
Leaked report shows high civilian death toll from CIA drone strikes - stfu
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/22/leaked_report_shows_high_civilian_death_toll_from_cia_drone_strikes/
======
spodek
Growing up in the 70s, we looked at news from the Soviet Union and other
authoritarian regimes as blatantly untrue propaganda. By comparison, our press
and government practiced transparency -- they may have lied, but not on the
scale the others did.

I keep slipping back into believing the United States government believes in
honesty and transparency, at least relatively more than other governments. In
some areas it might, but not on major issues like war.

It's painful to watch a government that instituted the Marshall Plan actively
destroy its credibility like this. Or to think of the consequences. Or to see
them play out.

~~~
potatolicious
Not only is it painful to watch this, it's even more painful to think about
how far we've fallen, and how quickly. It wasn't that long ago where most
mainstream US media sources could be trusted to provide insightful, fact-
checked journalism.

~~~
vacri
The internet killed fact-checkers. In order to beat the 24-hour news cycle,
reports have to be done asap, and fact-checking just gets in the way. Removing
fact-checking is just a risk management strategy, methinks, as sure you'll
lose out from time to time, but overall you'll be _so much faster!_.

I lament the loss of fact-checking, and it pains me to see errors in
professional services that should be picked up be even first-year tertiary
students.

~~~
mattm
No, it's because the FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine [1] which lead to
the rise of biased "news" channels in order to gain viewers.

The Harper government in Canada recently eliminated Canada's version of this
and I shudder what to think will happen 10-20 years down the line.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine)

------
DannyBee
My recollection is the CIA considers any military aged males in the area of a
strike to be enemy combatants, which could be one cause for significantly
different numbers.

Here we go:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-
in...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-
qaeda.html?pagewanted=all)

"It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian
casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age
males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration
officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them
innocent."

~~~
mladenkovacevic
The scary part is that this line of thinking is not entirely untrue seeing as
civilian casualties have a way of radicalizing young men in search of revenge.

The REALLY scary part where America goes from being a misguided but well-
intentioned brute to a completely evil, opportunistic warmonger is when you
think about the data that the US intelligence and military complex has access
to. Don't they know that their war is creating more enemy combatants with each
and every civilian casualty, and if they know that then why are they
steadfastly continuing with their campaign as if it's actually producing
positive results.

~~~
jehovahrova
"The scary part is that this line of thinking is not entirely untrue seeing as
civilian casualties have a way of radicalizing young men in search of
revenge."

I do not expect to convince you to change your opinion, but I would like to
let you know that this is not an opinion well verified by fact. It's a
supposition made by chaps like Noam Chomsky without serious data behind it. It
is also counter to what we know is true, which is that serious terrorism comes
from religiously-motivated intellectuals, not the down-trodden poor incited to
revenge.

~~~
diydsp
I believe civilian casualties do have a way of radicalizing young men in
search of revenge. Examples can easily be found which show that American men
enlisted in response to attacks on our soil.

"One of those young men was William Grigsby, now an Army staff sergeant who
enlisted in early 2002. “The events of 9/11 had everything to do with my
decision to enlist,” he said." [1]

"It's clear the events of Sept. 11, 2001 played a role in many peoples'
decisions to join the military. The Minnesota National Guard is still
benefiting from a boost in recruitment a decade later." [2]

[1]
[http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=65272](http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=65272)

[2]
[http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/09/05/sept...](http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/09/05/sept11-recruitment)

------
peterkelly
Here's an idea. Now this might sound a bit crazy, but hear me out:

How about working to prevent terrorism by not murdering innocent civilians in
other countries and inciting massive hatred towards the US from those affected
and their fellow countrymen?

Can you imagine what would happen if another country was carrying out drone
strikes in the US, with similar numbers of casualties?

~~~
toble
Problem is, the USA is geared towards those sorts of aggressive methods
because of the huge military infrastructure. The solution is to constantly cut
the budget and make that aspect less influential.

~~~
hoggle
When you have approximately 1/3 of the population being somewhat dependent on
that stream of income, is it still feasible to "go back"?

