General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding, We'd Ground Our Fleet
If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding, We'd Ground Our FleetBut after a dozen or more deaths at a Yemeni wedding, don't expect anything to change.
Dec 16 2013, 6:00 AM ET
On my wedding day, my wife and I hired a couple of shuttle vans to ferry guests between a San Clemente hotel and the nearby site where we held our ceremony and reception. I thought of our friends and family members packed into those vehicles when I read about the latest nightmarish consequence of America's drone war: "A U.S. drone mistakenly targeted a wedding convoy in Yemen's al-Baitha province after intelligence reports identified the vehicles as carrying al Qaeda militants," CNN reported, citing government sources in Yemen. "The officials said that 14 people were killed and 22 others injured, nine in critical condition. The vehicles were traveling near the town of Radda when they were attacked."
Can you imagine the wall-to-wall press coverage, the outrage, and the empathy for the victims that would follow if an American wedding were attacked in this fashion? Or how you'd feel about a foreign power that attacked your wedding in this fashion?
The L.A. Times followed up on the story and found slightly different casualty figures: "The death toll reached 17 overnight, hospital officials in central Bayda province said Friday. Five of those killed were suspected of involvement with Al Qaeda, but the remainder were unconnected with the militancy, Yemeni security officials said."
More than a dozen dead, many more injured, and an unknown number of survivors whose lives have suddenly taken a nightmarish turn the likes of which we cannot imagine, and all for the sake of five people suspected of ties to al-Qaeda. How many actual al-Qaeda terrorists would we have to kill with drones in Yemen to make the benefits of our drone war there outweigh the costs of this single catastrophic strike? If U.S. drone strikes put American wedding parties similarly at risk would we tolerate our targeted-killing program for a single day more? Our policy persists because we put little value on the lives of foreign innocents. Even putting them through the most horrific scene imaginable on their wedding day is but a blip on our media radar, easily eclipsed by a new Beyonce album.
The Obama Administration dishonestly talks of "surgical" drone strikes, as if surgeries ever result in double digit casualties. "Before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injuredthe highest standard we can set," President Obama promised back in May. The CNN story about this latest strike says, "The convoy consisted of 11 vehicles, and the officials said that four of the vehicles were targeted in the strikes." Is attempting to pick off alleged militants while in a wedding convoy with innocents the highest standard we can set to avoid civilian deaths? If so, the results speak for themselves.
In that same May speech, Obama said:
And invasions of these territories lead us to be viewed as occupying armies, unleash a torrent of unintended consequences, are difficult to contain, result in large numbers of civilian casualties and ultimately empower those who thrive on violent conflict.
Does anyone believe that, if not for our lethal drone program, the United States would've sent the Air Force or ground troops to fire on this wedding party? The thousands of drone strikes we've carried out in recent years suggest that drones decrease the cost of lethal action so much that the U.S. takes it more often now than we would if we didn't have a drone fleet at the readyand not, as their defenders sometimes argue, that drones are saving us from air strikes and ground invasions.
MORE AT:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-drone-strike-hit-an-american-wedding-wed-ground-our-fleet/282373/
TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)If there is a drone attack in America it will more than likely be carried out by an enemy drone. And as long as we can defend our airspace, an enemy drone would/should be shot down as soon as it is detected.....that should be the main reason why none of our enemies have tried this yet.
But yes, if we were unable to protect our airspace then we too could be under the threat of drone attacks from our enemies.
1000words
(7,051 posts)It's only a matter of time until they are weaponized. Some departments are already trying to make the case.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)"Aw, gee, we didn't mean to..." is not a valid excuse and more than a criminal saying "I didn't mean to kill the baby, I was shooting at a cop."
global1
(25,253 posts)This isn't the first wedding party that was taken out by us. Wedding bombings have been reported on probably since Iraq. I'm sure I've read about other weddings that were taken out by us through the years. What is it about them that causes us to bomb a wedding party?
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,330 posts)Victor_c3
(3,557 posts)I saw a lot of that in Iraq.
Friday was always wedding day.
When I'd be on patrol and you'd see a group of cars all honking their horns, people hanging out the windows, and shooting guns in the air, most likely it was just a wedding. Actually, I've never seen an enemy that was so overt. Usually they always tried to conceal their positions.
I was in Baqubah in 2004 and when the Iraqi soccer team was getting ready to get the bronze medal in the Olympics, celebratory fire was going crazy.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)It's always possible one side or both is enhancing what really happened.
Response to seveneyes (Reply #5)
Name removed Message auto-removed
KentuckyWoman
(6,685 posts)let alone people in another country.
Sad but true.
truth2power
(8,219 posts)Lives anywhere else in the world are of no consequence.
Too bad, so sad for them.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
If it's needed.
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)Some guy shot up an elementary school killing 26 people last year. Did we do anything about guns?
A budget passed cutting off unemployment to the long term unemployed and many still want more cuts to needed social programs like SNAP.
Never underestimate American callousness.
Fox news would question the wedding parties innocence and bemoan the potential loss of defense jobs at the suggestion of grounding our fleet. Free republic would invent a theory within seconds that Obama did it on purpose for some nefarious reason. Drone truthers would make YouTube videos.....
Logical
(22,457 posts)CrispyQ
(36,478 posts)We'd go to war over something like this. I think we would.
It's more likely, however, that one of our own security state drones will cause damage/harm here, in which case the media & politicians will be all over why it was just an accident & the surveillance drone program should continue.
The drone war is so shameful.
Sgent
(5,857 posts)especially military ones. Their pilots are legally and morally no different than any other military aircraft -- neither better nor worse.
Response to Sgent (Reply #12)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Sgent
(5,857 posts)they aren't physically on the aircraft, but there are definitely pilots.
The rest of what you said applies equally to F-15's and drones. I certainly understand that being attacked by a foreign power using a weapon of war is a terrible thing. I just don't understand why its different if its a drone vs a fighter bomber at 20,000 feet.
Response to Sgent (Reply #16)
Name removed Message auto-removed
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Heads, for the purpose of eliminating the terrorists among us, for law enforcement purposes, and Amazon claims it will have drones to deliver our packages!
"The just follow the money principle" informs us that many reprehensible policies are continued, day in and day out, as long as it doesn't impact the top One Percent.
Fracking is destroying entire towns and cities in Texas, yet this Administration and any Republican Admin that might follow won't interfere with the "free" markets of Big Energy firms. (And Democrat and former governor of PA Ed Rendell is one of the biggest players in the natural gas fracking market!)
Ditto nuclear power policies.
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)Safety. We have to be safe. We have to feel safe. We have a right to feel safe.