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Four drone operators have turned into whistleblowers, calling for an immediate end to the drone war

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015.

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Northside Storm Contributing Member

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...sis-recruitment-tool-air-force-whistleblowers

They note that the program, as currently designed, violates the Constitution and American laws, and that it's much worse than what we can know.

“We just understand that in its current form the program is being abused, there’s no transparency, and we need to be open to other solutions.”

Bryant said that in his view he had been made to violate his military oath by being assigned to a mission that killed a fellow American. “We were told that al-Awlaki deserved to die, he deserved to be killed as a traitor, but article 3 of section 2 of the US constitution states that even a traitor deserves a fair trial in front of a jury of his peers.”
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They note that they don't know who they're killing, and that the drone war is a "driving factor" in the rise of terrorism and hate.

In particular, they argue, the killing of innocent civilians in drone airstrikes has acted as one of the most “devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world”.

The number of lethal airstrikes has ballooned under Obama’s watch. The Pentagon has plans further to increase the number of daily drone flights by 50% by 2019.

From its inception, the drone program has been troubled by reports of mistaken targeting. Classified government documents leaked to the Intercept revealed that up to 90% of the people killed in drone strikes may be unintended, with the disparity glossed over by the recording of unknown victims as “enemies killed in action”.
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As an example of how extremely dehumanizing the program has become, children who are in the area and run a high risk of being killed are now referred to as "fun-sized" terrorists.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/20/us-mideast-crisis-usa-drones-idUSKCN0T901B20151120

As an example of the callousness they developed, Haas said operators sometimes used the term "fun-sized terrorists" to refer to children in target areas.

In response to the psychological trauma, Haas said many operators developed alcohol and drug addictions.
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They all agree that they would end the drone war.

Bryant accepted that there was no negotiating with extreme, violent terrorists of the type that carried out the Paris attacks. “But you have to prevent such people being created,” he said. “We validate them, we keep this cycle going. Their children are afraid to play out in the sun because that’s when the drones are coming.”
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We may disagree on their motivations and what they're saying, but there is no dispute that they have placed themselves at great personal risk to express what they believe, especially given how the current administration tends to treat whistleblowers.

#1 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015

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“devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world”.

I'm quite sure the Pentagon knows this and it is the reason for the program. This illegal warfare guarantees events (see Paris) that will guarantee public support of military funding.

#2 Classic, Nov 21, 2015
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Northside Storm said: ↑

They note that the program, as currently designed, violates the Constitution and American laws, and that it's much worse than what we can know.
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That claim appears to be anecdotal, and misinterprets the Constitution. Confederate soldiers were not convicted of treason in a court of law prior to the Union Army's engagement with the South. In fact, Jefferson Davis' trial did not begin until hostilities had ended. Not always necessary to go through court to get a congress-prescribed punishment.

Northside Storm said:

They note that they don't know who they're killing, and that the drone war is a "driving factor" in the rise of terrorism and hate.
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Classified government documents leaked to the Intercept revealed that up to 90% of the people killed in drone strikes may be unintended, with the disparity glossed over by the recording of unknown victims as “enemies killed in action”.
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Does intention imply innocence or non-involvement (with regard to the activities that warranted the military action in the first place)?

#3 Cohete Rojo, Nov 21, 2015
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Classic said: ↑

“devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world”.

I'm quite sure the Pentagon knows this and it is the reason for the program. This illegal warfare guarantees events (see Paris) that will guarantee public support of military funding.
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This seems to corrobrate with your statement. At the very least, the Pentagon is authorizing operations that its own operators admit "often killed non-combatants inadvertently" and which caused "pointless deaths".

Bryant and the other former airmen said they often killed non-combatants inadvertently and had the impression they were considered cowardly by relatives of victims, and that the survivors often sought revenge on the West for what they considered pointless deaths.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/20/us-mideast-crisis-usa-drones-idUSKCN0T901B20151120

#4 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015
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Cohete Rojo said: ↑

That claim appears to be anecdotal, and misinterprets the Constitution. Confederate soldiers were not convicted of treason in a court of law prior to the Union Army's engagement with the South. In fact, Jefferson Davis' trial did not begin until hostilities had ended. Not always necessary to go through court to get a congress-prescribed punishment.
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That skirts over a key issue: once you get delibrately killed, there is no trial possible. Can Congress (or really in this case, the executive branch) prescribe the death penalty without a trial? Beyond the Constitutional implications, Executive Order 12333 would suggest no, even with its recent "amendments", but America seems to have, as of late, become a nation that favors overturning moral principles for ill-advised short-term gain.

