US kills two top leaders of terror group that attacked Kenya mall

[Maedhros]

261. Who appointed us World Police?

The argument always boils down to this:

"We need to kill The Terrorists no matter the cost."

1. "We need to kill": The assumption is that military means must be employed. However there is ample evidence to the contrary. The Red Brigades and the Bader-Meinhof Gang, both extremely dangerous terrorist organizations, were neutralized not by military force but by international law enforcement efforts. The troubles in Northern Ireland were not resolved until the attempts at a military solution were abandoned and a diplomatic solution implemented.

2. "The Terrorists": Much has been written about the (purposefully) nebulous definition of "terrorist" - it means precisely what the CIA and Pentagon wants it to mean on a case-by-case basis. With respect to places like Somalia and Yemen, we apply the term to local warlords and insurgents and imply that they are a direct threat to the United States. As Jeremy Scahill has noted, in the mid-2000's AQAP was excusively dedicated to removing the corrupt Saleh regime in Yemen. When the U.S. began to strike the Yemeni insurgents in an effort to prop up Saleh, we began inflicting so many civilian casualties that the focus of their hatred has shifted to include America. Even so the Yemeni insurgents present little threat to America, yet the incessant collateral damage from our strikes incites more and more Yemenis to take up arms and join AQAP. We're making more "terrorists" than we are killing.

3. "no matter the cost.": About those civilian casualties.... The "conventional wisdom" seems to be that while yes, we do tend to blast a half-dozen or so civilian men, women and children with each strike against "senior al Qaeda members," the terrible price is necessary because "we need to kill The Terrorists." Here the argument comes full circle. How do we know that some Yemeni "terrorist" was such a dangerous mastermind that his death was justified by the associated collateral murder of innocents? Because the CIA or the Pentagon says so? These are the same people who told us body counts were going to win the Vietnam War and who covered up a hundred My Lai's. As mentioned above, the anger and hatred generated by our drone program creates a dozen new recruits for each "terrorist" we kill. That alone makes the cost too high.