Attacks in Paris Stadium, concert hall

Suppose this to be the case. Is the public at large fighting the Syrian civil war, or are militant rebel groups? Are the militant rebel groups mostly secular or mostly religious? Are the most numerous, experienced, well-equipped and militarily successful militant rebel groups religiously moderate and supportive of western liberal values, or dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic theocracy?

Again, where will the legal authority for the carving of sovereign governments come from?

Will the Shiite government of Iraq and the Iranians go along with this in the long-term?

Will this imposed balkanization remain stable, or will militant groups eager to see their vision ("free" or "Islamic" depending) resume the hostilities we interrupted, as they did after we left Iraq?

How many times do western governments and publics have to invade, establish "democratic" governing bodies, withdraw after bloody and prolonged conflict, watch as the process repeats itself, and commit themselves to the same failed strategies yet again? I'll hold the football and you kick it, Charlie Brown. I blame the jingoistic television media for failing to provide institutional memory and for reflexively forgetting caution after the latest terrorist outrage to occur. Over and over again.

Not according to the Pakistani government (where the overwhelming majority of such strikes have occurred)

International legal bodies disagree with you. The United Nations says that the drone strikes "clearly run afoul of the laws of war and of international human rights treaties."

You don't need to be a lawyer, just use common sense. What if a foreign country bombed the U.S. based leadership or expatriate members of a group they didn't like. Do you suppose their unilateral declaration of war against terrorism would count for much?

A Hellfire missile with a 20 pound warhead surrounded by 80 pounds of steel shrapnel is not a particularly discriminating weapon, government and media assurances to the contrary.

Yes there is. Police are authorized by the laws of the states and localities that (at least nominally) oversee them, and local media have access to the scene, to witnesses and to records, as do lawyers.

A military attack on the citizens of another country which we haven't even declared war against, which kills out of sight half a world away, in an area where western journalists don't go because they might be kidnapped by the local militants, with operations protected by military secrecy, is something entirely different.

There might also be a psychological difference important to the civilian bystanders. A proportional, authorized police action by their own law enforcement personnel in which accidental casualties occur, is not the same as a drone strike (or bombing, since air strikes are more common than drone strikes), which is conducted by an arrogant foreign government which regards civilian casualties as statistically acceptable side-effects which are both known and expected even though civilians are not the targets.

Word games.

They conduct military air strikes in campaigns of harassment knowing that these will not achieve the strategic objective of eliminating militant groups or of retaking control of territory from them; also knowing that these bombing campaigns will cause civilian casualties (often more than militant casualties, since militants have tunnels, shelters and fortified positions as well as the training and situational awareness to take cover effectively).

They do this for political reasons because the public and the media screams "do something". The civilian casualties, though not the technical targets of the bombing, are expected and it is known in advance that their deaths and injuries will occur as a direct consequence of the air strike.

The architect of the U.S. firebombing of Tokyo, Curtis LeMay:

"There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders."

"Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier."

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay

I didn't say your reaction was knee jerk. You have been more vocal about it since the Paris attacks which doesn't necessarily mean anything.

I don't believe eh Beth or osso are Hawks, I was being facetious relative to their comments (ill advised in my opinion) that hand to hand combat is preferable to "chicken ****" drones.

Ah okay. Too subttle for me.

glitterbag wrote:

And apparently the caller knew which flight to avoid.

the consul was told that no family should fly through London on a specific date

I actually think there is one piece of evidence my father would have had at one point. The consul asked to use my parents' phone to call his daughter to tell her not to travel as scheduled. If he dialed direct, it would have been on a phone bill.

I disagree, certified mail is proof that certain items were mailed and received. .