January 13, 2013
About the drone strikes as alternatives to invasion and massive air strikes, i don’t know if you heard about the blog of this girl: mehreenkasana. She’s a Pakistani journalist, living in Pakistan under the campaign of the “needed” strikes and had a lot to say about them. I recommend to anyone to read her view to understand why the drones strikes are not only about a choice of strategy.

There are two pieces to this issue that are too often entangled.

Point 1 is: are drone strikes a good tool of US foreign policy to achieve US goals? This, after all, is what they’re for. On this I think the record is at best mixed: drone strikes cause all kinds of resentments and frustrations even as they clearly also kill some people who would, if they could, attack the US and Americans. They may encourage the making of more hate and anger against the US than they kill. 

That’s a policy question, and it’s a real one.

Point 2 is that much of US foreign policy is driven by domestic political considerations. Americans expect their government to “protect” them, and all too often perceive that “protect” means “kill foreigners.” As a practical matter, the US has a vast array of tools available to it to kill foreigners, ranging from thermonuclear war through invasions through airstrikes through drone strikes. (Remember, using the weapons of the time the US was killing 100,000 Japanese a night during WWII, without using nuclear weapons.) 

Drone strikes are our least deadly way to brutalize the world. So if we’re going to do something, I’d rather it were drone strikes than carpet bombing with B-52s and phosphorous bombs.

3:34pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPybhb26a
(Notes: 33)
  
  1. t8k6 reblogged this from politicalprof
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    I would also make the point that these operations are largely run off the books, at least to my knowledge. This is not...
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  5. thenoobyorker said: There’s also a large amount of support (I think): washingtonpost.com/poli…
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