Economically it's also far less risky to be the bully as long as you can. It
would be great to see the US believe more in their productive nerds than in
their bullies but at the moment they are playing it safe by _somewhat_ (aside
from populist immigration policies - probably not the best for innovation)
betting on both of them.

~~~
toble
Fully understand that point. I can only suggest that lots of Western countries
have slowly reduced their military budgets over decades. They seem to have
adapted to the change.

------
gmuslera
This numbers are a bit higher

[http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/](http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/)

And that only counts Pakistan. Afganistan, Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and
Yemen were attacked by drones too

[http://www.policymic.com/articles/23708/guess-
which-8-countr...](http://www.policymic.com/articles/23708/guess-
which-8-countries-the-u-s-is-waging-secret-drone-campaigns-against)

------
MarkMc
I've never understood how these two positions are logically consistent:

(1) We do not torture people on principle

(2) We use drone strikes that sometimes kill innocent bystanders because the
ends justifies the means

In the case of torturing someone, you are inflicting only pain (which is not
as bad as death) on someone who is probably guilty of a crime (which is not as
bad as inflicting pain on someone who is completely innocent).

In the case of drone strikes that kill innocent bystanders, you are inflicting
death (which is worse than pain) on a completely innocent person (which is
worse than killing someone who is guilty of a crime).

Now I understand that torture is unreliable and that is a good reason not to
do it. But if you do not use torture _on principle_ then to be consistent you
must also not use drone strikes _on principle_.

~~~
skore
> In the case of torturing someone, you are inflicting only pain (which is not
> as bad as death) on someone who is probably guilty of a crime (which is not
> as bad as inflicting pain on someone who is completely innocent).

I'm afraid it's more complicated than that. I get that you're trying to draw a
contrast and use "their version of things", but "their version" is completely
flawed to the point of misinformation.

Torture can be so bad that it destroys a person psychologically. For some
people who were tortured, they might as well be dead.

Likewise - people who are being tortured aren't "probably" guilty of a crime.
Actually, they probably aren't. They just happen to know a small bit about
somebody who is guilty of a crime[0]. Put differently: You don't torture the
hardened criminals, because they are likely prepared for it. You torture
people who are (mostly) civilians because they are weak and if they know
something, they'll talk. For a civilian, torture means ripping them away from
their life, making them long to go back. For a criminal, torture is a likely
outcome of what they do anyways.

Torture is just another way in which the gift of collateral damage is brought
to innocent people. War, in all of its facets, is waged against civilians.

Finally - torture is only unreliable in certain areas. It is completely
unreliable in the contrast you draw - applied on hardened criminals who are
high value targets in an armed conflict. But it succeeds beautifully in the
two areas that it was designed for: terrorizing civilians and giving military
psychos a plaything to destroy.

[0]This is actually the most important argument against "I have nothing to
hide".

~~~
TeMPOraL
But the thing is that all the things you wrote about torture apply to drone
strikes as well, on a much wider scale. It's not just the explosions that
matter. There's a) the constant fear people have that something, somewhere
near, might just explode at any time, and b) the sound of drones flying
overhead, all the time, pretty much 24h/day, that keeps people from sleeping
and scares the cattle. There were some good articles about how this looks in
Pakistan back around 2010.

~~~
skore
No, I absolutely agree. There are many similarities - just the way the OP
framed it (comparing the severity of an actual drone _strike_ to the "just
painful" torture) didn't quite work out.

------
confluence
Not that I'm defending the actions of the drone strikes, but assuming the
numbers in this report are correct, it does seem to kill a lot fewer civilians
than an invasion and full blown war would have, both in relative and absolute
terms. With the Iraq war we've had over 100K civilians killed to ~40K
combatants. Thinking logically, drone strikes would've severely reduced the
number of civilians killed, whilst simultaneously increasing the number of
combatants in both real and absolute terms for both the Afghanistan and Iraq
wars.

Whether or not the combatants killed actually were combatants, or whether or
not this should be done morally are for other people to discuss. But assuming
that the other option would be say a full blown invasion of Pakistan or Yemen
(and I'm NOT saying that it is), looking practically, if a military action had
to be conducted (and I'm NOT saying that it must), I'd pick it in the form of
drone strikes any day of the month.

~~~
anigbrowl
Quite so:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio)

------
TallGuyShort
I doubt most of the other deaths were ever given much of a fair trial, so the
implication of innocence should probably be applied a bit more broadly. You
know, since we're defending democracy and all.

~~~
bloaf
The military does not give trials to the people it kills. Drone strikes are a
military action.

~~~
rdtsc
A part of drone strikes are done by CIA pilots at Langley. I think you are
being generous with "military, does this and thus it is ok".

But no matter how generous you are, stretching "military" for CIA agents at
Langely who kill kids herding goats by day and pick up their kids for soccer
practice in the evening is a little too silly for my taste.

