Seeing that we have a lot of posts on domestic policy, I think it’s time we discuss foreign policy. We all know about drone strikes. Basically it’s another way of saying you kill enemies of the state by having a military soldier who doesn’t have the balls to get into an A-10 and putting him in a cubicle to bomb someone half a world away. That is a drone strike. Now Obama has been getting flack for it because these strikes kills civilians and the target’s family. But somehow this complaint seems rather off considering that the last way we took out members of Al Qaeda was to invade a country. So with that, I will give out a comparison of Bush’s method of combating terrorism as opposed to Obama’s method of combating terrorism.
Bush’s policy was to invade a country that no empire has ever held onto before. That tactic forced the Taliban into a neighboring country that has nukes and as a result, Swat Valley is in Taliban Control.Then he completely ignored Bin Laden and went after Iraq to take their oil at the cost of a million lives.
Obama’s policy is to do it by espionage. Use the CIA to track down terrorists and then either order special forces to attack or use drones to take them out, minimizing collateral damage. The end result shows Al Qaeda faltering. No terrorist attack as of yet.
#1 by Richard Warnick on August 8, 2012 - 9:51 am
IMHO it is a mistake to continue to treat al-Qaeda and/or “terrorists” as if they were a conventional military or governmental organization that can be defeated though attrition. Instead, U.S. ought to consider the millions of people alienated by our foreign policy — particularly when it runs counter to the rule of law and basic human rights. Washington is acting as if it wants a permanent war.
What message does it send when our government asserts the right to murder its own citizens in cold blood, completely ignoring their Constitutional rights? The Obama administration even refuses to explain the decision process that determines who shall live and who shall die.
There was a window of opportunity in late 2001, when we brought down the Afghan Taliban regime using special operations forces, local allies, and air power. After than, it became fourth-generation warfare (4GW), which is harder than counterinsurgency because there is no “legitimate” government to support, and the enemy is local and tribal — not going anywhere, knows we have to leave eventually, cannot be defeated short of genocide.
The Obama administration was slow to make the switch from futile attempts to do counterinsurgency in Afghanistan (using less than 1/4 the usual number of troops, and without a reliable local regime) to Joe Biden’s idea of “counter-terrorism” using UAVs and special forces.
“Counter-terrorism” is advantageous politically for President Obama, because we don’t have to deploy as many of our people halfway around the world, and our casualties are a lot less. “No terrorist attack as of yet” is a very short-sighted standard of success, given that America will always be a soft target and there have been some near misses.
It bothers me that the drone war (1) is being waged without any legal justification that the Obama administration is willing to reveal, (2) conducts “signature strikes” against targets whose names, ages, occupations and political sympathies are completely unknown, and (3) there is no way to accept the surrender of a targeted person, as required by the Geneva Convention. Waving a white flag or putting your hands up won’t stop the UAV operator from killing you.
Lastly, and I don’t think this gets mentioned enough, UAVs are essentially a poor man’s weapon system. They were first perfected by Israel, and lots of countries have them now. What do we say if this weapon is used against us in the same manner we’re using it?
#2 by Larry Bergan on August 8, 2012 - 10:09 pm
If killing people from a distance is the new norm, we’re all eventually doomed. Just takes time.