Dear Jayb,

I am more than happy to frankly and fully answer your questions, however inane they may well be, if you retract completely the slander you directed at Ms Kelly.

If not you can shove them where the sun don't shine my friend.

As to the 2.5 people you have killed, I have in my long experience met men who had actually killed other human beings, not one has ever bragged about it nor brought it up in casual conversation. It was only when they were exceedingly inebriated was it ever discussed. 

You sir are not that intoxicated.

I didn't see anything in the article to give support to what was done in New York, Washington, London, Madrid, Bali and other places. Those terrorist attacks are well known and received wide media coverage. The victims have been and will be remembered, those who carried out or orchestrated the attacks are where they have been identified mostly reviled as murderers (Abu Bakar Bashir is in jail).

What we don't generally hear of are the dead who were unfortunate enough to have their homes in a combat zone, those who've stayed at home and died there rather than annoying us by turning up on a boat at Christmas Island or settling their families into the misery of a refuge camp with no sign of a way out.

I've got no way of knowing if the individuals described here were in any way guilty, too much secrecy around those operations and the US government is working hard to get Julian Assange.

Deaths from the drones are not like conventional battle deaths where a soldier in the heat of battle and with their own life on the line might make a mistake and shoot an innocent who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The operator is never at direct risk, the drones are rarely at risk, every firing should be beyond any doubt.

Their development may in the end haunt us all, their use in civilian airspace is currently heavily restricted but there is a big push to let law enforcement agencies in the US make far greater use of them. When the US goes that way how long before our government follows? How long before another layer of privacy for people who may be doing no legal wrong but perhaps irritating someone in government is gone?

R0bert

Csteele,

Your defence of Ms Kelly may very well be misplaced. She has only the word of the Afghani woman that the 5 men "Having tea" were actually doing so, and that none of them were involved in the insurgency.

The drones have been hugely successful in hitting the Taliban and the civilian casualties are by comparison far lower than conventional means. While the loss of civilian life is always a tragedy, this is the lesser of two evils.

Jayb1: This woman is a obviously Teliban supporter & you are supporting her. Therefore I can only assume you must support the Teliban.

I retract this statement as per csteels & Graham Youngs request.

Now can you please answer the questions you said you would be happy to answer.

Do you consider these terrorists are just innocent civilians?
Would you hold a terrorist or their Organization accountable in The Wold Court?
How you would go about holding the terrorists accountable to the World Court?
Do you support the Wests conversion to Islam by any means possible?
What would be your solution to end the problem of terrorists killing innocent civilians?

csteel: not one has ever bragged about it nor brought it up in casual conversation.

That wasn't a brag csteel, that was a simple fact of life that I accept. Guess I've always been different. I have always had a very relaxed attitude to most everything. I'm happy to discuss anything, even socially taboo subjects. I have never been influenced by what other people think of me personally. That's their opinion. Interesting book I discovered. "What Would You Do" by Mel Poretz. ISBN 0-449-90762-7. There are about 100 questions. Eg: Have you ever brought, worn & returned a new outfit, for which you had planned from the outset, to return after wearing. 3% of women answered, yes. Tell a stranger that his or her fly was open. etc. Worth a look at. Although most people would run a mile before answering most of the questions. I don't get drunk, 2.5 cartons of light beer/ year is about my limit.

I must have missed the announcement that there are now "rules" in "love and war".

Does the death and taxes thing still stand?

Dear Jayb,

I have not requested you retract anything you have said about me.

In fact I really don't give a rats what you sling my way, It isn't about me at all, I am just a relatively anonymous person on a web forum, pretty much fair game. The author is not.

I called on you to retract the slander you directed at Ms Kelly, specifically your referring to her as “praising the Islamic suicide controllers' and of “being in favour of what the Islamic Terrorists do”.

While I certainly think an apology to her would also be in order it is not a prerequisite.

Get it done and I will respond as agreed.

Dear Yabby,

I would never have thought an ad by a right wing GOP candidate might say something far better than I could about the situation in Afghanistan but here it is. Turn the sound up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfuS6gfxPY

Dear SPQR,

Can we dissect your post a little.

Even if in the unlikely event Ms Kelly is being completely duped by the Afghani women why on earth should that negate my defending her from the slander Jayb threw at her?

The second point is evidenced by your words “and that none of them were involved in the insurgency”. When this drone program started it was all about decapitating the al Queada leadership, then about any member, then about decapitating the Taliban leadership no matter what the cost, now it is just anybody who is involved risks being bombed in their houses with their families.

“the recent campaign to kill Baitullah Mehsud offers a sobering case study of the hazards of robotic warfare. It appears to have taken sixteen missile strikes, and fourteen months, before the C.I.A. succeeded in killing him. During this hunt, between two hundred and seven and three hundred and twenty-one additional people were killed, depending on which news accounts you rely upon.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz1BCMp1PSe

This is a 200 plus post conversation we had last year on drones;

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4206

I'm happy to replicate some of it here if needed.