Does intention imply innocence or non-involvement (with regard to the activities that warranted the military action in the first place)?
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If you read the Intercept papers, you'll quickly realize that EKIA often means "you were a combat-age male in relatively close distance to a known target, which may not be a known target due to faulty intelligence."

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/

In undeclared war zones, the U.S. military has become overly reliant on signals intelligence, or SIGINT, to identify and ultimately hunt down and kill people. The documents acknowledge that using metadata from phones and computers, as well as communications intercepts, is an inferior method of finding and finishing targeted people. They described SIGINT capabilities in these unconventional battlefields as “poor” and “limited.” Yet such collection, much of it provided by foreign partners, accounted for more than half the intelligence used to track potential kills in Yemen and Somalia.

There’s countless instances where I’ve come across intelligence that was faulty.” This, he said, is a primary factor in the killing of civilians. “It’s stunning the number of instances when selectors are misattributed to certain people. And it isn’t until several months or years later that you all of a sudden realize that the entire time you thought you were going after this really hot target, you wind up realizing it was his mother’s phone the whole time.”
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With such a stunningly low bar for what constitutes an EKIA (90% of the casualties at a certain point of the drone war), I am not surprised that operators are convinced "they often killed non-combatants inadvertently".

#5 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015
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Northside Storm said: ↑

That skirts over a key issue: once you get delibrately killed, there is no trial possible. Can Congress (or really in this case, the executive branch) prescribe the death penalty without a trial? Beyond the Constitutional implications, Executive Order 12333 would suggest no, even with its recent "amendments", but America seems to have, as of late, become a nation that favors overturning moral principles for ill-advised short-term gain.
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So what? Were the hundreds of thousands of confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War given trials? Did George Washington and congress hold trials before he lead troops into battle during the Whiskey Rebellion?

Besides, it is very possible that words like "traitor" and "treason" were tossed around on a layman's basis within the drone program. They were referring to an individual who they suspected was engaged in an active hostile campaign against the United States. This wasn't someone who was detained in custody - this was someone who was accussed of actively recruiting soldiers and planning attacks against the United States.

If you read the Intercept papers, you'll quickly realize that EKIA often means "you were a male in relatively close distance to a known target, which may not be a known target due to faulty intelligence."

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/
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Could also mean these were recruits, arms suppliers to the combatants, or in other ways they were individuals giving aid to these combatants.

#6 Cohete Rojo, Nov 21, 2015
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Cohete Rojo said: ↑

So what? Were the hundreds of thousands of confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War given trials? Did George Washington and congress hold trials before he lead troops into battle during the Whiskey Rebellion?

Besides, it is very possible that words like "traitor" and "treason" were tossed around on a layman's basis within the drone program. They were referring to an individual who they suspected was engaged in an active hostile campaign against the United States. This wasn't someone who was detained in custody - this was someone who was accussed of actively recruiting soldiers and planning attacks against the United States.
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The fact that you are referring to periods of American history where well-defined legal precedents had not been defined and which were real existential wars for the survival of the nation, and one period which was marked by the suspension of haebas corpus shows me how far you are stretching to defend this. One could note that even a body of law as significant as the Reconstruction Amendments had not even been fully implemented in either of those examples.

And you skirt over a critical fact, beyond ignoring current laws that reflect the evolution of American morality: Jefferson Davis was evantually granted amnesty.

Could also mean these were recruits, arms suppliers to the combatants, or in other ways giving aid.
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Could also mean that you just bombed somebody's mom and a bunch of "fun-sized terrorists" because 50%+ of your intelligence is "faulty". 90% of any pool is a pretty huge pool in of itself.

That's a lot of "could also means" for a program that is purported to be razor sharp at avoiding civilian deaths.

