[darawk]

No. But we've elected and appointed people who's job it is to:

a) be aware of all the information relevant to each operation

b) make a judgment as to whether each individual operation is worthwhile

Now, i'm not saying that makes them infallible. It certainly doesn't. There's a long history of people in such positions making poor choices. But if you're implying that they are, i'd like to see some evidence. Because what I see is a lot of "civilians died, therefore it was bad", but very little consideration of the objective of the mission, and whether or not the possibility of collateral damage was justified. What we do know is that smart people in positions of power believed that it was, and i'm happy to second-guess those beliefs if given good reason, but thus far i've never seen anyone give good reason in the case of these drone strikes.

[Forbo]

> ...thus far i've never seen anyone give good reason in the case of these drone strikes.

Because the very action they are using to eliminate enemy combatants may in fact be creating more of them?

[darawk]

> Because the very action they are using to eliminate enemy combatants may in fact be creating more of them?

That's an interesting statement. Do you have evidence for it?

[antgiant]

Yep.

“over the past 15 years. Increased US efforts are correlated with a worsening of the overall terror situation. Statistical modeling indicates for every additional billion dollars spent and 1,000 American troops sent to fight the war on terror, the number of terror attacks worldwide increased by 19 (data available from the author). Furthermore, the model finds up to 80 percent of the variation in the number of worldwide terror attacks since 9/11 can be explained by just those two variables—US money spent and military members sent to fight the war on terror. The data for both money spent and troops deployed come from the Congressional Research Service publication, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 by Amy Belasco. The number of terror attacks is from the Global Terrorism Database, hosted by the University of Maryland.”

“The data show countries the US invaded had 143 more terror attacks per year than countries the US did not invade. Similarly, countries in which the US conducted drone strikes were home to 395 more terror attacks per year than those where the US did not.”

https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/issues/Spring...

[darawk]

Of course the countries we invade will have more terror attacks. We've put targets there for them to hit. This does not prove that US intervention causes terrorism. What it proves is that when you move their targets thousands of miles closer to them, terrorists will attack them more frequently.

[antgiant]

I think you misread that. Drone strikes which don’t provide something for terrorists to attack cause a significantly greater increase in terrorism attacks than troops on the ground do.

[darawk]

You're right, I did, sorry. However, this paper is talking like its proving causality, but it's really not. Another interpretation of the exact same data is that the US is good at picking targets, and focusing on likely hotbeds of terrorism.

The fundamental problem is that where the US targets its drone strikes is (or at least, should be) correlated to where terrorism is in the process of springing up. So, if our government was actually doing a really great job analyzing these things, you would see the same data pattern - drone strikes lead terrorist attacks.