Please try and read what I am saying and not just ignoring bits I've already answered. For starters, I thought I'd been clear in declaring tribal Pakistan as already being, in every meaningful way, a separate and independent state from Pakistan. More over, tribal Pakistan has been actively waging war with Pakistan proper for a very long time now. I even already claimed that at reason number one for considering tribal Pakistan an enemy to ourselves as we'll. After all, if Pakistan isn't Islamic enough for them, we surely are inwilling to compromise as far as the extremist militants there require.

I also don't recall claiming we were at war with Yemen or Pakistan. I claimed that drone strikes are an act of war. Meaning we are, quite extensively, launcing acts of war on land claimed by Yemen and Pakistan. Despite that though, somehow neither government seems inclined to declare it war. Largely because they can't show weakness, and admitting their enemies are in fact in control of that land would be weak in the extreme. So instead you largely see silence as the respective leadership readily accepts the assistance in removing a military threat to themselves that the can't readily admit has already seized large parts of their country.

But they're not at war. America is absolutely 100% not at war with the nations of Pakistan or Yemen or wherever else they're currently using drones.

They are prosecuting assassinations of private individuals within those states. It is quite literally state sponsored terrorism.

The simple fact is that it is an illegal action under international law. Just because a foreign country doesn't want to hand over one of it's citizens that the USA believes is or has been engaged in harmful acts against your country does not mean you can simply throw your toys out of the pram.

If one of your neighbours assaults you and then runs inside their house, you can't just kick down their door for revenge.

To repeat @SDGundamX's excellent summation of the point:

if Americans are in support of remote assassinations that are carried out by executive decision without scrutiny from courts or any sort of due process, how can they possibly decry the use of such strikes by foreign powers against American citizens?

Just because you don't get what you want (the arrest/extradition of terrorists) does not mean you can just do whatever you want.

Oh, and @SDGundamX, my point was not so much that Britain would have used drones against Ireland, it's that they wouldn't have.

As much as I hated Thatcher, she wasn't stupid, and the political fallout over a British armed strike into sovereign Irish territory would have been immense, especially in the USA.

But because it's in one of them foreign places with poor brown people that don't speak english.... well, they get blown up all the time, right? What's a few more air to ground missiles, eh?

You evaded his question.

The question isn't whose terrorists are "badder." Nevermind the fact I find it hard to swallow your argument that Ireland's terrorists are "less bad" than Afghanistan's/Pakistan's because they were willing to use political means in addition to their violence against civilians to achieve their aims. I think it is pretty safe to assume if Britain had had access to the drone technology during The Troubles it would have used it. British forces didn't seem to have any trouble with shooting civilians during the conflict, nor unlawfully (and often indefinitely) detaining them.

The question is, if Americans are in support of remote assassinations that are carried out by executive decision without scrutiny from courts or any sort of due process, how can they possibly decry the use of such strikes by foreign powers against American citizens?

And there is only one plausible answer to that question--they can't.

@ChaosEngine is saying that these drone strikes, if internationally sanctioned, will open Pandora's box. What say you to that?

The difference with the IRA is that both sides were interested in a political compromise. As regards Al Qaida and Taliban type fundamentalists they have no desire to compromise. So I think it consistent that open warfare with the IRA being rejected/avoided, mean while it is war with the Taliban who are trying to turn Pakistan from a nuclear armed Islamic state to an arm of their holy war.

On rewatching I think there is a simpler way to state my point. The dillema as outlined is aerial bombings 'outside a battlefield'. If it the region were declared a battlefield, bombing the enemy would be considered part of prosecuting a war and not require individual warrants issued from a court for each combatant identified and targeted.

For all intents and purposes, places like tribal Pakistan and Yemen ARE open battlefields, but it's not considered polite to the local leadership to say that or make that declaration. To me it seems a lot of the issue revolves entirely around this compromise where the Pakistani military agrees to let us operate as though it is an open battlefield in an all out war, just as long as officially and publicly we never call it that. I agree the compromise is stupid, but I disagree that with choosing to no longer treat the region as a battlefied, I prefer openly calling it what it is and embrace that yes, we absolutely are waging acts of war against these militants and you can pick which side you want to be on in the fight.

I'm trying to point out the dilemma posed by stateless criminals operating in parts of the world where they are not liable or accountable to anybody. They are not within your own borders, so domestic law and order can't reach them. They are not operating within an extradition country, so that is out too. They in truth are not operating in a region where any country can bring it's own rule of law to bear on them, so even a declaration of war on Pakistan or Yemen doesn't really even fit.

