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> It makes you a tragic accident.

"We're not going to apologize for this, because you hung out with someone who was on our list, who we think was in this area, and so clearly you deserved being bombed by a drone. What? You borrowed your friend's phone? Oh well. Jackpot."

> And it's not like the Taliban aren't a real threat to Afghanistan. They just took over the 5th largest city in Afghanistan two weeks ago.

Why are we concerned with Afghanistan? There are literally dozens of other countries that are an actual threat to our National Interests (note: I did not say national security), so if we're going to go after countries, there are lots of other countries that should be ahead of a country half a world away.

One thing that sending in ground troops would do is hopefully reignite the debate as to whether we should be in that country at all.

A major problem with drones is that it allows us to make enemies without having to actually commit to a war. These Drone strikes are essentially a line-item on our defense department budget, and the CIA drone strikes are part of a black-budget we don't even know what it contains, let alone able to debate it.

If we're basing drone strikes on groups we're unfriendly with taking over countries, then we've got a lot of targets to go after.

The problem with not minding our own business and starting wars around the globe is that we continually get blowback, but we don't learn from it. It was "to keep the world safe for Democracy", then "safe from Nazis", then "Safe from communism", and now "safe from international terrorism", yet there is no debate in our congress about how our policies fuel any of these things.

When will there be a 'war' to keep the world safe from us?

> One thing that sending in ground troops would do is hopefully reignite the debate as to whether we should be in that country at all.

Agree, but you're only part way. We really need to bring back the draft. On the ground in Iraq in 2008, watching ‘drone’ feeds of SF soldiers on missions on one screen and the stock market crashing on the other screen, all I could think about was “Don’t people care? There are soldiers risking their lives in foreign countries, doing things in America’s name, and all the TV talks about is houses and stock prices.” The number of contractors in country was probably 3 to 1 or more compared to military - Kenyans providing internal security, Filipinos working in the commissary, Pakistanis working in the chow hall, and Americans driving F-350s all over doing maintenance or whatever. The SF guys hated their contractor counterparts who took none of the risk they did and made a $1,000 a day just to provide a little training for the Iraqis. Being a pilot on a ground job, I hated the contract pilots making $20k a month for a job I easily could have done.

Until we’re all in it together, we won’t see change. As long as Americans can get upset, then turn off the TV and forget about it, nothing will happen, the military and civilian worlds will continue to drift apart. And a private, separate military is not good for this country.

Yup. No one cares until its their kid or the neighbor's kid getting shipped off to some far away warzone. While I disagree with the draft on moral terms, I think pragmatically it is the only way to properly align the incentives of the populace against wars that don't matter. Otherwise, the government can wage whatever wars they want and no one will be that bothered (as we've seen).

This cannot be stressed enough. A robotic military allows the government to wage wars with impunity because the average voter just doesn't care. If you have skin in the game, it would be different.

Perhaps a remedy for this would be to force the ranking members of congress to function as consuls, and make them live in Afghanistan for the duration of the conflict?

My problem with this perspective is that you're suggesting we go out of our way to put more people (US soldiers) in danger.

If we (the US, or the military, or what have you) determine that a certain military act is justified, I think the approach should be to do it in a way to minimizes the danger as much as possible.

I can't imagine going to a soldier (who might be your son) and saying, "Hey, so, we could do this with a drone, but we'd prefer instead to put your life on the line."

It's a form of checks and balances.

Right now we can see that the more we can outsource the wars, the less public cares about them. Which incidentally also means the other side has to figure out a more drastic way to make us stop. Drones are terrorist-breeding machines.

That's true, but look how poorly we behave when we go in with troops instead, qua Iraq. The upsides (such as they are) of drone war are that it's very limited in scope and stimulates a conversation about objectives and interests, such as we are having now. As soon as you send troops in somewhere, a large swathe of the public stops even pretending to think about those issues and goes straight into 'support our troops, crush the enemy' mode, completely detached from any kind of strategic, fiscal, or ethical considerations.

>it counts any unknown males killed in the strike as enemy. It doesn't use that assumption to do the strike.

Imagine for a moment that someone (be it some foreign agency, US police, army or whoever) did the same in America, to American citizens. Would you be outraged by your explanation?

"Hey, it's not like they're targetting them specifically. They're just deciding that they were all enemy combatants post-factum."

If someone was bombing America, the way they were tallying the enemy combatants wouldn't really be a huge concern, to be honest.

Let's say the Michigan Militias sack Windsor, Canada. And Canada drops a bomb on their clubhouse. And a bunch of redneck young men are killed. You gotta assume they were part of the militia.

> And a bunch of redneck young men are killed.

The lack of empathy around such a serious topic, is sad.

You should be, but for a different reason than if they were targeting those people specifically. Both are atrocities, but precision is very important in such discussions, otherwise we will turn into an angry mob.

This analogy also relies on the assumption that the US was currently fighting a military insurgency or civil war.

I wouldn't be. That's the basic rationale of terrorists (both the foreign and domestic varieties). I don't think the Boston bombers were motivated by a specific hatred of athletics fans, or other demographic characteristics of their victims; they just knew it was a big static crowd with lots of media and weak security. The primary product of a terroristic enterprise is 'a scene of carnage' intended to communicate an experience of trauma to as wide an audience as possible.

May want to review that stance in light of the fact that, like most countries, all male American citizens age 17-45 are legally part of the US Militia (and, until creation of the National Guard, were expected to be suitably armed & trained). When one country is at serious war with another, targets may not just be active combatants, but anyone officially positioned to become one. There are relevant & valid axioms, held to by warring parties, which do not differentiate between "combatants" and "non-combatants". In an existential crisis, fine distinctions are often discarded. Ugly memes, yes.

>You being near a target doesn't really make you a target either. It makes you a tragic accident.

You know, had you not worn that short skirt... well that tragic 'accident' wouldn't have happened.