements. Obviously I’m wrong cause people use it in competition, but it does seem like one of those things that the first time someone (Creedmoor?) tried to convince anyone else to try it, he had a hard time of it.
Baud
@Keith G:
That’s good to hear. Seriously.
Corner Stone
@CarolDuhart2:
Alright. So you have absolutely no idea what we’re all discussing here.
Thanks
Mike in NC
Drones? Isn’t the “War on Terror” officially over? According to the likes of Kathleen Parker and Ben Stein, President Obummer Surrender Monkey has run up the white flag and invited Al Queda to take a seat on the UN Security Council.
El Cid
The policy is “bombing” whether it’s a bomb delivered by plane, missile, or remote-controlled (or soon to be autonomously self-directed) ‘drone’ plane.
It’s bombing. You blow people up. You fire a missile, it’s got explosives, and it blows people up.
It isn’t “drones”. “Drones” are remotely (for now) piloted aircraft.
You can gussy it up with terms like ‘smart bombs’ or some such.
But it’s bombing. You blow people up, and officially declare them the targets of bombings because of a variety of specific or general reasons.
So far it seems to me that these actions are more about destroying the potential enemies of some nation-state or power center in another nation–the arguments that this is actually increasing the real security of me and my family and those I care about are astoundingly weak.
That said, we’ll have to see.
Soon the drones might be smaller, and explosive charges more limited. Right now the remotely piloted craft are bombing by firing missiles at more and less identified targeted humans and it blows them up along with anyone nearby, because that’s what happens when you detonate powerful explosives via missile or smart bomb delivery.
It’s bombing. It’s not dumb bombs, it’s not carpet bombing, but it’s bombing.
It’s not ‘drones’. The policy isn’t ‘drones’. It’s bombs and bombing.
PIGL
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): @Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Well, I am no super-duper military historian, but I have read Keegan’s books on the subject, and The Art of War: Waterloo to Mons, and my understanding is that the combination of high rate of fire plus entrenchments immobilised the opposing forces in the West, as the trench system developed on the main points of conflict. Repeated attempts for years to breach these defenses with artillery followed by wave attacks led to stupendous casualties but no clear military result; artillery and infantry assault could have been effective, Keegan argues, but for the lack of real time communications between the advancing troops and the rear. The ability of the major powers to keep it for was, as you suggest, as result of the year-class based regimental systems that led to entire cohorts of young men, one year after another, to be under arms and available for slaughter….all to no avail.
That at least is my understanding based on what I have read. You seem to have read other things, and I would be interested to know if more recent scholarship has changed this view.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@cyntax:
It is at first awkward. The benefit of learning Creedmoor is that it enables you to rest the weapon against your right thigh just below the knee. Shooting in that position provides a very steady rest because for most people it’s easier to hold your leg steady than it is to steady your hands. With a revolver it’s necessary to use a small leather shield (Welders’ equipment) hung from your knee to protect you from the splatter that occurs when the slug goes into the revolver’s forcing cone.
Yeah, I’m one of those lefties who giggles at gun waving goobers.
Corner Stone
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: How would one hit a moving target from this position?
cyntax
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
OTOH, if you’re able to hit a target at 200 meters with a pistol, you must be doing something right. I remember a lot of guys in my unit would miss that target with M-16A1.
Gun waving goobers come in a lot of varieties, many of which don’t seem to be all that good at the fundamentals: hitting your target, not shooting yourself. Though one of my favorites is a guy I know in West Virginia who’s way into blackpowder and BBQ. Has a couple of cannons he and his wife like to shoot on the family property. Blackpowder cannon + BBQ = win.
ETA: Speaking of BBQ, I better make sure the wife is fed.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Corner Stone:
Creedmoor is best for fixed targets. You can use it, or any steady rest, for a moving target at sufficiently long range because you want the round to arrive in space where your target is going to be in time. In firing at a moving target it’s good to remember that the earlier you take your shot, the farther away the target so the less you have to adjust azimuth. That requires a lot of practice as well as understanding windage, the time required for the round to arrive at you aiming point, and the effects of gravity (Shooting uphill or downhill) on the round. The effects I noted come into play, even with a weapon considered to be flat shooting, at ranges of 200 yds.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@cyntax:
Thanks. There is a meditative effect for me of making long range pistol shots. I load my own ammunition for the .44 (It’s a long barrel) using rifle powder and hand made brass that takes advantage of the Ruger’s extra long cylinder. I have a chart for the pistol that enumerates how many clicks from zero that I need to put in the rear sight for various ranges.
I’ve spent several years shooting metallic silhouette and any accomplishment I have is a result of the patience and sharing of knowledge by my fellow shooters.
Self-Righteous Little White Guy
@Corner Stone: There’s a standard for what is typed on Balloon-Juice? Then why are you here?
A Humble Lurker
@Self-Righteous Little White Guy:
To defend the defenseless Princess Hilary’s honor from the DINO dragons and the Evil Throne Stealing Wizard Obama?