#7 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015
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Northside Storm said: ↑

The fact that you are referring to periods of American history where well-defined legal precedents had not been defined and which were real existential wars for the survival of the nation, and one period which was marked by the suspension of haebas corpus shows me how far you are stretching to defend this. One could note that even a body of law as significant as the Reconstruction Amendments had not even been fully implemented in either of those examples.

And you skirt over a critical fact, beyond ignoring current laws that reflect the evolution of American morality: Jefferson Davis was evantually granted amnesty.
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There is no reason to think that particular individual had to be given a trial and had to be prescribed a punishment of death for his active engagement in hostilities against the United States. What kind of fantasy world are you living in?

Could also mean that you just bombed somebody's mom and a bunch of "fun-sized terrorists" because 50%+ of your intelligence is "faulty".

That's a lot of "could also means" for a program that is purported to be razor sharp at avoiding civilian deaths.
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The United States military relies on its allies to the best of its judgement and ability.

#8 Cohete Rojo, Nov 21, 2015
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Cohete Rojo said: ↑

There is no reason to think that particular individual had to be given a trial and had to be prescribed a punishment of death for his active engagement in hostilities against the United States. What kind of fantasy world are you living in?
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What kind of fantasy world do you live in where an executive order authorized and re-authorized by several presidents proscribing assassination can be undone by referring to George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion?

A mini-rebellion, I should note, where 3–4 rebels were killed and 170 captured.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

The United States military relies on its allies to the best of its judgement and ability.
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Yeah, and that has worked very well for the ultimate goal of reducing civilian casualties, and ending(?) the War on Terror.

http://www.msf.org/topics/kunduz-hospital-airstrike

Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair. Robert Grenier, the former head of the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, has warned that the American drone program in Yemen risks turning the country into a safe haven for Al Qaeda like the tribal areas of Pakistan — “the Arabian equivalent of Waziristan.”

This is why A.Q.A.P. is much stronger in Yemen today than it was a few years ago. In 2009, A.Q.A.P. had only a few hundred members and controlled no territory; today it has, along with Ansar al-Sharia, at least 1,000 members and controls substantial amounts of territory.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/how-drones-help-al-qaeda.html?_r=0

#9 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015
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Northside Storm said: ↑

What kind of fantasy world do you live in where an executive order authorized and re-authorized by several presidents proscribing assassination can be undone by referring to George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion?
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Context and precedence matter. This guy was not Edward Snowden. This individual was in an active military-style campaign against the US - involving planning attacks and recruiting new combatants. Really?

Yeah, and that has worked very well for the ultimate goal of reducing civilian casualties, and ending(?) the War on Terror.

http://www.msf.org/topics/kunduz-hospital-airstrike

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/how-drones-help-al-qaeda.html?_r=0
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The US isn't perfect, and neither are its allies. BTW, The War on Terror was in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. What exactly had the US done to provoke these attacks: close contact dancing at high school proms and repelling an invading force out of Kuwait?

#10 Cohete Rojo, Nov 21, 2015
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will be Obama's legacy

#11 bigtexxx, Nov 21, 2015
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Cohete Rojo said: ↑

Context and precedence matter. This guy was not Edward Snowden. This individual was in an active military-style campaign against the US - involving planning attacks and recruiting new combatants. Really?
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Your own examples betray you. Jefferson Davis was in active combat with the United States: he was granted amnesty. The Whiskey Rebellion involved active combat and ended with the vast majority of rebels being captured, not killed.

Precedence and context do indeed matter, like the precedence and context of current United States laws.

http://www.propublica.org/article/drone-strikes-test-legal-grounds-for-war-on-terror

Officials note the AUMF does not have a geographic boundary. Individuals far from the “hot” battlefield in Afghanistan, officials have argued, can still be said to be engaged in an armed conflict with the U.S.

But legal scholars say the AUMF’s authority to detain and kill militants may be undermined if there is no “core” al-Qaida group to speak of, or when active conflict in Afghanistan ends. It may also falter when it isn’t clear exactly how a group or individual is tied to al-Qaida – such as in the web of militant and extremist groups operating in Africa and elsewhere that may claim an affiliation or be ideologically aligned.

