How Drone Strikes Help Al-Qaeda

[sw1442]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7SeXdO_00c&feature=BFa&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ

Great piece, no partisan bullshit

[mrfrosty]

hey sw, i recommend you watch the PBS FRONTLINE special (h t t p : / / w w w . pbs . o r g/wgbh/pages/frontline/al-qaeda-in-yemen/)
they ACTUALLY GO TO YEMEN AND TALK TO PEOPLE!!!
the drone strikes do make some people mad, but the reason why they get pissed is when they protest the yemen military open fire to make them stop advancing.
and Al Q isn't doing so good.
!IN FACT! Al Q was driven away by armed villagers after they killed a respected elder, when this conflict started heating up (months ago) most of the civilians left and refused to join Al Q cuz they just wanna be left alone, and do not care to form an islamic state.

Cenk gets it right when it comes to political issues here in the USA, but when it comes to the wars most of the time he is missing alot of info, and just repeats alot of the stuff he hears from news reports without looking for more detailed accounts.

[Rick32]

It's pretty easy to sit on the sidelines and snipe at those assume all the risks and responsibilities. One thing you'll notice during that 9 minute long video is that all he is doing is complaining about a tactic. He doesn't like drone strikes, okay, so what is his alternative? What is the better solution? He doesn't offer one because there isn't one. If you have people who plot against you in countries with governments too ineffectual to arrest them, what do you do? I think 9/11 taught us that you can't sit on idle hands and hope they disappear. You either arrest them, which is an impossibility, or you have to take them out. There is no "clean" option with no civilian casualties, unless his suggestion is to simply give up and do nothing.

[atrox6661]

Young turks just as much bullshit as Russia today.

[sw1442]

It's pretty easy to sit on the sidelines and snipe at those assume all the risks and responsibilities. One thing you'll notice during that 9 minute long video is that all he is doing is complaining about a tactic. He doesn't like drone strikes, okay, so what is his alternative? What is the better solution? He doesn't offer one because there isn't one. If you have people who plot against you in countries with governments too ineffectual to arrest them, what do you do? I think 9/11 taught us that you can't sit on idle hands and hope they disappear. You either arrest them, which is an impossibility, or you have to take them out. There is no "clean" option with no civilian casualties, unless his suggestion is to simply give up and do nothing.

Well the great thing about drones is there is no risk or responsibility.

I don't buy your argument that we have to keep creating casualties in Yemen because there "is no other solution," how about not bombing them.

You can scoff at the idea of not trying to kill more people but the numbers show that it's making targeted areas more hostile, not surprisingly, and that doesn't mean a safer United States.

[green2delta]

No partisan bullshit? And that's why every quote is from the Washington Post.

You could make a counter argument when it comes to Al Qaedas numbers in Yemen, Today there is 700+ members in Yemen. Without bombing there could be 2000+.

Until the young turks gets there hands on evidence used to support a strike, they are really just flailing their hands in the air without really knowing anything about it. I could take a trip to Yemen and get 10 people to give me quotes that shows drone strikes are working. Doesn't mean it's true, it's just how I'd like to present it because I support them. But it seems as though the young turks would rather us sit back and let Yemen be taken over. I just get a kick out of this one because of the "no partisan bullshit" line.

[BrendenF11]

During my 9 and a half months in Iraq I learned a lot from the Iraqi people I spoke with. In particular the people from the sons of Iraq, they were not bad people nor were they militant people. Yet there they were standing along side the road with an AK, had fought against coalition forces, and they did it simply for a pay check.


Most nations in the ME have a different set of values and a different understanding of life than western cultures. When I spoke to Dia a member of the sons of Iraq he spoke of battles he had fought against American forces around Hilla for some time, he told me about all of the people he had lost. He had lost two uncles, two brothers, his son, etc. He then said we never really hated you Americans, you freed us, but we needed to make money and we could get paid fighting you. That sentiment was common among virtually every person I talked to in Iraq.

Same thing went for kuwait, I was told they do not support the war in Iraq and say it is wrong. However, with the US in their country it makes them safe and also gives many of them jobs.