~~~
bloaf
The CIA explicitly has no law enforcement capability. Their killing therefore
does not represent the enforcement of any law and as such does not require a
trial. Their killing is therefore a military action.

~~~
zachrose
Then so too are gang shootings, domestic murder, and terrorism itself?

~~~
bloaf
Gangs, civilians, and terrorists are not governmental entities and therefore
not military. A state-sanctioned terrorist attack would likely be considered a
military action by that state. Organized violence against a foreign country by
citizens of another is also referred to as military (e.g. [1])

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_%28military%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_%28military%29)

~~~
_delirium
> A state-sanctioned terrorist attack would likely be considered a military
> action by that state.

The U.S., at least, claims that it wouldn't be. According to the U.S., state-
sanctioned terrorism is still terrorism, not legitimate military action, and a
violation of international law. Therefore the U.S. maintains a list of "State
Sponsors of Terrorism", countries that it alleges engage in such unlawful
tactics, either directly or via proxies. For example, it placed Libya on the
list after the Lockerbie bombing.

~~~
lostlogin
Don't be reading anything into that list. Terrorism is mostly just a label
used to shut down discussion. Funding for the IRA occurred in the US in a big
way. The US has also backed even more violent struggles against elected
governments. And if shooting down civilian airliners isn't direct terrorism,
what it? This is a discussion on murdering people with drone strikes though,
and I suppose that's pretty much the same.

------
knodi
Its stuff like this that turns people into terrorist, also known as freedom
fighters to others.

~~~
supercanuck
How many people would think twice about posting what you just did on the
internet in light of the recent NSA revelations.

~~~
kamarupa
Who cares about people who think twice about expressing a perfectly valid
sentiment in the face of illegal and immoral surveillance. They're the last
people that should be considered, as they lack moral fiber and personal
agency.

------
D9u
One would expect better from a nation whose president was a winner of the
Nobel _Peace_ Prize.

~~~
smutticus
Why? The Nobel committe gave Henry Kissinger that same prize and he oversaw
the invasion of Cambodia. An invasion that eventually led to the rise of the
Khmer Rouge and the deaths of over 1 million Cambodians.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu)

I don't think we should place too much faith in these Nobel folks getting it
right much of the time.

------
bayesianhorse
I'm not a big fan of the drone war. But I don't want to see it only from the
one side. The big question I am asking myself is: What is the alternative?

In Pakistan for example, the government condemns the drone strikes and vows to
stop them. Well, they could, instantly. They can just "really" ask the US to
stop it, or they could put pressure on the US by closing their borders for
Afghan logistics, or they could even shoot them down. But they don't. That
makes me think the Pakistani government is in tacit collusion.

The alternative to these drone strikes is not peace eternal. If there is no
pressure on the Taliban, they would become a bigger problem and headache for
the Pakistanis. They would have to send troops into these areas.

I highly doubt that Pakistani troops "cleaning" or even just policing the
tribal areas would yield a significantly lower death toll among civilians...

------
e3pi
I like to think these internal whistle blowers have gained moral backbone by
Edward Snowden's example. May there be more leaks to foment righteous outrage
and correct this disregard of slaughtering innocent foreign civilians. Whistle
blowers and the net are now the new 4th++ estate.

------
runn1ng
They are foreigners though, so it doesn't matter that much

~~~
Volpe
It doesn't seem to matter if they are US citizens either...

