Drone operator who helped kill 1,626 targets reveals trauma of watching them die

Darla said:
You cons think in such simplistic terms. You have very simple minds. Everything is black or white. Either we drone strike civilians or the taliban will take over Pakistan. Might there be other choices? Are there other ways to help prevent the taliban rising to power in Pakistan? Do drone strikes prevent the taliban taking power? Does killing civilians make it less likely the taliban will gain popular support within pakistan, or more likely?

How easily some justify murder.
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So what would you do, what is the alternative plan? Of course you don't know because the Pakistan Taliban are impervious to any kind of cajoling or reason. They believe that history is on their side.

I would suggest that you are the one that thinks in black and white, apparently you cannot envisage a scenario where the Taliban leaders are taken out without civilian casualties as happened only recently. I have asked the question to Rune who steadfastly just tap dances around the issue, so I will ask you. Are you happy for the Taliban to get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal?


http://news.sky.com/story/1096886/pakistan-taliban-number-two-killed-by-drone
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
So what would you do, what is the alternative plan? Of course you don't know because the Pakistan Taliban are impervious to any kind of cajoling or reason. They believe that history is on their side.

I would suggest that you are the one that thinks in black and white, apparently you cannot envisage a scenario where the Taliban leaders are taken out without civilian casualties as happened only recently. I have asked the question to Rune who steadfastly just tap dances around the issue, so I will ask you. Are you happy for the Taliban to get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal?


http://news.sky.com/story/1096886/pakistan-taliban-number-two-killed-by-drone
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You are a stupid man who has been convinced that he is very smart. No one is dancing around your question. You are a moron who believes he has set some trap. You might well as ask whether I'd be happy to see you get your hands on some nukes. I wouldn't, but practicing terrorism against your neighbors won't stop it.

No one is talking about negotiating with the taliban. That's another of your stupid diversions. A large part of keeping the taliban from coming to power is to weaken their support among the public. Murdering children, droning villages, then coming back and droning them again when the people come out in an attempt to rescue/help their neighbors, creating a state of perpetual terror for Pakistanis, does not weaken support for anti-american groups like the taliban, it increases support.

Tom, you talk an awful lot about how we have to sacrifice lives because there are bad people in the world. It's morally correct to kill chidlren because al queada is bad. You do all this sitting on your ass in a privileged position in a western nation, while your privileged sons go to college. Never in a million years would your ass, or the ass of either of your sons be on the line. How easy to point a finger and say that child must die so that I can sit there and "Feel" safer. So I can sit here and "feel" my privileged sons, who you can bet your bottom dollar will never fire or take a shot standing up for my beliefs, are safer.

How morally corrupt. And beyond even that sickness...how stupid. How unutterably stupid to believe that murdering anyone's children will ever make you safer. When in fact it does the opposite.
 
Darla said:
You are a stupid man who has been convinced that he is very smart. No one is dancing around your question. You are a moron who believes he has set some trap. You might well as ask whether I'd be happy to see you get your hands on some nukes. I wouldn't, but practicing terrorism against your neighbors won't stop it.

No one is talking about negotiating with the taliban. That's another of your stupid diversions. A large part of keeping the taliban from coming to power is to weaken their support among the public. Murdering children, droning villages, then coming back and droning them again when the people come out in an attempt to rescue/help their neighbors, creating a state of perpetual terror for Pakistanis, does not weaken support for anti-american groups like the taliban, it increases support.

Tom, you talk an awful lot about how we have to sacrifice lives because there are bad people in the world. It's morally correct to kill chidlren because al queada is bad. You do all this sitting on your ass in a privileged position in a western nation, while your privileged sons go to college. Never in a million years would your ass, or the ass of either of your sons be on the line. How easy to point a finger and say that child must die so that I can sit there and "Feel" safer. So I can sit here and "feel" my privileged sons, who you can bet your bottom dollar will never fire or take a shot standing up for my beliefs, are safer.

