[Vision2020] drones

Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
Tue Feb 12 06:43:44 PST 2013 

Your response in the form of a question is simply a failure to give
reasonably requested evidence for a position you advocate.

If you are suggesting an alternative to what is going on, and I sincerely
hope there are many better alternatives, then you need to give some
evidence that your suggestion will work.


w.


On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 9:37 AM, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>wrote:

> Can you tell me an instance where someone tried this strategy globally and
> it failed? I'm not saying it always works. I'm not suggesting we always be
> Chamberlain to to the world's Hitlers. But who is Hitler in this case, now
> that we've killed off most of the despots?
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 6:18 AM, Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> @Joe:
>>
>> Where has that worked globally in the long run?
>>
>> w.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> I think it is a nice world. Unfortunately some of the people in it are
>>> psychopaths and some of those end up running terrorist organizations.
>>>
>>> But most of the folks who join terrorist organizations are not
>>> psychopaths. How many innocent people from the Middle East have died since
>>> 9/11? Does anyone know the number? Such "errors" are a great tool when it
>>> comes to recruitment tool when it comes to building terrorist
>>> organizations. That is the pragmatic reason for being against drone
>>> strikes. In the end, it is a zero sum game: we're creating as many enemies
>>> as we're killing off. Actually, that is an underestimate. We're likely
>>> creating more enemies than we are killing off.
>>>
>>> The fact is, very few people respond toward aggression with anything
>>> other than more aggression. That doesn't make them bad, just human. But it
>>> does mean that if you want to stop aggression you should try another
>>> approach.
>>>
>>> On Feb 12, 2013, at 4:21 AM, Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>  Sunil,
>>>
>>> I cannot defend all the individual uses of drones.  There is without
>>> doubt horrible consequences to innocent people.  Nor do I have nearly
>>> enough information to analyze whether each drone attack as fits into the
>>> part of US foreign policy that is driven in part by self-defense.
>>>
>>> Have/are errors of judgment been/being made in the execution of that
>>> policy?  Most likely.  Faulty and very faulty intelligence combined with
>>> paranoiac, overzealous persons in certain positions are part of the
>>> problem.  [We have that problem with law enforcement in our own country,
>>> state, and county.]
>>>
>>> What about the policy itself?  Obviously it needs judicial oversight on
>>> matters of executing specific actions/attacks to help guard against errors
>>> and over zealousness.
>>>
>>> To the extent the policy forwards the goals of self-defense and other
>>> national goals, and what these other national goals should be, and whether
>>> the cost is lesser or greater than the benefit of the actions resulting
>>> from the policy goals are questions that no one can answer with certainty,
>>> it is a debate of issues which have been with us almost since the beginning
>>> of civilization.  We can hope that rigorous debate will help create better
>>> answers in the future.
>>>
>>> Few people (myself included) want to see innocent people killed and
>>> maimed;  it is a moral outrage.  Few Americans want other events of the
>>> nature of 9/11.  Can both goals be achieved?  I don't know; I hope so.
>>>
>>> We don't agree on this:  some drone attacks are justified given the
>>> credibility and high probability of the threat being addressed.
>>>
>>> We probably agree on this:  The policies driving drone should be very
>>> carefully reviewed to see if they really forward the alleged national
>>> goals, to see if those alleged goals are in our long term interest, to see
>>> if those long term goals can be morally justified, and to see if their are
>>> nicer, less destructive ways to achieve those goals.
>>>
>>> It'd not a nice world.  Neither for us nor, as you point out, the
>>> victims in other parts of the world of this lack of niceness.
>>>
>>> I have no intention of trying discourage you from pursuing your point of
>>> view, and in fact welcome it since the real issues that we are attempting
>>> to deal with are huge life/death/quality of life issues upon which
>>> humankind has made little progress with since the beginning of human or
>>> near human existence.
>>>
>>> w.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 1:10 AM, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2/11/2013 8:56 AM, Joe Campbell wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> This is the trouble with wasting time on philosophical debates like
>>>>> gun control and gay marriage. There are things that all of us should rally
>>>>> around, issues that matter.
>>>>>
>>>> <[snip]>
>>>>
>>>> From WBUR Boston, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, 11 February 2013:
>>>>
>>>> The Obama Administration, Drone Strikes, And The Law
>>>>
>>>> The Obama administration’s argument on drone warfare. Even against
>>>> Americans. We push deeper on drones, killing, and the law.
>>>>
>>>> It’s been a great ride for advocates of America’s booming
>>>> kill-‘em-where-they-stand drone program. Kill lists. Targeted
>>>> assassination. Death from the sky. No muss, no fuss. All secrecy, and then
>>>> the public victory dance when a big al Qaeda kill is claimed, somewhere
>>>> “over there.” Even of American citizens.
>>>>
>>>> Barack Obama skewered George Bush and Dick Cheney for going
>>>> “extra-legal,” but President Obama has been the champion of drones. And
>>>> “don’t ask” has been the policy when it comes to legal rationale.
>>>>
>>>> This hour, On Point: we’re asking, about American law and death by
>>>> drone.
>>>>
>>>> http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/**02/11/drone-strikes<http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/02/11/drone-strikes>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ken
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
>>> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>>>
>>>
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>>> =======================================================
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
>> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>> =======================================================
>>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>>                http://www.fsr.net
>>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>> =======================================================
>>
>
>


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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