Only if you take for granted that killing bystanders is no big deal if your goal is really really important to you. If you start without that assumption it’s possible to work from the fact that aerial strikes kill innocent bystanders to the conclusion that wars that involve aerial strikes against civilian areas are illegitimate. Maybe it’s right to start without that assumption and maybe it isn’t, but clearly it’s not ‘pointless’ to not do so.

Also, guerrilla soldiers don’t really “hide” among civilians any more than conventional soldiers do. That’s just a convenient excuse, much the same as the way the whole cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were defined as military targets as a rationale for what were pure acts of terrorism.

Would it be rude of me to suggest to the senator that he try it in suppository form instead?

A better question is why private sector jobs haven’t kept pace with inflation like federal wages have. In fact, private sector wages are falling behind the inflation curve to such an extent that the middle class is in danger of disappearing entirely, even though productivity and corporate profits have gone through the roof. Punishing federal workers because they are keeping their heads above water might make you feel good, and it might make the job creators happy since they will have one of the few pressures on them to not cut wages further relaxed, but how will it help rebuild our middle class, or our consumer society, if you take away their wages in the name of austerity? I mean, I suppose you could pay for more tax cuts, but our recent history of tax cuts followed by more outsourcing and wage depression doesn’t give me high hopes that our precious job creators would use that extra cash to hire people here rather than in China.

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/28/the_war_on_drug_2.html

Apparently .gov is creating an artificial shortage of prescription medications, forcing people with script to get it from a street dealer.

aeroshot: $3 for 100mg.
canned coca-cola: ~$2.30 for 100mg.
decent cup of shop-brewed coffee: ~$0.50 for 100mg.
anhydrous caffeine pills: $0.02 for 100mg.
anhydrous caffeine powder, retail: <=$0.01 for 100mg.

if people want to waste their $, let them. they can pry my coffee and no-doz out of my warm, jittering hands.

I have two concerns about the drone war:

a. It’s kept under even more secrecy than the rest of the war, apparently to keep the American people from troubling our pretty heads about what is being done in our names.

b. It makes rhe short-term visible cost of war much lower. If you believe (as I do) that a lot of our war on terror policies are lng-term bad for the country, it’s easy to see this leading us to do more destructive but apparently cost-free stuff. Since the mainstream view is that talking about blowback makes you an evil propagandist for Al Qaida and a cheese-eating surrender monkey, I expect that drones will encourage a lot more killing of foreigners who maybe have some tenuous link with AQ, and thus will encourage making thousands of intensely committed enemies who, when they see Americans, see the charred remains of their kids, and find themselves just fine with pulling the cord on the suicide belt.

Best the Agitator article hyprelink ever, IMO. Still wiping up coffee.

Back when they researched the property value of Trail’s End Ranch in Malibu (which isn’t even in LA County) and murdered the owner hoping to steal his ranch and divide up the proceeds (including a percentage paid directly to the deputies who initiated the scam) that particular Sheriff’s Office knew they could get away with absolutely anything. Jailing innocents is probably the least of their atrocities.

Be careful what you wish for. See, here is me playing devil’s advocate:

They WILL make it a crime. If a citizen is mis-identified due to a mistake by authorities, the citizen will be charged with a crime.

Protect & Serve (Themselves!)

After all, we’re not talking about killing Americans, just those lesser other people….

While I’m all for pointing out the obvious and ridiculous hypocrisy of the current administration of such things, the difference between “drone strike” and “air strike”, for these purposes, is a distinction without a difference, and air strikes kill innocent bystanders… ESPECIALLY in a guerrilla war situation, where the combatants blend in with (and hide among) the local population.

Make your case that the war itself is unjust, unwise, whatever (and I’m open to those kinds of arguments), but just pointing out that air strikes kill innocent bystanders in a guerrilla warfare situation is… well, rather pointless.

I certainly hope so. If that happens, she wins the game.