How morally corrupt. And beyond even that sickness...how stupid. How unutterably stupid to believe that murdering anyone's children will ever make you safer. When in fact it does the opposite.
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I will give you one thing, you do spout flowery bollocks. If you agree that talking to them is pointless then what other sanctions do you have? To my mind it is infinitely preferable to attack an organisation at the head rather than the poor bloody infantry. I am supporting the policy of president Obama and indeed that espoused by your great friend Howie. I would give you more credibility if you actually came up with some concrete ideas rather than more of your waffle and emotion laden rhetoric, I am not expecting miracles though.

The one aspect of drones that people like Darla do not understand is that it allows the opportunity for an operator to wait for hours or even days to choose the right time. Contrast that with a mission like the one to get Bin Laden, which of neccesity had to done at night and as quickly as possible to maintain the element of surprise. Although no doubt Darla was against that operation as well because of the possibility of civilian casualties.
 
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Threedee said:
I guess we'll just have to wait for a woman to come out and make this proposal, Tom. Where's Hillary at?
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If she was sanctioning drones as president I'll wager that Darla would be all for it. I have nothing against people making a principled stand against the possibility of civilian casualties but just for once it would be nice if they came up with some concrete alternative policies. The Pakistan Taliban will stop at nothing to get their hands on that countries military weapons yet when you ask Darla or Rune about that, all you get is waffle as a response.

Here is an article from the left of centre New Statesman from 2007, nothing much has changed in the meantime apart from Benazhir Bhutto being assassinated by the Taliban.

http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2007/04/pakistan-taliban-afghanistan
 
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Aoxomoxoa said:
I will give you one thing, you do spout flowery bollocks. If you agree that talking to them is pointless then what other sanctions do you have? To my mind it is infinitely preferable to attack an organisation at the head rather than the poor bloody infantry. I am supporting the policy of president Obama and indeed that espoused by your great friend Howie. I would give you more credibility if you actually came up with some concrete ideas rather than more of your waffle and emotion laden rhetoric, I am not expecting miracles though.

The one aspect of drones that people like Darla do not understand is that it allows the opportunity for an operator to wait for hours or even days to choose the right time. Contrast that with a mission like the one to get Bin Laden, which of neccesity had to done at night and as quickly as possible to maintain the element of surprise. Although no doubt Darla was against that operation as well because of the possibility of civilian casualties.
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What you do not understand, is that you still have not proved that drone strikes are accomplishing anything in your never-ending fight to keep the taliban out of power. You seem to believe you are in some sort of privileged position where you can just make blanket statements, as if they are general knowledge, and not back them up. Now the idea that murdering people's children keeps us safer is general knowledge...to idiots. But what evidence do we have to support these tales told by idiots? None.

In the rise of an anti-western power, the support of the people is paramount. An instructive example of course, is the rise of Hezbollah in Lebanonon. When Hezbollah won the 2005 elections, people like you went nuts Tom. They're "terrorists!" how could this be? Of course, it came about in large part, because of you and yours. The (illegal) collective punishment practiced by Israel, supported by the United States, dead children being brought up from the dirt of Israel's latest targeted civilian strikes, broadcast on Al Jazeera, and indeed, even on CNN. These actions breed hate. Hate breeds a desire for revenge. This creates the perfect circumstance for an anti-western power to come into being.

This will come as a shock to you - but your children do not hold more value to you, than the children of Pakistanis hold to them. Your children are not more human, theirs, not less than human. Killing people's children radicalizes them.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/14/world/asia/pakistan-swat-valley-school

And that is how organizations such as Hezbollah and The Taliban, and The Muslim Brotherhood, gain popular support, and through that, power. I would start by not killing people's children Tom. I'm sure a morally decrepit moron like yourself would be shocked at the sea change that would bring, but it will not surprise any person with empathy and a brain.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
If she was sanctioning drones as president I'll wager that Darla would be all for it.
http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2007/04/pakistan-taliban-afghanistan
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This is idiotic projection from someone who has absolutely no moral compass, and presumes no one else does either. As everyone here knows, I did not vote for Hillary in the primary, even though it was very painful for me to not support the possible first woman President, because of her vote against the banning of cluster bombs on civilians. Obama voted for that ban.
Do you know why TOM? Because my moral compass tells me that killing innocent people, especially children, but all innocent people, is wrong. And children are the biggest victims of cluster bombs. Employed by Israel btw Tom, another thing you have to thank for the rise of radical groups.
 