“There’s room for shoe-horning them into the AUMF,” says Robert Chesney, a professor at University of Texas School of Law. “But any honest assessment has to concede it’s not obvious that all the more loosely affiliated groups are encompassed.”

Shamsi and other critics of the drone war have noted that some strikes in Yemen in particular appear to target insurgents acting against local government. The U.S. almost never acknowledges particular strikes or details the specific threat posed by an individual.

Johnson, the former Pentagon counsel, told The Wall Street Journal that “the president always has the constitutional authority to protect the nation and important national interests by responding to individual terrorist threats, militarily or otherwise.”

Johnson noted that, for a “sustained armed conflict, the preference should be Congressional authorization.”
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The US isn't perfect, and neither are its allies. BTW, The War on Terror was in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. What exactly had the US done to provoke these attacks: close contact dancing at high school proms and repelling an invading force out of Kuwait?
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This is a tangental topic I'd be happy to debate with you if you start your own thread. As it is, this thread isn't about why the drone war started so much as it is about why it should or shouldn't be ended.

#12 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015
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You truly have to be very unintelligent and illogical to be willing to bring up the revolutionary war and civil war to defend drone strikes in the 21st century.

I'm impressed that anyone could be so daft as to not see the gigantic differences.

#13 DudeWah, Nov 21, 2015

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bigtexxx said: ↑

will be Obama's legacy
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It looks like the war on terror has scored another success.
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http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=62967

Genuine question: have you changed your mind on the War on Terror? or was it more of a "Bush did this, Obama is continuing it, but Obama owns it" situation?

#14 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015
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bigtexxx said: ↑

will be Obama's legacy
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Better than sending 4,000 troops to die in Iraq to avenge daddy.

#15 REEKO_HTOWN, Nov 21, 2015
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Northside Storm said: ↑

Your own examples betray you. Jefferson Davis was in active combat with the United States: he was granted amnesty. The Whiskey Rebellion involved active combat and ended with the vast majority of rebels being captured, not killed.
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Jesus.

http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/SticiGui/Text/reasoning.htm#relevance

Precedence and context do indeed matter, like the precedence and context of current United States laws.

http://www.propublica.org/article/drone-strikes-test-legal-grounds-for-war-on-terror

This is a tangental topic I'd be happy to debate with you if you start your own thread. As it is, this thread isn't about why the drone war started so much as it is about why it should or shouldn't be ended.
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Precedence is not solely current US laws but is also based on past court decisions. BTW, you are the one bringing the issue of Constitutionality to the debate. You should prepare your case better, rather than rely on fallacies (see link above).

“There’s room for shoe-horning them into the AUMF,” says Robert Chesney, a professor at University of Texas School of Law. “But any honest assessment has to concede it’s not obvious that all the more loosely affiliated groups are encompassed.”
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That is not even an issue here. Another fallacy.

#16 Cohete Rojo, Nov 21, 2015
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Northside Storm said: ↑

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=62967

Genuine question: have you changed your mind on the War on Terror? or was it more of a "Bush did this, Obama is continuing it, but Obama owns it" situation?
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What a pathetic attempt at trolling. It's not even on topic! unless you assume war on terror=Obama's drone program

#17 bigtexxx, Nov 21, 2015
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REEKO_HTOWN said: ↑

Better than sending 4,000 troops to die in Iraq to avenge daddy.
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That had congressional approval. You know, back when Presidents did that kind of thing?

edit: and Hillary supported, too! *snort*

#18 bigtexxx, Nov 21, 2015

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bigtexxx said: ↑

That had congressional approval. You know, back when Presidents did that kind of thing?
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President Obama is authorizing drone strikes based on AUMF. You may remember that being signed on September, 14th, 2001 after passing through Congress.

#19 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015
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bigtexxx said: ↑

What a pathetic attempt at trolling. It's not even on topic! unless you assume war on terror=Obama's drone program
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Obama's drone program traces its "legality" directly to the AUMF that has defined the War on Terror for a decade and a half now.

I don't understand how saying "it's Obama's legacy" adds anything to a discussion of whether or not to end the drone program, beyond your characteristic drive to turn tragedies into partisan politics.

#20 Northside Storm, Nov 21, 2015

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