The Drone Paradox

The Tactical Paradox

A set of polls at the bottom of this article shows that many folks need to be a little more realistic when dealing with the question of Drones.

In summary:

(a) Americans support by a substantial majority killing senior level Al Qaida officials via Drone and even in the case of if the person is an American citizen.

but . . .

(b) Americans would NOT support the program if they knew civilians were at risk.
This is the central national security paradox of our time because:

These Senior Level Guys are ALWAYS among civilians!  To the point where people’s kids are over there playing outside their houses, or even inside AS THEY MAKE Bombs, plan attacks on our soldiers or Cities worldwide.

So the next question that should be asked in these polls is:

If these high level leaders have immersed themselves in villages of innocents who are 'friendly' to them due to family or tribal ties, and who will warn them if we attempt a ground intercept or capture with troops . . . should we simply wait for them to carry out the attacks . . . or should we try to hit them when they are moving from one village to the next, with the inevitability of a few innocents accompanying them, but far less than if done within a crowded main sprawl of houses?

Please note: Whether you want to believe the sensationalist crap or not, about the administration not caring who they kill with drones, the LATTER choice IS the present approach.

I must say again:  These guys ALWAYS surround themselves with Children, Women or Youths, not necessarily involved with what they are, PRECISELY to engender the acrimony towards the POTUS that many of my fellow Liberals are exhibiting and the grief helps them to recruit as well.

Do you let them attack . . . or do you send in ground troops, which suffer high losses due to the absolute impossibility of surprise?  Or do you use the drone, which saves our soldiers but may kill a few others in the process?

You have to decide what your priority is my fellow Liberals:

1) Stop the Attacks

2) Save our Soldiers

3) Stop ALL innocent casualties.

4) React to attacks and chase the perps AFTER the fact.

Make Your Choice.

Please Note: (1) will ALWAYS be happening and will NOT stop..

Make Your Choice

Please also note: we need to use (2) to stop (1).  AND please note (3) will ALWAYS happen on some scale once there is conflict . . . and since conflict is GUARANTEED . . . make your choice.

Make Your Choice

Is (4) acceptable to stop the pictures of dead kids coming over . . . while we have hundreds Americans and others at risk of getting bombed in subway attacks, or other terrorist actions?  Will you accept (4) if one of your relatives get's felled in one of these planned attacks??

Make your choice my fellow Liberals . . . if you can.  

Honestly the pictures of the dead children REALLY bothers me.  As parent of a young child I can’t help seeing my own in the pics and it has made me cry too many times . . .

That said . . . the reality is this ‘engagement’ WILL persist for the reasons I espoused earlier, and making a choice, as I’ve been asking you to do throughout this article is a crap chute . . . because there ARE no good choices!  

They WILL try, and are trying to kill US wherever we are, and they don’t make the sort of ‘target distinction’ we’re presently ‘fussing’ about . . . military, government, and the average working stiff or 'Joe Six Pack' are all the same to these guys.

Is having a relative lost or hurt so you don’t have to see anymore pics of children or innocents hurt by ‘drones’ worth it?

You need to answer the above question . . . Make Your Choice.  If you refuse to, or try to change the paradigm of how my question is phrased, then you’re seriously delusional and I implore you  to quit the pious bull and get realistic ok!?

The Existential Paradox

Like I’ve said: Immediate cessation of all activities in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan is NOT going to happen . . . precisely because there is real threat of one of us, in our little, cloistered, ivory towers of existence, somewhere around the world, being ‘rudely awakened’ by the reality of this conflict.  Like all altercations, there is history to it . . . of which past governments of the United States and our allies have had a less-than laudatory role in it.  In fact, knowing our history of intervention and world policing, you might arguably say we may have caused much of the vitriol these militants direct our way.

That however is still the topic of much debate.

That being said . . . REGARDLESS of if I agree or not with these militants ‘beef’ with the USA, or whether I may or may not have some sympathy for what befell them in the past decades of 20th century or what have you . . . that ‘empathy’ is intellectual NOT practical.  I have NO INTENTION of becoming a ‘practical casualty’ of my intellectual and/or moral ‘ruminations’ as it were.

I am an American.  I LIVE in this country.  I ENJOY the freedoms I have in this country(which allow me to criticize freely my country’s foreign policy adventures or misadventures).  I LOVE being able to move unhindered the way I do IN THIS COUNTRY!  I pledge allegiance to THIS COUNTRY!  I will FIGHT tooth and nail to defend Her if it comes to that.

I DO NOT want to have to be calling my wife and child to tell her I’m not going to be coming home because some Jihadist, self-styled, Islam-warping, extremist was ‘allowed’ to carry out an attack on where I work, or was visiting, or was travelling through . . . and I’m certain to die because there is no way for me to escape and there is no hope of rescue . . . just like so many did on 9/11/2001!

Should I be ‘happy’ to be this militant’s ‘victim’ because intellectually I see some justification for his anger at my country?

Hell No!

Listen:

In a perfect world my fellow Liberals, we would not have interfered in governments the world over and assisted regime change, spilling a lot of blood along the way.  

In a perfect world we would not have left the Taliban after they beat the former USSR without the aid and partnership promised, causing the state to descend to the status of failure for all intents and purposes.  

In a perfect world we would not have have been colonialists in concert with the European nations for Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Asian Pacific.

I could go on and on describing so many more things over the decades . . .

However we aren't in a perfect world . . . and the actions I mentioned above do have consequences, some of which we've probably and are reaping with tragic fanfare.

It is ALSO true, however, that these ‘actions’ have DIRECTLY contributed to the, much-enjoyed ‘way of life’ myself and many across this country, have pledged to defend(Armed Forces), and would fight for if it came to it.

We need to face up to the fact that some that which is lovely right now, that we cherish may have been gotten via the very ugly . . . and make peace with it.

Piety and naivete have their place but not when it comes to protecting the citizenry of the country you are in charge of.  REGARDLESS of the why these folks want our blood . . . they can’t have it, and I’ll not accept that an administration hasn't done all they could to prevent it!

If that means we need to use Drones as part of the arsenal to stop these folks . . . then so be it.  Have more oversight if you will, but to throw more soldiers at them unnecessarily, so that these militants can get to ‘get their rocks’ off ‘confronting the infidel’(like Dubbya did in Iraq) doesn’t make sense to me.

Those soldiers are my friends, my family, maybe my child some day, somebody’s sister or brother . . . someone’s spouse.

Call me ‘cold’ or what not because I seem not to care about the ‘innocents’ - I do - BUT . . .

. . . I refuse to become a casualty of a bunch of cowards who hide behind children and women to carry out their attacks . . . and the pious, short-sighted, highly-emotional, impractical ‘constituency’ that doesn’t seem to want to deal with reality on the ground.

Make Your Choice . . .

You?

.

. . . or Them?

They've made their choice . . .

When you take away all the noise, and political posturing . . . we WILL BE adversaries, for long into the foreseeable future and some things in history can't be undone. To the degree of which the Administration is trying to alleviate the true cause of this extremism effectively can be debated . . . but a least they are doing something - aid, talks, political engagement and respect.

These guys operate outside of any sort of framework with which we can legitimately address. They pervert Islam and are dedicated to violence. We do what we must with as much discretion as is possible . . . but we can't allow them to attack us or let any offensive action go without a response.

Make Your Choice.

You want to blame someone for these innocents and casualties? 

Blame Them.