------
scotty79
Why these drone strikes are not considered acts of terrorism by international
community? Are they in some way approved by the countries where they take
place?

~~~
jasonlotito
> Are they in some way approved by the countries where they take place?

Yes.

------
jaebrown
Some of the comments on Salon are just sad. A death is a death. Whether it's
900 or 2, drone strikes that kill innocent civilians are unacceptable. Trying
to justify it by saying that there is only a small death toll number is
inhumane. We can not say are objective is to protect innocent life and then
take innocent life. Giving precedent to American life makes us and NATO forces
seem like evil pretentious bastards. We constantly create enemies with these
tactics. If your mother, brother, sister, etc.. was killed during one of these
attacks, it makes it easier for you to join an extremist group to bring down
the countries that had anything to do with their deaths.

From my readings, it seems that a lot of these group's efforts are a lot less
religious motivated and more revenge motivated now of days, hence the increase
in extremist groups post 9/11\. The US foreign policy since President Truman
has set precedent on innocent American life and those of our allies. Not to
sound like a conspiracy theorist but I think all of this boils down to three
words a woman from Brooklyn, NY famously said best in a popular Pop-culture
rap song "Money, Power, Respect". In that order as well.

War is money, so keeping an enemy is important. If the US ended its War on
Terrorism today, there would be no other organization, faction or nation
willing to step up to be Public Enemy #1. Sure we have those that could be
considered (Iran and North Korea) but they tremble in a NY minute if chosen to
take up the title. A defense budget pumps trillions into the US economy; which
creates return for shareholders, jobs, tax revenue (personal income), and
enforces the US Foreign Policy of democracy everywhere. More spending, more
borrowing; which has been the trend of the US in the past decade.

Power and respect are essential to America's continued dominance as a super-
force and leader amongst nations. We take a different stand on power than
other rich nations. We concentrate on using our power for evil instead on good
by focusing on fear. We attempt to bully with the fear of us stepping into a
foreign situation; which has been manipulated over time and thru history to
seem that are presence brings a win for us or our allies.

Respect gives others faith to continue to believe in the US; which means
continued belief in the US dollar. Any lack of faith in the US dollar means
lack of investing; which then turns into countries like China trying to
salvaged what money they have left on their US bonds and other securities;
which do not allow them to hit maturity. We then pay out what we owe; which
will be nothing because that is what we have. The results are a depression
because our debt is now our currency to the world and that is deflation.

Just my thoughts, first time I typed them out or shared for anyone to hear
other than the audience I gather when talking about tech, startups, student
load debt, sports or politics. Sorry about no data or sources, I just got into
the zone typing but this comes from my research as an undergrad and somewhat
grad student.

~~~
6d0debc071
> Trying to justify it by saying that there is only a small death toll number
> is inhumane. We can not say are objective is to protect innocent life and
> then take innocent life.

You can.

I mean I don't agree with what they're doing, (because I don't think that
they're instituting socio-economic changes that will have a long term positive
effect,) but this _is_ the old 'Is it better to imprison an innocent man than
let a guilty one go free?' conundrum.

When you use force as an instrument of policy, innocent people are always
going to get hurt. It even happens domestically with the police. What's the
alternative? Become total pacifists - completely eschew force? The world where
all good people are total pacifists does not look like somewhere I'd want to
live.

So you have to reason: When do police become violent enough that their role is
no-longer justified. What's the line, what numbers for what benefit?

It's a horrible, disgusting thing to have to say, I don't _like_ the idea that
people will get hurt, but someone's got to:

Even if you were totally self interested, if you were reasoning from behind
Rawl's veil of ignorance, then you'd _always_ choose to live in the world
where force had been used by the 'good' side and where the numbers had worked
out better for more people as a consequence.

~~~
jaebrown
This may be my optimism talking but I don't think violence solves any
problems. We will continue to have enemies as long as we kill innocent people.
Now that may be the objective; which refers back to my point that war is
money. But you can not tell me that in the history of civilization that line
of thinking has ever worked. People will always rebel when they consider the
force governing or dictating their fate to be unconcerned with their true
value or to be evil.

You bring up our police forces domestically; which have in the past decade
gotten the reputation of being too militarized. This has not resulted into
anything positive for police. Violent crimes are still high and innocent
people are outraged and always lashing back. It has been more of a win for
people like you and me, with the Supreme Court ruling that we have a
constitutional right to record; which majority of police despise. There has
also been an increase in lawsuits; which results to a decreased budget next
fiscal year for the departments. That money comes from the taxpayers in the
end but the real lost is clearly on the departments. [1] A lesser budget;
which means fewer jobs created and less resources to invest in upgrades and
new tools (more stress to do more with less). [2] Continuing to battle public
opinion that you're needed and that you're there to do good and not evil. Next
time a vote comes up on the ballot for anything that has to do with the police
department; which way do you think people are going? [3] Congressional and
legislative scrutiny because they have become the safe attack to ensure that
they're getting constituents votes in the next election. I'm just pointing out
the obvious but I believe this trend to be getting worse. This is a whole
other topic though.

If our interest were to have peace in this region, we would approach the
situation diplomatically but our interest are economically motivated. We have
never approached this situation diplomatically since day 1.

~~~
6d0debc071
_> This may be my optimism talking but I don't think violence solves any
problems. We will continue to have enemies as long as we kill innocent people.
Now that may be the objective; which refers back to my point that war is
money. But you can not tell me that in the history of civilization that line
of thinking has ever worked. People will always rebel when they consider the
force governing or dictating their fate to be unconcerned with their true
value or to be evil._

Rebellion didn't happen for the Jews, it didn't really happen for the majority
of slaves throughout history, it didn't happen for the African Americans, it
didn't happen for those sent to the gulags, it didn't happen for those under
Mao, it didn't happen for the thousands that Saddam killed, it hasn't happened
for women in the Middle East.