As far as I could tell the radicals in the ME are far and few inbetween, the vast majority are decent people, they just want a fricken pay check (they have a different set of values and a different culture alot of which I personally disagree with but I don't care what they do in their country). That being said they understand colateral damage, it is part of their culture, they understand the damage done to their countries for their fellow country mens actions. A drone strike will create a hell of a lot less terrorists than a generally poor country.

[Rick32]

Well the great thing about drones is there is no risk or responsibility.

I don't buy your argument that we have to keep creating casualties in Yemen because there "is no other solution," how about not bombing them.

You can scoff at the idea of not trying to kill more people but the numbers show that it's making targeted areas more hostile, not surprisingly, and that doesn't mean a safer United States.

Again I ask, what is the solution then? This problem existed long before drones were flying over Yemen. Remember the bombing of the USS Cole back in 2000, or the failed attack on the USS The Sullivans a few months prior to that? Both of those were in Yemen, and our response to those attacks was to do nothing. Less then a year later we were attacked at home and lost 3000 people. The "just leave them alone" approach has already proven itself to be a failure.

[Pittsburgh]

If there is a high-valued target in the area, I have no problem with a drone strike. It's better than putting more of our soldiers in harms way and wasting tax dollars inside countries that hate our guts. Like Rick said, what are the alternatives if there is a target on the ground?

- Do we send in a CIA agent and have him politely ask the target to pretty please with sugar on top to stop plotting against our country?

- Do we send the target a heartfelt card and bouquet of flowers, asking him to kindly change his extremist ways?

- Do we simply ignore the threat and then proceed to act shocked when we have 3,000 more innocent Americans laying dead in our streets?

These "people" want us dead. Simply ignoring the threat has proven extremely fatal on numerous occasions in the past. Closing your eyes and ears doesn't make the threat go away. I will gladly take a few pissed off civilians in places like Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan over 3,000 dead American civilians in NYC, DC, LA or Chicago. It's easy to sit in front of a computer screen and say "stop the drone strikes", but I have to wonder if some would have a different opinion on this situation if they were forced to either stay inside a burning skycraper or do a header off the 106th floor simply because we didn't plant a tomahawk missile inside Khalid's brain cavity when we had the chance?

In short, until these crooked governments begin to seriously crack down on terrorism and either kill or hand over these targets to U.S. officials, boo f-ing hoo.

[gazzthompson]

Good post Brenden, good to see a perspective of somebody who has been on the ground.


As for killing High valued targets in various countries, I'm all for killing them. BUT i would rather have 1 HVT than bomb him and create another 6 HVT, that's just simple numbers, creating more threat and creating more risk to our countries...

[Pittsburgh]

The "just leave them alone" approach has already proven itself to be a failure.

Just ask Bill Clinton, who I feel wasn't a horrible president (we've had worse), but he was soft on terrorism. All it takes is one Khalid to kill hundreds, if not thousands.

No thanks. Missile to the dome is fine by me.

[sw1442]

Without bombing there could be 2000+.



so you poke fun about washington post as a source, at least it's a source, you're just throwing this bogus claim out there.

I do hear you though, without our serrated support of the Yemeni government, it might get TAKEN OVER... by Yemeni people.

Not every Yemeni citizen who is against the current government there is an evil extremist Muslim who spends every waking moment plotting how to destroy America, this 'well you gotta kill em or they'll inevitably become terrorists with international strike capability' default way of thinking can't stick if we want to have any chance of repairing our relation with the middle east. You all might think it's comically impossible we could ever have good relations with that region, but shouldn't we think about the next generations of Americans? Shouldn't we be motivated to try and diminish Anti-American sentiment in ways other than temporary ways ( perpetual drone strikes ) if we're really concerned about safety of Americans today and tomorrow?

[sw1442]

Just ask Bill Clinton, who I feel wasn't a horrible president (we've had worse), but he was soft on terrorism. All it takes is one Khalid to kill hundreds, if not thousands.

No thanks. Missile to the dome is fine by me.

It would be fine by me too if we only hit people literally planning to imminently attack our country. Unfortunately we define militant as any male of military age. I can't seriously be the only person on this website who thinks we need a little more regulation to the flying death machines...

Really no one sees the potential hazard of inflicting this level of collateral damage with these autonomous drones? I'm not even against drone strikes in general, but these "signature strikes" where they don't even know the fucking identity of the person they are vaporizing... and then when you find out it was a dozen women and a dozen kids, you lock up the journalist who reports it?