No matter how many years have passed since the usurper defeated her?
As for the subject of drones, why are they so much worse than anything else we do? I mean Jesus, ya’ll know about what uranium bombs have done to Iraq, don’t you? Yes, drones are horrendous and there are definitely discussions to be made about whether we should be bombing the shit out of people. (My opinion: we shouldn’t.) But if we ARE, why are drones an especially bad way to do it as opposed to anything else? That’s what I don’t understand.
Corner Stone
@Self-Righteous Little White Guy: I think, more to the point, why are you here Hall Monitor?
I guess there are plenty of ankles here for you to bite.
Corner Stone
@A Humble Lurker: There is so much you don’t understand.
Glad to see you and Hall Monitor have decided on a pact to share the ankles to be bitten.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@PIGL: There is an entire generation of scholarship about how World War I was fought on the Western Front that Keegan has essentially ignored. His 1998 history of the war repeats the conventional wisdom without ever engaging the ways that it has been challenged. Over the last few years my opinion of Keegan as a scholar has gone down drastically. He did some very good work early in his career but calcified badly.
The high rates of fire did lead to a great advantage for the defense and did lead to immobility. However, the tactics of attack changed drastically over the course of the war and by the end the British had essentially mastered the art of attacking a trench system. It involved massive amounts of artillery.
As for wave attacks, they had pretty much abandoned that by the end of 1916. They evolved into a set of infantry tactics built around four man fire teams. The formations were better described as “blobs”. And the amount of artillery, and the sophistication with which it was used, was on a sharp upward curve throughout 1916 and 1917.
The futility of much of the Passchendaele campaign came out of a set of generals forgetting the lessons they had learned. That really was a tale of two battles intertwined with each other. When the weather was dry and the British took the time to move their artillery forward before the next assault, they had a lot of success. When it was muddy and they were impatient, attacks ended in disaster.
If you can find any of the works of Paddy Griffiths (such as Battle Tactics on the Western Front) they give a good perspective on the tactical changes. Authors like Peter Hart, Robin Prior, and Trevor Wilson give a good account of various campaigns.
LAC
@Todd: lol!!! You just made my evening.
Bob In Portland
Wow. People still believe the President is in charge of the military and the CIA? And they’ve had fifty years to figure it out.
LAC
@Self-Righteous Little White Guy: bite away, dude. Those ankles are not sacred.
A Humble Lurker
@Corner Stone:
I understood the shit fit you through the night she lost the nomination. That was a good time, man.
burnspbesq
@different-church-lady:
That’s what Preet Bharara and Mary Jo White are there for. Since they are stuck in the mud trying to actually build cases that juries will buy, and not summarily executing CEOs, I say DRONE THEM!
lojasmo
@Corner Stone:
You are full of shit.
Redshirt
Question: Does the drone war in Pakistan continue after we’ve left Afghanistan?
different-church-lady
@lojasmo: Well yeah, but all that means is it’s less of a horrible thing. And a lot of sane people would like none of a horrible thing. But then you got a lot of insane people who can’t stop saying “DRONES ARE THE MOST HORRIBLE THING EVER!” and the wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round.
Bruce S
I am “pro-drones” and consider them a dramatic success given the more generically lethal and far messier alternatives, but I have to say that “Todd” is way creepier than Glenn Greenwald. Embarrassing to have that toxic piece of crap supposedly “on my side.” I’m sure President Obama would be impressed with this “supporter” who gleefully shits on the way the President himself has publicly framed this debate. Also kind of funny reading a lame “what’s he ever done” assault on Alex Parene’s journalistic credentials from…a blog comments section.
Rex Everything
OK, for the slow kids (and there are many of you here today)—and leaving aside the fact that the headline was obviously intended to be a bit ironic—THIS is what “drones are a panacea” sounds like:
I mean this is exactly the attitude AL’s headline refers to. Christ. It’s not really so hard to figure it out.
Singular
Shorter this whole thread (with a few honourable exceptions):
America, Fuck Yeah!
Bruce S
@Rex Everything:
I don’t think drones are a “panacea” – that’s language that makes no sense in context – but of you support fighting al Qaeda w/ more than “law enforcement”, drones are an inherently evil and problematic tactic that is less evil and lethal to civilians than any alternative other than – perhaps – Seal-type raids in some situations. If that defines “panacea” we have different versions of the English language at hand. There are no known “panaceas” in context of war and targeted killing.
Rex Everything
@Bruce S:
Yeah, but within that context, it’s awfully easy for the drone-equipped nation, the one that doesn’t stand to lose civilians daily, to say: “Gee whiz, you mean we can aggressively and irresponsibly dole out the old shock & awe without any risk to ourselves? No-brainer! Everyone wins! Everyone but those nasty terrorists of course etc etc”—which IS pimping a panacea, relatively speaking.
Shorter: “Is it irresponsible to use drones? It’s irresponsible not to!”