A tragedy of drone warfare

[Simon_Jester]

I can only assume their chain of command credited them with having picked up on the fact that Islam requires five daily prayer sessions a day, a fact that any schoolchild should have learned at some point. Or does the US curriculum not offer Religious Studies?

Religion is pretty much banned from US schools, period. It's one reason the Fundies hate public schools. It's a rare school that has ANY sort of religion in the curriculum, even comparative religion, below the level of a college. Most school districts interpret the relevant statutes and the doctrine of division of state and religion as banning religion in public schools. Kids might be allowed to follow religious customs in dress and diet, or be excused for religious observations, but it never enters the curriculum.

So no, US schools do not offer "religious studies".

I learned about the "five prayers a day" thing in high school. Then again, I paid an unusual amount of attention in history class (the place where Islam and the Five Pillars thereof were covered), and I went to one of the better schools in the state.

[Zaune]

I heard about it in the UK equivalent of eighth or ninth grade, I think. Apart from the bullshit requirement for a "broadly Christian" theme to school assemblies, which nobody really bothers to enforce anyway, that's one thing I think we do quite well in this country. I can dimly recall being given a conducted tour of a mosque, a Hindu temple and four different denominations of Christian church as far back as 4th or 5th grade-equivalent, and we spent a year or so on each of the most common religions in Britain. One teacher actually had us think up mundane explanations for Christ's miracles as a classroom exercise!

[Covenant]

Religion is pretty much banned from US schools, period. It's one reason the Fundies hate public schools. It's a rare school that has ANY sort of religion in the curriculum, even comparative religion, below the level of a college. Most school districts interpret the relevant statutes and the doctrine of division of state and religion as banning religion in public schools. Kids might be allowed to follow religious customs in dress and diet, or be excused for religious observations, but it never enters the curriculum.

So no, US schools do not offer "religious studies".

For once I find myself feeling that the fundies sort of have a point. It wouldn't be bending the rules too far to have a few semesters on "this is what [major world religion] believes, this is how it started and this is what they do in church", surely?

Well,I'm on board with that, but no one asks me to set school curriculums.

The biggest obstacle to doing that, of course, is that the Christians will try to hijack it and turn it into an "all about Christianity and how wonderful Jesus is" class. The only way it could work is if you have a large enough block of people who are not only secular but comfortable enough to be secular in public to counter the crazies that come out of the woodwork. That might be possible in some areas, but in far too much of the US the Fundies have too much of a foothold for that to work.

I went through an excellent school district in a Chicago Suburb, did an excellent job and took mostly honors and advanced coursework, and the only thing I learned about Islam was in my Ancient and Medieval History course where we covered Islam in an extremely even-handed way that prepared me well for meeting Islamic students in College.

The other option was Comparitive Religions. If some asswad teacher was teaching the more interesting class (the History one, which neither of my brothers took mind you) then the first thing I would have learned about Islam would have been 9/11, the year after I graduated highschool. So yeah, dodged a bullet there. We may need to include more secular religious discussion in our schools.

[Broomstick]

By the way, this isn't limited to just the "brown people" in Afganistan - I learned today that a young man from my area was killed last week by a predator drone. I won't quote the whole article because a lot of it isn't directly relevant to the topic, but here is the link

The relevant part, with some emphasis added:

Seaman Rast, 23, was killed last week by "friendly fire" while on patrol in Afghanistan, his father, Robert Rast, told The Tribune. The explosion likely came from a Hellfire rocket fired from a U.S. Predator drone.

According to the Associated Press, if a Predator drone is the reason behind Rast and Marine Staff Sergeant Jeremy Smith’s death, they would be the first Americans killed by the unmanned aircraft.

Drones have become powerful weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq, with some being used for surveillance and others to hunt and kill militants, the AP reported.

"It’s extremely hard to take," Robert Rast said. "If he had been killed by enemy fire, it would have been extremely hard to take, but it would have been more acceptable because Benjamin went to war. But the fact a United States Air Force Captain gave the order to fire, and he could have stopped it."

