Saturday, July 30, 2011

Is Using Drones In Warfare Ethical?

The Ethics Of Warfare: Drones And The Man -- The Economist

Although it raises difficult questions, the use of drones does not contravene the rules of war.

THE use of Unmanned Aerial Systems, as the armed forces prefer to call them, is growing. Drones have become today’s weapon of choice in counter-terrorism. And over the next 40 years or so, they are expected largely to replace piloted aircraft. In nine years the Pentagon has increased its drone fleet 13-fold and the generals are spending at least $5 billion a year adding to it. The frequency of drone strikes on al-Qaeda and other terrorists that lurk in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has risen under Barack Obama to one every four days, compared with one every 40 during George Bush’s presidency. In Libya NATO commanders turned to drones when their fast jets failed to find and hit Muammar Qaddafi’s mobile rocket launchers.

Read more ....

My Comment: Drones are just like any other new weapon system that has been developed. If it is an effective killing machine ... it will built and stocked into the armory .... and damn the ethics of it. And drones .... lets face it .... they have been very effective.

1 comment:

probus said...

who cares if it's "ethical"-- other than purposely targeting non-combatants in war, screw the ethics of it-- if they can use themselves as bombs and ambush our troops and civilians why can't we use a machine to show them "The Wrath of Allah"?