Darla said:
What you do not understand, is that you still have not proved that drone strikes are accomplishing anything in your never-ending fight to keep the taliban out of power. You seem to believe you are in some sort of privileged position where you can just make blanket statements, as if they are general knowledge, and not back them up. Now the idea that murdering people's children keeps us safer is general knowledge...to idiots. But what evidence do we have to support these tales told by idiots? None.

In the rise of an anti-western power, the support of the people is paramount. An instructive example of course, is the rise of Hezbollah in Lebanonon. When Hezbollah won the 2005 elections, people like you went nuts Tom. They're "terrorists!" how could this be? Of course, it came about in large part, because of you and yours. The (illegal) collective punishment practiced by Israel, supported by the United States, dead children being brought up from the dirt of Israel's latest targeted civilian strikes, broadcast on Al Jazeera, and indeed, even on CNN. These actions breed hate. Hate breeds a desire for revenge. This creates the perfect circumstance for an anti-western power to come into being.

This will come as a shock to you - but your children do not hold more value to you, than the children of Pakistanis hold to them. Your children are not more human, theirs, not less than human. Killing people's children radicalizes them.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/14/world/asia/pakistan-swat-valley-school

And that is how organizations such as Hezbollah and The Taliban, and The Muslim Brotherhood, gain popular support, and through that, power. I would start by not killing people's children Tom. I'm sure a morally decrepit moron like yourself would be shocked at the sea change that would bring, but it will not surprise any person with empathy and a brain.
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Ariel Sharon gave back the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians expelling many Israeli settlers in the process. This incensed the populace so much that they voted in Hamas who then proceeded to throw al-Fatah officials from the rooftops and fire Katusha rockets at Israel. No doubt you will blame the West for that as well. Hezbollah is now in Syria supporting Assad, there are ten of thousands of innocent children and adults being killed there as well, your policy of non interference is working really well.
 
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Darla said:
What you do not understand, is that you still have not proved that drone strikes are accomplishing anything in your never-ending fight to keep the taliban out of power. You seem to believe you are in some sort of privileged position where you can just make blanket statements, as if they are general knowledge, and not back them up. Now the idea that murdering people's children keeps us safer is general knowledge...to idiots. But what evidence do we have to support these tales told by idiots? None.

In the rise of an anti-western power, the support of the people is paramount. An instructive example of course, is the rise of Hezbollah in Lebanonon. When Hezbollah won the 2005 elections, people like you went nuts Tom. They're "terrorists!" how could this be? Of course, it came about in large part, because of you and yours. The (illegal) collective punishment practiced by Israel, supported by the United States, dead children being brought up from the dirt of Israel's latest targeted civilian strikes, broadcast on Al Jazeera, and indeed, even on CNN. These actions breed hate. Hate breeds a desire for revenge. This creates the perfect circumstance for an anti-western power to come into being.

This will come as a shock to you - but your children do not hold more value to you, than the children of Pakistanis hold to them. Your children are not more human, theirs, not less than human. Killing people's children radicalizes them.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/14/world/asia/pakistan-swat-valley-school