Robert Rast said he has been told from his sources that Benjamin and Smith, a 26-year-old Texan, were sent in to reinforce a Marine unit which was under fire. At the time Benjamin and Smith were hit, they were not advancing. It’s likely, Robert Rast said, the seaman and Marine were mistaken for the Taliban.

Yes, there could be an issue with identifying friend vs. foe with predator drones. Then again, "friendly fire" is a risk in any conflict, but certainly that's all the more reason to try to reduce it as closely to zero as possible.

[Block]

It's not a minor nitpick. These are still wars, they're low intensity and do operate under different rules, , but they're not peace keeping missions. To call them that is to not understand what's really going on, because peace keeping missions operate under a completely different set of rules from counter insurgency.

edit: This is directed at Thanas and Aleksya

Your mission is to protect and win the loyalty of the civilians. Its still a peace keeping mission. Ask the Brits how well heavy handed tactics of using the Military in Northern Ireland worked out. Counter Insurgency still operates under Peace Keeping rules.

No it doesn't. Peace-keeping is when a multi-national force becomes involved in maintaining the peace between two or more recognized factions, often paired with refugee relief operations and an attempt to get both sides to negotiate, it really has nothing to do with hearts and minds. COIN includes some of that, but the focus is much more on influencing the locals through various means rather than influencing existing governments to come to political solutions. The end goal is the same, a peaceful and stable country, but the methods are very different.

[Alyeska]

No it doesn't. Peace-keeping is when a multi-national force becomes involved in maintaining the peace between two or more recognized factions, often paired with refugee relief operations and an attempt to get both sides to negotiate, it really has nothing to do with hearts and minds. COIN includes some of that, but the focus is much more on influencing the locals through various means rather than influencing existing governments to come to political solutions. The end goal is the same, a peaceful and stable country, but the methods are very different.

The methods have more in common than conventional warfare, which is what the US practices in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Block]

No it doesn't. Peace-keeping is when a multi-national force becomes involved in maintaining the peace between two or more recognized factions, often paired with refugee relief operations and an attempt to get both sides to negotiate, it really has nothing to do with hearts and minds. COIN includes some of that, but the focus is much more on influencing the locals through various means rather than influencing existing governments to come to political solutions. The end goal is the same, a peaceful and stable country, but the methods are very different.

The methods have more in common than conventional warfare, which is what the US practices in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No it's not. What the US is using now is COIN, it's a mixture of kinetic and non-kinetic methods, the non-kinetic being unconventional assets like USACAPOC(Civil Affairs Psychological Operations Command), various intelligence assets, USASOC(Special Operations Command), the State Department, PRTs, supporting NGOs, and developing the ANA I think they're calling it now. Those're used to isolate the enemy element from the local populace and force them out into areas where there can be minimal collateral damage.

There are failures in this, but they're not really failures in doctrine or training. The failures are in the upper levels of command, because the local AO is the responsibility of the local combatant commander, who gives permission for, and provides security for the non-kinetic assets to operate in the AO. The company and battalion commanders get it for the most part, although every military in history has had some loose cannons. They know this isn't another force on force conflict, and let us work in their AOs without issue. The problem comes at the higher, provincial and national levels, because a lot of the efforts aren't properly coordinated to develop a comprehensive infrastructure, and prevent duplication of efforts. It has gotten better as the years wind on, but it's still a long process.

Counter insurgency requires force, there's no getting around that. It just has to be properly applied, and there have been massive efforts to improve that. I've personally been involved in that process. That you don't think the results are good enough is more a lack of perspective on your part, because it takes a long time to change the mindset of a force as big as the US Military.

The Mission is still the same, kill the enemy, win the fight, go home. The way that's achived and how winning is determined are what've changed.

[Thanas]

Counter insurgency requires force, there's no getting around that. It just has to be properly applied, and there have been massive efforts to improve that. I've personally been involved in that process. That you don't think the results are good enough is more a lack of perspective on your part, because it takes a long time to change the mindset of a force as big as the US Military.