If violence didn't get people what they wanted at all, then even bad people
would never use it. Rebellion against powerful and abusive forces is the
exception, historically speaking. It has to be so almost by definition, they'd
never have got to be large powerful forces if abuse hadn't been working for
them.

For better or worse, you can break and abuse people. And if they grow up
without any thought of something better, or can be convinced that they still
have something left to lose, then you have to push them very hard for them to
risk it all against you. It's often after the fact, looking back, that it
seems people abused by even absurdly brutal regimes talk about rebellion -

\-----

 _" What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went
out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return
alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass
arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the
entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with
terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the
staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set
up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers,
polkers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that
those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure
ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about
the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur –
what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked. The Organs would very
quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and,
notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground
to a halt!

If… if… We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of
the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917,
and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure!

We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."_

\- Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

\-----

I'd be the first to agree with you that violence is rarely a _good_ answer.

But then... what about World War 2? The war itself may not have solved the
underlying economic inequalities that caused the war, that came later, but do
you think that World War 2 could have been resolved favourably without the use
of force on the part of the allies?

Or a father (I use the term loosely) who abuses his children? Do you think
that can always be resolved without the use of the police to stop him?
Certainly it won't solve his mental problems but it solves the problem of the
children being beaten and/or raped.

I think the use of violence is like trying to use the accelerator to gain
traction in a car. You can use it to get around small, immediate problems,
long enough - if you're lucky - to look at the underlying cause of that
problem and correct it. However, if the group using violence is going
somewhere very bad; if the society, for instance, has an abusive criminal
justice system; then that group using more violence seems likely just going to
take them somewhere they don't want to go with a great deal less control.

...

If it's a cohesive group. That's the kicker in all this I think - what makes
pacifism not make sense as an absolute:

You don't pay the above cost - unless someone imposes it on you from outside -
if you don't share a destiny with the group you're thinking of attacking.

When you can meaningfully call it Us against Them, then violence seems like it
would be far easier to justify as a tool to solve your immediate problem
because you've relatively little invested in the long-term relationships.

------
semiprivate
These drones make us terrorists. Never knowing if the next time you or your
children go outside will be the time they get destroyed by a faceless, human-
less, bomb slinging, heat sensing machine in the sky is fucking terror. We're
fighting terror with terror.

No matter what happens, terror has won. We as a nation are fucking terrorists.

------
droithomme
Stanford's independent research into this came up with different numbers on
overall deaths, and on civilian deaths.

[http://www.livingunderdrones.org/](http://www.livingunderdrones.org/)

------
ianstallings
What disturbs me about this issue the most is how it's rationalized because
the previous administration also did the same thing. It's like we can't seem
to see Obama for who he is because he's always compared to GWB. It's like
saying a Pinto is a great car, because it's not a Yugo. People can't think
straight because they've been blinded by partisanship. We can't even talk
about the issues clearly, let alone determine the right course of action. I
wish we could fix that.

------
6d0debc071
I've never really understood why they don't arm drones with cannon rather than
missiles. Under computer control, those could be incredibly accurate. Can't
imagine there'd be much collateral damage from them.

When you have a stock of air to ground missiles, everything looks like a tank?

Then again the entire drone command system strikes me as laughably badly
designed, I dare say that's responsible for a hell of a lot of unnecessary
deaths from bad situational awareness.

------
mtgx
"Of 746 people listed as killed in the drone strikes outlined in the document,
at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated to be civilian victims, 94 of
those are said to be children."

And that's just the ones they are "declaring" as "innocent", while the
administration unilaterally decided who's guilty and deserves to be
assassinated with a drone, as an "enemy combatant".

------
jheriko
this stuff is not hidden... and this 'leaked report' is a distraction from the
even worse truth. its not hard to find figures from reputable sources if one
goes looking, and in a large part of the world its common knowledge that this
sort of thing is perpetrated by the US... :/

------
pivnicek
The robots that drop bombs from the sky could never be the good guys. Who
would go see such a film?

------
j_baker
Here's the sad part. I have _no_ reason to believe the Pakistanis on this.
There's likely some hidden political agenda behind this, and they've likely
cherry-picked the data to make us look bad.