And that is how organizations such as Hezbollah and The Taliban, and The Muslim Brotherhood, gain popular support, and through that, power. I would start by not killing people's children Tom. I'm sure a morally decrepit moron like yourself would be shocked at the sea change that would bring, but it will not surprise any person with empathy and a brain.
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Your best friend Grind says that he would be willing to see thousands of children die rather than give in to gun controls. Never a peep from you on the subject except to attempt to rubbish me for being audacious enough to mention it. There has never been a war yet where there hasn't been civilian casualties, to my mind drones are far more effective in that respect than sending in ground troops or aerial bombing. Your policy of letting them alone and hoping they will became civilised is never going to work, especially if the Taliban stops girls from going to school and terrorises anyone that gets in their way. I would have thought that you would recognise that nothing changes until the people get educated and realise what a pile of shit they are being fed.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
Ariel Sharon gave back the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians expelling many Israeli settlers in the process. This incensed the populace so much that they voted in Hamas who then proceeded to throw al-Fatah officials from the rooftops and fire Katusha rockets at Israel. No doubt you will blame the West for that as well. Hezbollah is now in Syria supporting Assad, there are ten of thousands of innocent children and adults being killed there as well, your policy of non interference is working really well.
Click to expand...

You excel at spouting westernized propaganda, and it's obvious you enjoy swallowing whatever they feed you and that Muslim lives mean little to you.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
Your best friend Grind says that he would be willing to see thousands of children die rather than give in to gun controls. Never a peep from you on the subject except to attempt to rubbish me for being audacious enough to mention it. .
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I win!

As soon as you go crying about "what Grind said!" that means you have no response other than sad attempts at diversion.
 
Stanford/NYU study on drone strikes in Pakistan.

Among its conclusions:

1 in 50 victims of of the dead from American drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists. The rest are innocent civilians.

Parents are taking their children out of school because they fear drone strikes. (this is terrorism)

The effects have psychologically battered the population which lives under the daily threat of annihilation from the air, and is ruining the local economy.

These are all terrorist tactics. This is terrorism. Who support this? Psychopaths.
 
From the Stanford study:

One father, after seeing the bodies of three dead children in the rubble of a strike, decided to pull his own children out of school. “I stopped [them] from getting an education,” he admitted. “I told them we will be finished one day, the same as other people who were going [to school] and were killed in the drone attacks.”

Anyone who actually wants to know something, should read the entire report and don't get your news from morally bankrupt government regurgitators.
 
Very good post in the Independent blog on the subject of drones.

David Aaronovitch has a fine column today on the case for and against the use by the US of drones in Pakistan, in The Times (pay wall). As a model of clarity in argument, he first disposes of the irrelevant clutter:
.
For the purpose of this important argument I will ignore the routine anti-Americans. Some of them will not be satisfied or convinced until they find themselves hanged publicly for blasphemy outside the Caliph’s palace.
.
​
Then he sets out the four main arguments against drones, and assesses each one:
.
1. Too many civilians are killed or traumatised.
.
To leave the militants alone is, at the very least, to invite attacks in Pakistan and around the world from bases in the borderlands. This isn’t conjecture. But to root them out through a ground campaign would kill and displace far more civilians than drone-use would.
.
​
2. Drone strikes fail to reduce armed militancy and may be counter-productive by causing radicalisation.
.
Young jihadis from around the world can no longer regard attendance at a training camp in Waziristan as the safe bit before the big operation. Remarkably, in view of the arguments of the no-drone campaigners, those who actually live in the areas of drone strikes are less hostile to them than Pakistanis generally. Living with jihadis can be a pain.
.
​
3. They are contrary to international law.
.
This will be tested in the courts and it’s right that it should be. My instinct is that the history of terrorist violence and its nature will show plenty of cause for most drone strikes.
.
​
4. Their very cheapness removes an important inhibition in the use of extreme violence.
.
This point has truth to it. Drones are so easy, so cheap, so comparatively accurate, that we might well feel that we could use them in situations and in numbers we otherwise wouldn’t contemplate. In other words, we might get drone creep. So let’s keep an eye on it.
.
​
It seems that the arguments against drones are mostly arguments against the principle of the use of military force to harass and deter jihadist terrorists.