I am sure the Afghani civilians also lack perspective. After all, when you are bombed and killed for doing nothing except driving down a road because some drone operators want a kill, then of course they lacked perspective.

If the results you speak of are so good, then why are the deaths of civilians attributed to pro-Government forces still up almost 180% of those from 2006? And why are the overall civilian casualties up 15% from last year?

[Block]

Counter insurgency requires force, there's no getting around that. It just has to be properly applied, and there have been massive efforts to improve that. I've personally been involved in that process. That you don't think the results are good enough is more a lack of perspective on your part, because it takes a long time to change the mindset of a force as big as the US Military.

I am sure the Afghani civilians also lack perspective. After all, when you are bombed and killed for doing nothing except driving down a road because some drone operators want a kill, then of course they lacked perspective.

If the results you speak of are so good, then why are the deaths of civilians attributed to pro-Government forces still up almost 180% of those from 2006? And why are the overall civilian casualties up 15% from last year?

Increasing intensity of resistence? Violence as a whole has increased, so those numbers will go up. Your first statement is irrelevant to what I posted.

[Thanas]

Increasing intensity of resistence? Violence as a whole has increased, so those numbers will go up. Your first statement is irrelevant to what I posted.

So the violence is now double the intensity it was in 2006? I'd love to see a source for that.

As for the second, I still do not understand how you think "you lack perspective" is a valid retort with regards to the opinion that the US is fighting the war the wrong way in Afghanistan, which btw is an opinion of many allies.

[Block]

Increasing intensity of resistence? Violence as a whole has increased, so those numbers will go up. Your first statement is irrelevant to what I posted.

So the violence is now double the intensity it was in 2006? I'd love to see a source for that.

As for the second, I still do not understand how you think "you lack perspective" is a valid retort with regards to the opinion that the US is fighting the war the wrong way in Afghanistan, which btw is an opinion of many allies.

To say that the US is fighting the wrong way, and fighting a conventional war are two seperate opinions, and considering the track record of our allies in similar conflicts their opinions on how the US fights the war hold little weight.

Your first statement in this post is pretty much a strawman. Increased civilian casualties and increased violence don't have a direct 1 to 1 ratio, and I didn't claim they did. There are far too many factors involved to make statements based on statistics like that. For example, do you know the reliability of the claims? Do you know how many were killed in larger incidents than years previous? Has the number of government troops increased? Has the number of civilians in the area increased? It's logical to conclude that increased violence is a cause of increased civilian death, but once again I did not state that it was a linear relationship.

[Thanas]

To say that the US is fighting the wrong way, and fighting a conventional war are two seperate opinions, and considering the track record of our allies in similar conflicts their opinions on how the US fights the war hold little weight.

What similar conflicts are you speaking of?

Your first statement in this post is pretty much a strawman. Increased civilian casualties and increased violence don't have a direct 1 to 1 ratio, and I didn't claim they did. There are far too many factors involved to make statements based on statistics like that. For example, do you know the reliability of the claims? Do you know how many were killed in larger incidents than years previous? Has the number of government troops increased? Has the number of civilians in the area increased? It's logical to conclude that increased violence is a cause of increased civilian death, but once again I did not state that it was a linear relationship.

Acknowledged. However, you have yet to show what changes the US allegedly made that resulted in significant improvements.

And especially when you say that this was not a failure in training, when the very article says that it was one (and even acknowledged by the air Force).

[Skgoa]

The thing I don't get is: after almost 10 years, why do the keep making the same mistakes over and over again? Is it unclear/changing political will? Is it simply because people leave the armed forces without passing their know-how on and unexperienced people have to relearn everything by hard?

Increasing intensity of resistence? Violence as a whole has increased, so those numbers will go up. Your first statement is irrelevant to what I posted.

So the violence is now double the intensity it was in 2006? I'd love to see a source for that.

I can only give you anecdotes, but german soldiers who went to "A-Stan" for a second (or higher numbered) tour of duty claim that they see/saw a significant increase in violence.

