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Drone strike in Yemen kills 15 civilians headed to a wedding

Friedersdorf weighs in. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-drone-strike-hit-an-american-wedding-wed-ground-our-fleet/282373/ It appears that this was not an "accident" - the convoy was intentionally targeted and blown up. "only" 5 vehicles out of 14 were targeted, presumably because someone thought they knew that people who were suspected of connection to Al Qaeda were in those five vehicles.

So what you have here is a situation where someone weighed the pros and cons of blowing up a wedding convoy to kill 5 people who were suspected of being "connected" to AQ, and decided the pros outweighed the cons.

We killed something between 0-5 people who might be terrorists, and in the process created about 100 more who will actively support anything and anyone who wants to kill Americans. Hard to see how the pros outweigh the cons.
 
Obama said:
"Before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured—the highest standard we can set," President Obama promised back in May.
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17 dead, more injured...of which only 5 were SUSPECTED of being Al Qaeda.

Conor Friedersdorf said:
Does anyone believe that, if not for our lethal drone program, the United States would've sent the Air Force or ground troops to fire on this wedding party? The thousands of drone strikes we've carried out in recent years suggest that drones decrease the cost of lethal action so much that the U.S. takes it more often now than we would if we didn't have a drone fleet at the ready—and not, as their defenders sometimes argue, that drones are saving us from air strikes and ground invasions.
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Yup. The "war on terror" is now just a high stakes video game that the President and Pentagon love to play.
 
Deacon923 said:
Friedersdorf weighs in. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-drone-strike-hit-an-american-wedding-wed-ground-our-fleet/282373/ It appears that this was not an "accident" - the convoy was intentionally targeted and blown up. "only" 5 vehicles out of 14 were targeted, presumably because someone thought they knew that people who were suspected of connection to Al Qaeda were in those five vehicles.

So what you have here is a situation where someone weighed the pros and cons of blowing up a wedding convoy to kill 5 people who were suspected of being "connected" to AQ, and decided the pros outweighed the cons.

We killed something between 0-5 people who might be terrorists, and in the process created about 100 more who will actively support anything and anyone who wants to kill Americans. Hard to see how the pros outweigh the cons.
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This is sickening.
 
Our arrogance knows no bounds. Again, just imagine what the reaction would be if another nation attempted to take out some suspected terrorists and instead blew up the whole goddamn wedding party? I just can't imagine.
 
There is no excuse for this. So stupid and short sighted.
 
In big picture thinking its like wanting to take out certain floors of the world trade center but taking out the whole damn building. We didn't really respond well to that.
 
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