Come on guys, I'm not coming on here to flame the military, I'm coming on here to try and understand why no one bats an eye at how frequently we are causing civilian casualties and how transparent it is that the excessive casualties result from this ridiculous "prove your innocent posthumously" policy we have in place.

[sw1442]

If there is a high-valued target in the area, I have no problem with a drone strike. It's better than putting more of our soldiers in harms way and wasting tax dollars inside countries that hate our guts. Like Rick said, what are the alternatives if there is a target on the ground?

- Do we send in a CIA agent and have him politely ask the target to pretty please with sugar on top to stop plotting against our country?

- Do we send the target a heartfelt card and bouquet of flowers, asking him to kindly change his extremist ways?

- Do we simply ignore the threat and then proceed to act shocked when we have 3,000 more innocent Americans laying dead in our streets?

These "people" want us dead. Simply ignoring the threat has proven extremely fatal on numerous occasions in the past. Closing your eyes and ears doesn't make the threat go away. I will gladly take a few pissed off civilians in places like Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan over 3,000 dead American civilians in NYC, DC, LA or Chicago. It's easy to sit in front of a computer screen and say "stop the drone strikes", but I have to wonder if some would have a different opinion on this situation if they were forced to either stay inside a burning skycraper or do a header off the 106th floor simply because we didn't plant a tomahawk missile inside Khalid's brain cavity when we had the chance?

In short, until these crooked governments begin to seriously crack down on terrorism and either kill or hand over these targets to U.S. officials, boo f-ing hoo.

My point wasn't that we should empathize with psychopathic terrorists, but rather that when you engage in a comprehensive drone extermination program where, when you kill one, you create ten more, maybe we should think of more than just cynical alternatives.

It's not about "taking a few pissed of Yemeni citizens" over American civilian casualties, it's about the inconvenient fact that they are pissed off because we quite often massacre civilians integral to their economy (with the best of intentions though!) -- as someone accurately mentioned above poverty can contribute to insurgent population.

We aren't negating a threat we are enhancing it, and that's not just my opinion, it's what the numbers reflect.

You're right there are crooked governments in those countries, so why don't we stop sending those cronies so many millions in aid, maybe that would be another step toward improved relations with locals after we stop bombing them.

[Pittsburgh]

I'm 100% on board with halting all aid to these nations. I'm sure that would make them think twice. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Until a more realistic and practical solution is put forth, I'll take drone strikes over simply allowing them to plot against and murder American civilians.

Speaking of drone strikes, we may have taken out Al Qaeda's #2 in Pakistan (shocking)...

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/04/no-2-al-qaeda-leader-reportedly-targeted-in-pakistan-as-drone-strikes-escalate/

*fingers crossed for more extra crispy dead Tali's*

[sw1442]

I'm 100% on board with halting all aid to these nations. I'm sure that would make them think twice. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Until a more realistic and practical solution is put forth, I'll take drone strikes over simply allowing them to plot against and murder American civilians.

Speaking of drone strikes, we may have taken out Al Qaeda's #2 in Pakistan (shocking)...

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/04/no-2-al-qaeda-leader-reportedly-targeted-in-pakistan-as-drone-strikes-escalate/

*fingers crossed*

Well that is good news, but we have killed their #2 man so many times! I think it's indicative of AQ's potentially immortal nature if we don't add more regulation to our drone strikes.

Anyway I got what I wanted out of this conversation, I don't come on here looking for a bickering match, or because I feel that servicemen are not doing enough to effect change within the military themselves, I come on here because I am interested in yall's opinions and I respect them.

[Pittsburgh]

Well that is good news, but we have killed their #2 man so many times!

And I'm sure their next #2 will meet the same demise. No American troops were put in harms way and a terrorist who wouldn't think twice about killing my family, friends and fellow Americans was taken out. Bring in the next scumbag who wants to be Al Qaeda's #2. That's fine by me. I enjoy watching them disintegrate after one of our drones sends a tomahawk missile up their ass.


I come on here because I am interested in yall's opinions and I respect them.

Well, you have my opinion on the topic. While I disagree with you completely, I respect your opinion. Take care.