When criminals operate from these regions, demands they be treated like a regular suburbanite, with a reading of Miranda rights before a bail hearing and formal trial including a state funded defends attorney is ludicrous. Acting like that extreme is mandatory is akin to rejecting the real world and demanding we all just pretend hard in some fictional world that is possible. I'm not advocating unlimited executive powers, I'm just observing that stateless criminals can NOT be dealt with through the same channels as domestic thugs.

@VoodooV
worst...analogy...ever.

@bcglorf
how does your analysis of the situation in pakistan defend or excuse the execution of american citizens abroad?

@Yogi made the clear example of Anwar al-Awlaki,an innocent 16 yr old american citizen living with his respectable grand-parents,who was executed by a drone strike.

are you suggesting we should just trust the executive branches decisions to murder citizens because the political/religious situation in a certain country?

i am trying to understand your correlation between a political climate and abusive executive powers.

For balance, most of the towns where drone strikes have been made already were completely controlled by people who hated America and harbored or cooperated with those actively working on killing Americans. Take a tour of the hundreds of drone strike targets in tribal Pakistan and you are surveying a region accepting the rule of militants so extreme that the Pakistani government is a secular heresy worthy of death to them. Pakistani law including the death sentence for blasphemy. Those regions being under such strong control of the militants that the Pakistani military can't go there for the casualties they would take trying to do so. The welcome for Americans(long before drone strikes were made) would have been even more vicious.

It is important to state that for as much legitimate reason to 'hate' American foreign policy as there is, there exist huge numbers of people who hate America for their own petty, vile and psychotic reasons. The Islamic fundamentalists that see Pakistan as too secular are plainly one such example, and saying they only hate America because they are justified is making excuses for monsters.

Some of the most dangerous and toxic work known to man--
Ship breaking in Bangladesh/Pakistan and the third world in general

I'm just glad I was proven wrong and Obama has ended all the wars in the Middle East and chosen to also not rattle the saber of war at Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, et. al.

*promote

Would you care to explain how or why that's relevant to Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei both routinely denying the holocaust occurred and insisting that they wish to see Israel erased from the map?

I've also had enough of racists spouting off on Zionism as though that makes it ok. If Zionism is pretty simply support for a Jewish state. I understand opposing the idea of a religiously founded state. What I don't understand is why SO MANY people seem entirely content defending the laundry list of Islamic states(Iran,Pakistan,Saudi Arabia to name a few) while insisting that even 1 Jewish state is inherently anathema and the center of all evil.

I'd still like to understand how you believe diplomacy to be a more workable solution. If diplomacy is to be the solution to extremism in Pakistan, I presume you look to the moderate leaders in Pakistan for the answers? When I go through the list of such leaders, a disturbing trend is observable.

Shahbaz Bhatti was an elected member of the National Assembly lobbying for repealing Pakistan's death penalty for blasphemy. He was assassinated on March 2, 2011.

Salman Taseer was a governor in Pakistan, lobbying for repealing Pakistan's death penalty for blasphemy. He was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards on January 4, 2011.

Benazir Bhutto, the nations first female Prime Minister had returned after being chased off by the nations military to run in the 2008 elections. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007.

This list is just highlights, countless more moderate leaders keep ending up dead in Pakistan. Meanwhile, elected figures like those from parties like the JUI-F survive, and give speeches in Pakistan's National Assembly declaring Osama Bin Laden an Islamic hero, and the assassins that killed those in the prior list as heroes as well.

I don't mean to be rude about it, but I just don't understand why you believe that diplomacy alone can be expected to succeed in such circumstances?

@bcglorf
thank you for that well thought out commentary.

we still disagree but i always appreciate when someone i disagree with can enlighten me in how they came to their conclusions.

what appears to many my abhorrence to authority is actually my perception between power and powerlessness.
the ruthlessness of power.
the vulgarity and twisted logic power uses to oppress and control.

look at the words you use to describe pakistan.
we both agree on what is happening but disagree on how to deal with it.

cant thank you enough bc.
very few will interact with respect and not come to prejudiced conclusions.

@enoch,

I think our gap is from very disparate world views and taking for granted we'll each work out for ourselves more than we do.

