2016 Elections

[Hatshepsut]

The fact that we can't even identify who we're killing the majority of the time (unidentified deaths are something like 28:1 for every intended target)...

I'd like to know where you got this factoid.

Neither the Air Force nor CIA release much information about the drone strike program. I'm sure the friendly public relations staffs of Islamic groups in the region gladly offer their own estimates and wouldn't be surprised if the New America Foundation willingly consumes this information at face value (see Coll in New Yorker 11/24/14). I'm not even going to bother trying to research the contradictory claims flying around on the topic because it's not worth the time.

During World War II air bombardment campaigns that flattened cities and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians were run day after day over enemy territories. Indiscriminate bombing continued to a lesser extent in Korea and Vietnam. If you've missed out on developments in the last 70 years, I might say there has been a major change in tactics since then, enabled in part by the advent of precision-guided munitions.

Like it or not, we live in a world where we have enemies. And where failure to answer their actions is taken as a sign of weakness. You may prefer to live in a world where Islamic State rules all of Iraq, Syria, and Libya as a caliphate, launching terror missions at will from a secure base, but I don't. Odds are we're going to have to send troops into this region again before it's over. It's not just Obama's fault as is so easily shouted. This stuff's been going on a long time and, yes, we've made a lot of mistakes and selfish blunders, but we're committed. Also in case you may not be aware, it's not a judicial matter. The courts do not have oversight regarding a president's conduct of a war.