U.S. drone attacks on Pakistan

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We're talking about humans here Ruveyn, not about God.

go away ruveyn

The "excessive casualty" argument is getting a little old. And, most people that could get out of that area of Pakistan have already done so.

because of the casualties maybe?

Oggle, what about the people that couldn't escape? ^^

Here is a solution:

Give everybody in Pakistan a good college education and a job. If we take the entire cost of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan and divided it by the entire population on Pakistan we would have:

$ 900,000,000,000 / 173,000,000 = $ 5,202

This would still not be enough for a good education and a job. The only way around it is either to increase the funding or cut down the population.

@ coadunate - is that US dollars spent in Pakistan? and how many in that population are actually in the standard college age range? I think that might cut it in the Pakistani market you know, (lay opinion mind you). I'll have to put aside the suggestion we cut the population down as a typo, a big one.

@ oggleleus - suppose we could implement a strategic hamlet policy to move the population out of the firing line, if they're guerrillas they move with the population, if terrorists, they'll probably move with the pop....oh, yeah it's been tried hasn't it. Also, 'most people that could get out' doesn't cover quite a lot of people, mainly those who are still being killed. And I suppose the "excessive casualty" line has been getting old since, say, Vietnam? Or maybe Dresden in the 40's?

Geez, when are the Pakis finally going to leave the Indians alone??

what?

Heh?....Please HoP, elaborate. The only Pakis (and i even doubt they are) that are messing with the Indians are mostly talibans, i think the Pakis know they shouldn't mess with India. <.<

There have been some examples in the news over the last few years that show the tactics being used by the Taliban and Al Qaeda and Hezbollah to use the population as shields and inflict casualties in an effort to win world sympathy from people that are already anti-military.

Not to say that the U.S. does not inflict casualties, that is part of war, the difference is that the U.S. does not have a policy (found in Al Qaeda training manuals) of using populations in this manner.

It has become common knowledge that the terrorist's leadership really do not like the drone attacks and fear them. Hence the push for criticism of the drone attacks and the casualty argument, again.

It is interesting that Dresden was mentioned because the amount of money and time and man hours the U.S. uses to develop precision weapons that hit their target instead of having to use carpet bombing tactics that were used in WWII seem to go conviently under the radar.

Afghanistan has an illiteracy rate above 90% for women and a society that likes it that way. Maybe if someone could come in and stop the Taliban from blowing up schools, killing teachers, and not allowing women in schools, a college education would do them a bit of good. But if a majority of the populace can not even get an elementary education then college is pointless.

Maybe they need something more like informal teaching? =/ Those that will have the will to learn will thus get to do so on their own terms. I do reckon logistics and organization would be tricky though.

because the news is a neutral and reliable source of information *cough* Venezuela coup *cough-cough* Orgreave strike '80's (that list goes on.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if Al-qaeda used human shields - dead civilians is there forte - evidence for the Taleban or the taleban (meaning pashtun tribes etc.)?

A key distinction being terrorists hidden and hostile to the local populace and guerillas hidden with the knowledge of the pop. and with their support.



what? are you saying the Taleban have input on the editorial of western media? riiiigghht, ok.

I think most people would get skittish about a couple thousand pounds of high explosive heading at them. Aren't they used because Pakistani radar has a nightmare of a time trying to pick them up and can't stop them crossing the border?



erm, the US and UK weren't exactly forced to capret bomb Dresden, nor did they, they (we) decided to drop high incendiary on Dresden to obliterate everything there, specifically civilians, the aim being to smash civilian moral by demonstrating what we were willing to do. had the opposite effect of course. then there's Hiroshima and Nagasaki, same logic, bigger bombs, seemed to have worked on that occassion.
And the technology isn't as effective as publicised.



might want get rid of Karzai as well on that basis, he is the man at the helm when woman have been banned from school and forced to wear the burqa/hijab. One of his election centrepieces is also to legalise the rape of women (he plans legislation that would mena women have no right to deny their husbands sex). The US military also made short work of the odd school and hospital in the Fallujah assault in Iraq.

(also a lot of the population struggle to meet their basic needs, much less give a thought to education, maybe not invading the region would be a good start, food, medicine, then infrastructure, then education)

Blaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaahhhhaaaaa.

A nonsenical response in place of a real response. I'll take it you concede.

No, I do not concede, but find it difficult to converse with someone with this attitude. Blatant sophomoric high- schoolish sarcasm with outdated information is kinda funny to me and made me laugh.

I do not characterize the drone attacks as you do and we can agree to disagree but to continue a debate with your stated over generalizations is pointless.

And, no I do not think that the Taliban have editorial control over U.S. media outlets but they do often have editorial control of the story before it gets to reported to the media.