Drone Wars - why are they becoming America's war machine of choice?

[sad sally]

Recent casualty figures show that 4,424 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and almost 33,000 have been seriously wounded; 1,461 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and close to 3,500 seriously wounded. Statistics say that up to 320,000 American soldiers have experienced various levels of head trauma. Eighteen Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans commit suicide every day.

While the US and NATO are reluctant or unable to give exact numbers of total deaths exacted from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, UnknownNews has the number at 919,967.

They show 8,813 Afghan civilians deaths and 15,863 Afghan civilians seriously injured, with about as many Afghan militants killed and injured. The same list says 864,531 Iraqi civilians were killed and 1,556,156 Iraqi civilians seriously injured. Iraqi troops killed is 30,000 and 90,000 seriously injured (rounded numbers always seem suspicious, so they may be higher).

The numbers are a sobering reminder of the human cost of war.

So, why is the US now shifting its military strategy to drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Somilia?

- They can be carried out from thousands of miles away – from safe sites inside America.
- No Americans will die or be wounded when the person with the remote control is outside the kill zone. Both the intended targets and any misplaced civilians may be so far away that there’s no emotional or moral involvement.
- Continued and escalated use of drone wars makes them acceptable and normal.
- They can be funded through secret black ops (CIA); no congressional approval needed budgets.

I’m not advocating for Americans soldiers to be in combat (war is a racket and all of them need to be stopped), just saying that continued drone wars may have some unintended consequences.

“When terrorists, insurgents, freedom fighters or just anybody with a beef with the United States are unable to hit back at a military force, but forced to sit and watch their troops, their installations and infrastructure - and, in many cases, their civilians - suffer attack upon attack by unmanned drones, it creates what Christopher Coker of the London School of Economics calls it a Collision of Psychology and Emotion.”

“Brooking Institution phrases it this way:
To some, a person who blows themselves up along with a hotel full of civilians is a shaheed carrying out a noble act of jihad. To others, that same person is a fanatical murderer committing an ignoble act of barbarity. Similarly, a pilot who uses a drone to strike with precision from thousands of miles away may see himself as a warrior fighting in full respect of the international laws of war. But 7,000 miles away that very same pilot is described by others as a coward engaging in an act of “heartless terrorism”, as the lyrics of a Pakistani pop song put it”.

[MadHound]

1. Very simple, it is about keeping down negative publicity

Fewer American deaths mean less bad press for the warmongers. Few Americans care about how many people we kill, hell, most people can't even tell you how many people we've killed. But when you start getting a river of body bags coming home, the public sits up and takes notice.

[sad sally]

2. Exactly.

The US is relying on drones to keep casualties low in the ranks of the US Forces, having learned the lesson from Vietnam that dead American soldiers is bad for the war industry.

During the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions it was frequently brought up that Washington censored photos of fallen American soldiers in an attempt to avoid the PR backlash at home.