I'm not sure how you can argue drones minimize foreign civilian casualties, given the constant reports of drones bombing weddings and social gatherings based on the location of a cell phone. That's basically just repeating direct propaganda.
What is the better tactic?
Short of a complicated and "nuanced" response, I'd suggest:
How about not invading a sovereign nation? Worst case, the UN could block-off all in-out with that country. Trade, travel, communication. All of it until they abide by UN laws.
It's really no different from a fighter jet dropping the bombs, there's just no risk of casualties on our side. Yes, those casualties are bad, and we should be agitating against them, but it isn't the drones that are the problem.
There is basically zero chance the taliban can shoot down an F15. Drones are used because they are cheaper and the better tool for the job.
In fact, Drones only work in areas where the opposing forces have virtually no ability to shoot down aircraft. Because drones are sitting ducks. In a shooting war against any country with anti-air capabilities, drones wouldn't stay in the air for long.
That seems like a profoundly misguided argument.
Why do we continue to send these men and women over there? Because no one knows them. The risk to someone the average US citizen knows is near 0. This lack of connection allows people to make the decision to commit these anonymous soldiers to a war on the other side of the world.
This is only exacerbated by drone warfare. Now, we'll be committing even fewer of our own citizens lives to the risk of war. Materiel is easily replaced in comparison, and the losses are more easily covered over.
One of the reasons that we, finally and way too late, pulled out of Vietnam was the draft. The idea that you, or your brother, or your son, or your cousin could be drafted and thrown into a war that none of you wanted.
Now it's an all-volunteer military. While we may be wary of war, it's far less of an emotional and ethical strain on the people of this country when they go into their voting booths.
[0] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-trag...
However, it is philosophically untenable to take the position that we should be forced to risk a life in order to take one. That is an anachronism that only feels justified out of a misplaced sense of moral fairness. What we should be doing is focussing on better procedures to prevent civilian casualties. Drones actually represent a great opportunity to employ very stringent procedures to prevent such things. Much more so than a fighter jet or troops on the ground. You can easily do things like have multiple people sign off before a missile is launched, employ machine learning to enhance images and attempt to classify and predict common sources of operator error, etc..
===
You make solid points, I don't disagree with you entirely. I do want to clarify: my point of view is not based on a sense of moral fairness. War is probably always going to be unfair, otherwise it's an even match and even more pointless. If I were for fairness I'd want the war to be local and not just in other countries, but I don't want that.
What I want is for it to end. The ability to cover up the human costs by distance from the front, distance from the people fighting (on either side), means it's too easy for us to allow it to continue. I don't want US men and women in harm's way. I want them out of harm's way, and for us to stop killing people who (mostly) just want to live their lives. Some level of military action will probably be necessary somewhere in the world, as entangled as we are, at any given time. But going to more automated and unmanned systems allows us to continue to be far more violent than circumstances actually require, with little cost to the elected and appointed officials directing this violence in our name.
I basically agree entirely with you. However, I think almost everyone would. If you asked Obama or any of the generals running these drone ops to sign off on what you just said, I think they'd gladly do so. They'd then likely go on to say that the war they're waging is one of these unfortunate necessities. Further, that the civilian casualties horrify them, but they're doing what they can do stop them while still accomplishing the (in their minds) paramount goal of eliminating terrorist threats.
What it seems to me to come down to ultimately is that it's ok to use drones when you come down on the right side of that moral calculation and not when you don't. Which, of course makes the drones an irrelevant part of the equation in the first place, since that is the fundamental moral question of all use of force.
Maybe the answer is to un-depersonalize the nature of drone strikes. Maybe their video feeds should be publicly available after X amount of time when they've used their weapons?
Do you have an argument that doesn't involve rephrasing mine?
If you care about a goal that actually matters, like reducing violence, you'll push for better verification procedures when a target is going to be struck. Not a reduction in drone use in general, and not an attack on the concept of drones.
Drones present a unique opportunity thus far in war to have stringent procedures in place that control the pulling of the trigger. They represent an opportunity to dramatically reduce civilian death, and increase responsibility for those that abuse their status as drone operators to murder civilians. On a battlefield, it's almost impossible to evaluate killings ex-post. Not so for a drone operator. They are perfectly safe, every single input available to them will be available to any tribunal who wishes to review their actions. They do not have the excuse of feeling threatened, or the heat of battle, or anything like that.
Drones are going to be a good thing for civilian casualties, IF and only if we guide them in the right direction. And that isn't going to happen if we keep naively complaining about their use in blanket terms.
Edit: I'm not implying a position. With a strong assertion I'm interested in how one arrives there.
I say this as someone with many family members who have served: absolutely yes. War must have a steep cost or we will be far too eager to wage it.
No it's not. I would go into more detail but I don't feel you are arguing in good faith, so my effort would be wasted. It seems more like you are trying to out-post your opposition with silly false equivalences that waste time and sidetrack the discussion about drones.
But for anyone else reading, I will say that a distinction can be drawn empirically. Body armor doesn't seem to change the types of situations in which an attack would be considered, while drones do.
I'm not arguing in bad faith, you just aren't bothering to think through your point. As your very next sentence illustrates.
> But for anyone else reading, I will say that a distinction can be drawn empirically. Body armor doesn't seem to change the types of situations in which an attack would be considered, while drones do.
That is pretty obviously false if you spend two seconds considering it. And even if you were to take that as true, what about tanks? Planes? Those unequivocally change the considerable situations.
That is an irrelevant non-sequitur.
> Also, when you send a bunch of kids into a putative warzone and they powerslide their tanks around the local streets at 60MPH, it tends to make the locals unhappy
Ditto.
> And again, you are shifting goalposts to avoid talking about drones.
I'm not moving the goalposts. The goalposts remain the same. You claimed that weapons that change the operations you consider should not be used. And it is by that criteria that you object to drones. I falsified that criteria a bunch of different ways, and you've failed to respond to any of them adequately.
You brought it up.
You've been throwing random distractions at a misconstrued, simplified version of what I've said. It's clear that there is zero communication taking place, so I will not respond further.