Is there any moral difference between

[pscot]

a roadside bomb that blows up American soldiers and a predator drone that drops from the sky and kills a dozen Taliban villagers? Our politicians talk a lot about American values, but it's just talk. We have no values at all; no deeply held principles; no moral sense. We don't even know who we are anymore.

[patrice]

1. This isn't something I say often: I ABSOLUTELY agree with you pscot.

Personally, I think we on an average are too stupid to be moral, so we follow POWER, and that includes religious power, wherever it takes us, even into the murder of what had to have been several tens of thousands of INNOCENT CHILDREN & BABIES in Iraq, while we scream about clumps of cells and fetuses here at home.

One question: What would have happened to Iraq, all other factors being equal, if they had been White Christians?

[ixion]

2. The difference: They are defending their homes from a hostile occupier. Beyond that,

it's killing, which is bad no matter who sanctions it.

[awoke_in_2003]

7. same point I was going to make...

if Canada was occupying the US, we would be doing the same thing. Well, maybe not Canada- they would bring us good health care.

[jtuck004]

3. Or cutting benefits to the elderly and hungry, driving a couple hundred

thousand into poverty for the remainder of a very sad and painful life.

So millionaires can be made happy.

[DirkGently]

4. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia. Wide-open, unaccountable, open-ended, constant, WAR.

Coming soon: Iran? Syria?

It's not ethical, it's not practical, it's not justified, and it's not legal.

No American should support any of it, and we should be clear these actions are NOT in defense of our country.

There's not a shred patriotism or heroism or goodness in any of it.

No good will come of it. No lives saved. No values advanced.

Worthless, cynical, dirty, arrogant, doomed, meaniningless war.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Yes. The IED is less likely to cause collateral damage.

It has to be triggered by somebody on the ground, watching the road, and therefore is liklier to only hit its intended target.

[stuckinarut]

6. Yes, there is a huge difference...

A roadside bomb requires ingenuity and skill..a commitment to a cause and a willingness to lay down your own life to deploy the munition. A Predator drone, while requiring technological skill, essentially has zero human cost to the operator, who never enters the battle space, nor sees the destruction his munition causes..other than from the sky on a television monitor back in the states.

Basically, we're a bunch of war mongering wussies.

[louslobbs]

8. K&R Thanks for the post.

Lou

[swilton]

9. War is Terrorism with

a bigger budget....

[aranthus]

10. Of course there is.

A roadside bomb is intended to kill as many of our soldiers (or civilians) as possible. A drone is intended to take out one or two bad guys; not a whole village. While I understand that to the villagers, the distinction is meaningless, there is still a huge distinction in intent, which is where the moral difference lies.

[pscot]

11. Spoken like a true son of empire

[shimmergal]

13. Then we should

develop a drone which hones in on those bad guys ONLY, maybe through DNA matches or something similar. For a nation which can send men to the moon, this certainly isn't beyond our capacity, if we had the will to do it.

[saras]

12. Nope, none. Drones are terrorist tools, by nature

They enable the aggressor to avoid the effects of their aggression on their own society, and so they unfairly benefit the worst actors over the best ones. Like chemical and biological weapons, they should be banned, and the ban enforced by the whole world.

We know who we are - we think killing innocents by remote control from a large distance is evil, and not excusable by its supposed benefits.
They know who they are - they have no problem with killing innocents as long as they are not from their own culture, class, and tribe.