And yet, I still trust this data more than the CIA's.

------
jevyjevjevs
Homeland is REAL!

------
bloaf
Most people I see comfortably opining on drone strikes seem to be doing so
without the discomfort of thinking the issue through. My thought process is
this:

Say the US were to find evidence that a Canadian terrorist group was planning
an attack on the Joe Louis Arena. We would inform the Canadian government who
would then go, arrest the terrorists and put them on trial. This seems to be
what drone critics think should happen in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and
Somalia. There are some pretty obvious problems with that position.

Countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia all have weak, corrupt,
ineffective governments. Naturally, they also have weak, corrupt, ineffective
police forces. Normally, the US government doesn't care. The US government is
responsible for US citizens, and Pakistan's problems are the responsibility of
the Pakistani people's government. However, the US now perceives some groups
within those countries as threats. We could give the Pakistani government all
the info we like, but unlike Canada, we can't realistically expect that to
result in the arrests of the terrorists. Even if we tried to give lots of
support to their police forces, it is almost certain that the terrorists would
be informed about any and all police movements (e.g. Bin Laden lived down the
street from a Pakistani military academy.)

So what should we do?

Ignoring the threat is too great a political risk. If Pakistani terrorists
executed so much as a single attack on US soil, you better believe the
headlines would read: "Politicians knew of terrorist threat, failed to act."

No US law enforcement agency is effectively equipped to police Pakistan. We
can't ask NYPD to go police the Pakistanis, that's stupid. The FBI is the best
candidate, but their responsibilities are primarily investigative; the actual
subduing of the terrorists is outside their purview.

The only other real option is some form of military action. Technically this
violates Pakistan's sovereignty, but who cares? Pakistan is a weak government,
it can't even police its own country. It's politicians may object, but it is
not going to start a war with the US. Moreover, Pakistani terrorists not only
kill lots of Pakistani civilians, but also are incredibly costly[1].
Therefore, many politicians will actually support the US's intervention, even
if they have to publicly distance themselves. Obviously military intervention
carries the risk of civilian casualties, but remember that the US government's
responsibilities are towards US citizens. It is the Pakistani government's
responsibility to protect Pakistanis, and it is a failing of the Pakistanis if
they have not created a government capable of protecting them.

What sort of military intervention should we use? We could send in soldiers to
try and arrest the terrorists, but that is slow, risky, and expensive (we need
holding facilities, transportation, etc.) Drones are the obvious alternative.
Not only are they cheap, they are pose about zero risk to US personnel. People
mention that drones may create terrorists, but if we assume that Pakistani
public opinion is proportional to the number of deaths, then terrorism (which
has killed far more innocent Pakistanis than drones [2]) ought to be
significantly less popular.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Pakistan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Pakistan)

[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Pakistan_since_2001)

~~~
peterkelly
> "What sort of military intervention should we use? We could send in soldiers
> to try and arrest the terrorists, but that is slow, risky, and expensive (we
> need holding facilities, transportation, etc.) Drones are the obvious
> alternative. Not only are they cheap, they are pose about zero risk to US
> personnel"

So what you're saying is that the lives of US personnel are more valuable than
that of innocent Pakistani civilians, including the 94 children cited in the
report?

Yeah, let's just go for the cheap & easy option. Maybe a few kids get killed
in the process, but who cares. At least the US can save a bit of money on
expensive military installations and have their soldiers sitting comfortably
in offices using a remote control terminal for drones, then go back to eat
with their (still alive) family in the evening.

~~~
moskie
> So what you're saying is that the lives of US personnel are more valuable
> than that of innocent Pakistani civilians, including the 94 children cited
> in the report?

I think the point is that the best option is the one that you would predict
results in the fewest amount of deaths. Do you think the option of sending in
soldiers would definitely result in fewer deaths?

Now, I'm much more inclined to agree with the idea that we should end the war
on terror in general. But I'm not so convinced that, in the meantime, drones
shouldn't be used.

~~~
peterkelly
I don't buy the notion that the only two choices are invading Pakistan or
using drones.

I'm far from an expert on these matters. But I imagine there'd be other
options (working with local authorities, with coercion at the government level
if necessary) that would be better than either of the above two.

~~~
moskie
> I'm far from an expert on these matters.

heh, none of us are.

> But I imagine there'd be other options (working with local authorities, with
> coercion at the government level if necessary) that would be better than
> either of the above two.

I don't really have any more to say about that than what bloaf said above.