Man, I wish these real-life wars were just as simple as having the enemy assemble a massive army of demonic warriors, so the military can just bomb them with impunity, and after the enemy leader takes a cruise missile to the chest, the occupation will go off without a hitch because the military will be so competent while the locals will be so incompetent and practicing thousands of years old beliefs and thinkings that will contribute to their utter defeat and conquest with no difficulty and only glossed-over inconvenience for the American-led coalition of the world. Then the leaders and generals can have lots of meetings and talk at length about their military hardware and stuff.

I don't want to derail this thread to much, but this shows precisely the reason why I stopped reading that story. At some point it got to wanky even for someone who read the whole Star Wars EU.

[Broomstick]

The thing I don't get is: after almost 10 years, why do the keep making the same mistakes over and over again? Is it unclear/changing political will? Is it simply because people leave the armed forces without passing their know-how on and unexperienced people have to relearn everything by hard?

The training has not changed sufficiently to account for a changed condition (the use of drones).

Typically, what happens is that Something Unfortunate occurs. The first few times the operators are blamed. Then, when a pattern starts to form, THEN someone analyzes it and realizes hey, this is NOT simple human error, this occurs due to institutional reasons like training. Then they have to come up with new training and implement it. All this does take some time.

The fact that our modern society really doesn't value actual experience, believing that training alone can turn people into identical cogs, does not help.

[Edward Yee]

The thing I don't get is: after almost 10 years, why do the keep making the same mistakes over and over again? Is it unclear/changing political will? Is it simply because people leave the armed forces without passing their know-how on and unexperienced people have to relearn everything by hard?

Sadly, I can actually believe this... I recall something about the Army only relatively recently focusing on rectifying the "experience isn't being retained" problem, starting with Iraq, setting up a Wiki of sorts for "lessons learned" so that returning troops could post tactics and gear advice to be passed out to incoming troops. I would imagine that there's an Afghanistan equivalent, but I don't know how far that extends beyond just tactical and "what gear to use" tips.

Also, apparently there's still a turnover problem with US military special operations troops, or junior officers and key NCOs in non-special ops.

I don't want to derail this thread to much, but this shows precisely the reason why I stopped reading that story. At some point it got to wanky even for someone who read the whole Star Wars EU.

Ehh, it was implied that it was going worse in the Russian zone (with Stas Bush showing the why), but unfortunately we'll never get to see "a more realistic take on the occupation" borne out.

[Sea Skimmer]

You folks all know the number of armed drones over Afghanistan has skyrocketed in the last two years right? At any given time at least thirty Predators are on the job and this never ends. Of course mistakes are going to happen, and the fact that such rates have not skyrocketed in term means progress is being made. In any case the biggest single solution to IFF problems is the Gorgon Stare pod which can track people automatically for miles of travel instead of limiting the operators to a soda straw view. That's going into combat for the first time as we speak.

[Sriad]

The "no religion in High Schools" talk seems strange to me; I took a semester-long class on the history of Islam in high school, and another on Hindu and Buddhism. But then again, I went to a >1,000 student high school in an affluent community in a politically centrist part of Colorado and they were both elective courses. It would be nice to see at least one World Culture/Comparative Religion class worked into the core curriculum.

[Wing Commander MAD]

I went to school in western Pennsylvania, and I recall learning abit about other religions like Islam in social studies/history courses. I distintly remember being taught about the Five Pillars of Islam for example. I always got the impression that it was more that you can't espouse a particular religion, but looking at them in the context of the people that are members of them, thier historical roots and significance, and general overviews of what thier beliefs are was perfectly acceptable. Heck, I remember us examing the Flood part of Genesis in English class right along with other Creation Myths in a literary context. I attended all, barring my first three years at a Catholic school, in a relatively small suburban school district, which I suppose may have influenced that somewhat. Mind you PA seems to be failry liberal compared to the South and Most of the Midwest, though not as liberal as the North East or West Coast*.

*Note: Discounting the more rural areas in the central portion of the state which are fairly conservative, but tend to be moderated by the urban and suburban populations in the eastern and western parts of the state.