Firstly, if you want a more authoritative source than some YouTube video for the details of civilians killed in deliberate drone attacks by the US military, here’s Glenn Greenwald in Salon, and here’s the report he references by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed.
The findings are published just days after President Obama claimed that the drone campaign in Pakistan was a ‘targeted, focused effort’ that ‘has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties.’
…
But research by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims.
So, there’s that.
But perhaps more pertinently: Where do you go from here? If you’ve seen enough now to believe that Obama is essentially morally corrupt, and that he has every intention to continue with this slaughter of innocents for as long as it’s politically expedient, how do we change that? Vote him out after he’s had his four years and replace him with somebody we’ll expect to do better? Remember how well that worked once we finally got rid of Bush.
Answers on a postcard.
For extra credit: Imagine all the hundreds of people killed by the American military in the manner described above were terrorists, despots, and other violent oppressors of liberty. Would it then be morally permissible – or even necessary – to have conducted such attacks, and to continue doing so wherever there might be more bad guys out there who we’re able to blow up? Or is it still wrong?
For my part, I take a page from Hitchens’ playbook. I supported the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. I realized that it is war and innocent people will die, and still was for it, pacifism in light of people trying to blow you up doesn’t work for me. I don’t think it is okay for a nation to stand by and let another nation or religion or whatever send suicide bombers all over the world if we have the power to prevent it. I guess that sort of answers your extra credit question for my part.
However, it is 2012, I do not see a reason for us to still have such a strong presence in Afghanistan. To be honest, I am not longer really sure what our drones are even shooting at over there now-a-days. I assume Taliban, but I was under the impression we invaded Afghanistan to get bin Laden. That’s done, so why are we still there?