>Military Aged Males are considered enemy combatants. Effectively that means all males ages 18-49 are considered enemy combatants. Since you're guilty by association, your age makes you a target.
You are conflating what the US considers enemies before targeting and after a strike. The US doesn't just bomb any random male 18-49.
But when the US does target what it thinks is a legitimate target, it counts any unknown males killed in the strike as enemy. It doesn't use that assumption to do the strike. Only to count the enemy v. civilian kill total.
And it's a pretty reasonable assumption, depending on the circumstance. If the US drone strikes a Taliban hide out, the unknown males there were very likely foot-soldiers of the Taliban. If you accidentally blow up a wedding, then counting all the men is essentially lying.
But your sex and age don't make you a target. You being near a target doesn't really make you a target either. It makes you a tragic accident.
Unless the Taliban want to line up like 18th century foot soldiers, there are going to be people killed who aren't involved. Sending in ground troops would only make it worse.
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.
>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."
"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 American’s can get upset, then turn of 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).
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.