I used to really hang onto the saying that war is the ultimate failure of democracy. It resonated with me, and it seems to me that it's very much were you are coming from? Looking at history more and more though, I've come to see that saying is more the way we would wish our world to be, and not how it really is. Instead I see our history telling out the truth that diplomacy is the ultimate goal of war.

Peace is a fleeting and pretty much impossible state of existence for us it seems. The only time peace ever lasts is when war and conquest simply won't lead to greater gains than it. Time and time and time again history has shown that the only time war and violence weren't followed was when the gains from it were not worth the cost. How many times in history did an invading nation turn back because the other side stood back and refused to fight back? It just doesn't happen, get enough people united and they will use whatever method is to their greatest advantage, and all too often that is violence.

In Pakistan the taliban are making huge gains through violent repression of everyone that opposes them. It is extremely effective because those living in the region are unable to fight back for lack of unity and numbers. The Pakistani military meanwhile is unwilling to fight back, because they have more to gain by letting the taliban kill Pakistani civilians while the elected government is nominally 'in power'. Negotiation with the Taliban is impossible to my eyes unless and until their use of violence no longer benefits them. The fastest and surest way of accomplishing that is meeting them with that same force and ensuring they lose more than they gain with each attack.

It's a brutal, but also very simple assessment I think. It also leads to drone attacks being the one method of fighting back directly at them that leaves the least number of collateral casualties in it's wake. It takes more than a year for drones to kill as many people as the Taliban do in a month. Of those killed by drones, from 50-90%(depending who's counts you believe) are identifialy Taliban militants and leaders. That includes taking out the Taliban's top leader twice in the last 5 years with them, and if you include American actions in Pakistan in general, it nets Bin Laden as well.

I'd urge you not to take that as a western or American centric goal or objective. The thousands killed each month I list as justification and wanting protection for are nearly 100% Pakistani Muslims.

@bcglorf
how come it always take you 4-5 posts to get an idea across that i can relate to?
its frustrating.

dont know how you got i feel america is some kind of 'special" place.
again i seem to have failed in conveying how wretched i think my government has been for the past few decades.

irregardless...
not american eh?
interesting.....
so you think america should play the global police?
and what exactly gives us that right?
because we have the bigger guns? bigger military?

since it cant be on moral grounds it HAS to be military might.

and america only likes to play with those countries it wants/covets/desires in order to perpetuate this global hegemony thing is has going on.

god you are confusing.
on the one hand you wish to see injustice brought to its knees and are willing to make a deal with the devil to do it.

yet on the other hand you reference history as if you have a semblance of understanding and if THAT is the case then you KNOW nothing is a delineated black vs white dynamic.
nothing is ever as simple or easy as it appears.

so you choose to use american military might to crush the religious zealots and in doing so create more...
but your argument appears to be:if we use drones LESS jihadists will be created and this is a good thing.

no.
it..is ..not.

you cant have it both ways.
you cant have your justice with zero (or less) consequences.
there will ALWAYS be consequences.

do you allow a country to work their problems out (as horrific as it can become).
OR do you go in and possibly extend the suffering of normal folk?

how long?
how long do you think it morally right to intrude on another country and most likely extend conflict,while feeding the rage and resentment creating even more fanatics and zealots who only desire is to bring the suffering to your your door?

and here is what really blows me away.
you are utterly oblivious to just how arrogant your statements are.
yes they are coming from a moral outrage.
yes they are coming from a reaction to horror.
but it is still arrogant all the same.

who are you?
who are you to dictate to anyone how or what they should do?

are there homeless in your country?
are there people starving?
is there injustice?
horrors?

or is it only the countries populated by brown people where the injustices warrant violence?
should america come to your country and clean house there as well?

hell,you wanted us in syria and now pakistan.
any other country you want us to drone?
specific people?

or is it a specific religion?
you seem awfully unsure of those muslim folk.
isreal has been doing all kinds of nasty things to the palestinians for the past 80 yrs.
how come no mention of america droning them?

are you starting to see why your argument makes no sense to me?
it is illogical.

because at the end of the day the poor and less fortunate will always pay the price.
how high a price are you willing to pay for seeing a wrong righted?
does it matter that those people you wept for and were outraged for paid an even higher price?

violence begets violence.
if history taught you anything it had to be that equation.

and a drone strike is violence.
it is intimidation.
it is assasination.
and it is wrong.
without a declaration of war passed by congress and no accountability it is wrong.

i will not make a deal with the devil to get justice today.
because when payment comes due the injustices wrought will tower over everything.
i know you disagree with me.
know that i am ok with that.