https://theintercept.com/drone-papers Have you guys come across this? Very interesting stuff. God bless whistle blowers, or else we would have no idea about what is really going on.
This information is more in depth than I have seen elsewhere, from overseas media sources, and is interesting reading. I'm still working through the material. That said, drones, in my opinion, are not necessarily a bad thing and can serve a purpose as an alternative to boots on the ground in difficult to reach areas. Thanks for the find.
I still have not read it all, A LOT of information on this one. One thing is clear, this isn't something that one party/person is responsible for. Both parties are involved. It's an assassination program the world has never yet seen on this scale.
Quite in depth stuff. Will take a while to get through. Drones I think were always intended to do this sort of stuff. I mean they can stay in the air for a pretty long time and because they are unmanned they can go into areas where the risk is significantly greater. While I don't really like the use of drones that much, I say let it continue. It's when drones start being used for surveillance of it's countries own citizens that I start to get questionable about it all.
Haven't seen this detailed information before but there has been a lot of talk about this going on. So I'd say it's far from being "secret".
Ahh but what was "secret" was how the drones have been used in massive programs of assassinations. Yes we knew drones were being used in surveillance and recon, and we knew drones were being deployed in war-zones in supporting ground troops. The public had a vague idea that they were used to target "high-profile" enemies too. What we now know is they are being used, daily, to target and assassinate people the USA doesn't like. Much of the assassinations are poorly done and almost always result in innocent people getting killed. Also @susimi it's not a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN. I think the power of drones for civilian surveillance will be just to hard for governments to resist. It will be first billed to "protect" us from those "terrorists."
We nuked Japan in order to win the war without risking the lives of hundreds of thousands of troops in a land invasion. You know, I think it is crazy that there are ´laws´ against political assasinations, but not against war. Of course it is the politicians who would be assassinated who make those laws. I think people like Putin would be a lot less stupid if they knew we had a satellite in space with a laser dot on his forehead.
What is the difference. A decade ago we bombed Libya at night to minimize the casualties, so instead of killing politicians and military leaders, we killed housekeepers. Do you think when they raided Bin Laden´s compound there were orders to not hit anyone but him? Tomahawk missiles are great, they can hit an exact building in the middle of a city... You think they know everyone inside? or the people in the buildings around that one that get blown up also? It is no different with Drones.
And to think, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. As to the link, I was aware of this policy, but had not seen anything this thorough. Thanks for the share.
This, at least to me, was pretty obvious for a long time. I've even seen it in the news for years already... lots of times when the US have killed people in say, Yemen, with drones. And yes, there is always a good chance that other people will die in the strike too as they are often directed towards buildings and it's rare that people are in a house alone. Then again, killing a few Yemenese buddies of a known Yemenese terrorist... ok yeah they might have been innocent but really, who knows what they were up to? Not saying it's perfect but if you can blow up a high value target without risking the life of your own guys then I'd say it's a pretty good deal.
