Trump Has Ordered a Drone Strike Every 1.25 Days

Obama, by contrast, ordered one every 5.4 days.

As long as he isn't being careless with the lives of American personnel or innocent civilians anywhere why should the frequency of such attacks matter one way or the other?

Is there any evidence that these attacks are not against legitimate targets?

Because we have no idea if these attacks are reducing terrorism. Additionally, given the failure of the SEAL raid, one would hope that Trump would be a little more cautious in using military force. That seems not to be the case.

There's very little evidence about these attacks at all. While it claims that AQAP operatives were killed, the government release gives no names, nor any evidence that the individuals killed were AQAP operatives or that they're dead. Without more details, it's impossible to assess these attacks. Even if the attacks were launched against what the government thought were legitimate targets, that doesn't mean that's what was hit. And civilian casualty figures have often been higher than what the government reports.

That story dates from 2015, BTW, when Obama was running the country. Do you think that Trump is better at something Obama had been doing for years at that point, after less than 2 months on the job?

Ah, Trump-hatin lefties - so it's not the principle behind things like the 'ban' or assassinating enemies by remote drone that offends your sensibilities so egregiously, it's a question of the scale? Obama amount good, Trump amount bad. What a bunch of fuckin morons you sound like.

Actually, I wasn't a fan of Obama's use of them, either, but I don't expect you to be able to grasp such a concept.

Tuckerfan, do you not believe that the U.S. military tries to avoid killing civilians? I think they avoid it if reasonably possible.

I'm not like other people here who seems to think that the trigger pullers in the military are bloodthirsty murderers.

Evidence, however, shows that they do not try hard enough.

No, you're someone who has few qualms about sending people off to die, even if serves no purpose other than to stroke your own ego. We've been over this countless times, you are in favor of more military actions, not less, and the consequences of such actions don't seem to bother you, so long as a bunch of people you don't like get killed.

"Reasonably possible" leaves a lot of scope, and we know that you actively want to see large numbers of deaths. Fuck you.

Good. More, we need more. The rats need to fear sticking their heads out of their holes.

Where's Q2 to disappear Dinner's vocal cords when you need him?

FTFY

I disagree with you about not trying hard enough. Legally the Geneva convention just requires a good faith effort not perfection and given that the rats usually use human shields no casualties is unrealistic. I would even argue that making it clear that tactic won't save them and simply killing them does reduce overall casualties. Ear is an evil messy business and this is the lesser of two evils option.

Oh, and Israel's experience does show that killing the key leaders and folks on the battlefield does reduce the rate of attacks. Does it ever end? No, nor would anything short of complete surrender and mass conversion to Islam make it end. You can lessen their abilities and reduce the frequency of the animal attacks and only a fool wouldn't do that. To totally stop Islamic terrorist attacks you need a Muslim free homeland or at least as few muslims as possible as no muslims equals no Islamic terrorism and more muslims equals more Islamic terror. This is why a Muslim ban is absolutely needed and why those who oppose it are coresponsible for allowing Muslim terrorism to continue.

We don't need more if they aren't effective. Besides there's too much of a chance for civilian casualties.

We've been killing them for almost 20 years now (longer, if you count our pre-9/11 operations). Doesn't seemed to have turned the Mid-East into a paradise of peace yet. How many more people have to die?

And how do you propose to keep Muslims out of a country? What if a person trying to enter that country claims they're no longer a Muslim? How do you prevent people from within a country from converting to Islam?

Not true at all.

Not surprising since you are one of the ones who seems to label every U.S. military action as "murder".

That depends on them.

How many Americans would the Russians have to kill before you decided that fighting the Russians was a bad idea? Would say that maybe we should find a better way of dealing with the Russians if they killed a million Americans? Or would the number be higher or lower than that? If you won't expect us to give up fighting the Russians because they killed a specified number of people, why would you expect people to accept a specified number of their population dying fighting us?

Has Trump ordered any drone strikes/executions on American citizens without a trial yet?

Because Barry did that. :|

When we've killed a million radical Islamists get back to me on that.

Until then.

Game on.

True. And I agreed with you.

But in my opinion, if an American citizen goes overseas and joins up with the enemies of the U.S. then they are a perfectly legitimate target.

Two Americans have been killed under Trump operations, so far. They were, however, not the intended targets.

And suddenly the Obama apologists care about the number of drone strikes.

Which is a significant difference.

So, no answer, then. Not surprising at all, actually.

Which is why I mentioned it. The earliest Obama appears to have targeted a US citizen, was in Dec. '09. But it looks like they didn't deliberately kill the first US citizen until '11. That may be incorrect, of course. We shall see how things play out.

I have already explained that. The Islamists will not stop until everyone in the whole world is exactly the type of Muslim they want. There is no end. What part of that do you not understand?

They have been at this doing the same thing for 1400 and they are not going to stop just because you are nice to them.

It is an answer. Just not the one you wanted.

Great misrepresentation of the position Tuts. That's moronic.

As Tuckerfan says, it's not like we were great fans of Obama's drone use, but Obama the guy was measured and thoughtful.
Whereas Donald is a freaking, frothing loon.

Fact: The Geneva Conventions were adopted for, and are applicable to, "international armed conflicts", i.e. declared wars between states A and B.
Whereas the United States (by what right?) just shoots up anybody it wants whenever it wants and however it wants.
When was the last time the US congress (in accordance with the constitution) declared war on anybody? 1941?

What the Geneva Conventions (or rather the later protocols additional to those treaties) require is respect for the "proportionality principle": You can never target civilians but you can accept civilian casualties if the military effect reasonably anticipated is proportionally great.
That's setting the bar pretty high, and demands the seriousness of an Obama. Donald simply ain't up to the task. And would shit on it even if he realized he had it.

And then there's the question of whether your attack will create more terrorists than it kills.

So how long should we stay? What these people need is to fight for themselves, we can't help them.

You really think attacking people who are radicals or terrorists is what creates terrorists?

That is a very western way of thinking. The U.S. wasn't conducting routine drone or airstrikes on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Yemen, or Afghanistan that inspired the Sept. 11th, attacks.