I am surprised that the legal position has not been more discussed, however. The use of military force against targets in a country that has not asked for help seems to raise different questions from those in, say, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. This seems more analogous to the law on assassination, such as of Osama bin Laden. One legal discussion I have seen, of the killing by the Israeli Defence Force of Ahmed al-Jabari, the Hamas military leader, is rather general although leans in favour of its being legal.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/11/22/the-arguments-for-and-against-drones/
 
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Aoxomoxoa said:
Very good post in the Independent blog on the subject of drones.

David Aaronovitch has a fine column today on the case for and against the use by the US of drones in Pakistan, in The Times (pay wall). As a model of clarity in argument, he first disposes of the irrelevant clutter:

.
For the purpose of this important argument I will ignore the routine anti-Americans. Some of them will not be satisfied or convinced until they find themselves hanged publicly for blasphemy outside the Caliph’s palace.
.
​
Then he sets out the four main arguments against drones, and assesses each one:
.
1. Too many civilians are killed or traumatised.
To leave the militants alone is, at the very least, to invite attacks in Pakistan and around the world from bases in the borderlands. This isn’t conjecture. But to root them out through a ground campaign would kill and displace far more civilians than drone-use would.
.
​
2. Drone strikes fail to reduce armed militancy and may be counter-productive by causing radicalisation.
Young jihadis from around the world can no longer regard attendance at a training camp in Waziristan as the safe bit before the big operation. Remarkably, in view of the arguments of the no-drone campaigners, those who actually live in the areas of drone strikes are less hostile to them than Pakistanis generally. Living with jihadis can be a pain.
.
​
3. They are contrary to international law.
This will be tested in the courts and it’s right that it should be. My instinct is that the history of terrorist violence and its nature will show plenty of cause for most drone strikes.
.
​
4. Their very cheapness removes an important inhibition in the use of extreme violence.
This point has truth to it. Drones are so easy, so cheap, so comparatively accurate, that we might well feel that we could use them in situations and in numbers we otherwise wouldn’t contemplate. In other words, we might get drone creep. So let’s keep an eye on it.
.
​
It seems that the arguments against drones are mostly arguments against the principle of the use of military force to harass and deter jihadist terrorists.
I am surprised that the legal position has not been more discussed, however. The use of military force against targets in a country that has not asked for help seems to raise different questions from those in, say, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. This seems more analogous to the law on assassination, such as of Osama bin Laden. One legal discussion I have seen, of the killing by the Israeli Defence Force of Ahmed al-Jabari, the Hamas military leader, is rather general although leans in favour of its being legal.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/11/22/the-arguments-for-and-against-drones/
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That's great, thanks for the blog post, now, instead of distracting with a series of insipid blog posts, let me know if you can possibly defend the the terrorism as described in the Standford/NYU study, and the facts about civilian causalities in the WAPO link. Throughout history there have always existed the morally decayed who would pen soothing "reasons" why a power must terrorize populations and murder children. Let's hear yours. i want to see just how big of a psychopath you are.
 
Darla said:
That's great, thanks for the blog post, now, instead of distracting with a series of insipid blog posts, let me know if you can possibly defend the the terrorism as described in the Standford/NYU study, and the facts about civilian causalities in the WAPO link. Throughout history there have always existed the morally decayed who would pen soothing "reasons" why a power must terrorize populations and murder children. Let's hear yours. i want to see just how big of a psychopath you are.
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It is impossible to have a logical and dispassionate discourse with you, so I will not bother, fuck you very much.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
It is impossible to have a logical and dispassionate discourse with you, so I will not bother, fuck you very much.
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No, what's impossible is to defend what that Stanford study describes, and you don't want to be exposed doing it. Be honest Tom, your life just "means more" than the life of some cave dwelling camel rider. If we have to kill 600 of them to get one real terrorist, well, that's just common sense. One white western life is worth at least 600 of theirs, so what's the problem here? You're just culturally superior to them. All possible care must be taken to keep Tom safe...at any cost. You're just another war pig Tom, nothing mysterious here.
 
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