re: #242 Obdicut

If we’re killing a lot of civilians— especially children— and the sole purpose of the attacks is to reduce the number of people attacking us, then it’s a bad policy. Continued attacks will continue recruitment.

If we really have very good intel and are actually killing important leaders, human infrastructure, then it’s a good policy.

It is nearly impossible for us to judge that. But that is the way with most military campaigns. People are in the way. Nobody gets to go stand on a grassy field and fight the enemy army drawn up neatly in a row anymore. The standard cannot be that we can never kill civilians accidentally, or we’ll be unable to fight in any way at all.

But we should still keep in mind that killing civilians causes backlash from the family, friends, and may radicalize people against us who otherwise would have been neutral, or even for us.

It’s a dark calculation.

I agree its a dark calculation, but those are fairly common in war. We cannot physically get at the scum that hide in North Waziristan on the ground, but we cannot leave them the area as a sanctuary. Hence the drone strikes. Drone strikes are the least-worse option we have.