Chuck Hagel, a Republican drew ire from fellow Republicans in the Senate during his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense. It looks like we are in for another contentious confirmation hearing when John Brennan is vetted for his potential post as head of the CIA, but this time from members of Obama's party, the Democrats. The drone program highlighted
here on CNN and
here on FoxNews explains why the Democrats do not like Brennan. Also,
here is an opinion article on why the government should tell us more about the role of drones in fighting terrorism.
What do you think about the use of drones? Should the government disclose more information? Is the governments use of drones on American citizens justified? Should the government keep these programs under the radar?(pun intended) Comments below!
Here are two NPR doubletake political cartoons on the subject of drones. The first illustrates it's effectiveness and the second questions the legality. What do you think??
disclaimer: I do not take credit for the following material, it was retrieved from
this website.
3 comments:
Drone strikes against American citizens is definitely not ok. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
In my opinion, the use of drones is necessary when used against terrorists. A terrorist’s main goal is to kill Americans. A terrorist does not care whether or not the American is an innocent citizen or a top military official. If our military has the correct information about who is planning to attack our country, then I believe that they should be stopped before they can even leave their country. America has the most advance technology, so we should take advantage of that when our country is threatened and when thousands of our citizens can potentially be in danger. I also believe that our government should provide our country with more information about drone use, but just to inform us about what will be done with the drones. If we allow too much input from the multitude, then our response to terrorist activity can be delayed. Our delayed response to terrorist activity can also lead to thousands of innocent Americans dying. When our government uses drones on these terrorist countries, I think that our government should make sure that they’re using the drones on actual terrorists. It wouldn’t be ethical if we killed their innocent citizens, because they will just respond with aggressive attacks.
Good comments you two. You make very good points about delay and taking advantage of our technology for our protection, but let me ask you a question concerning your last sentence. If, when targeting a known terrorist, innocent people are killed, is it still justified? The types of weaponry on these drones are not precision instruments, so collateral damage is more or less unavoidable. On one hand, we must protect our citizens at all costs. On the other hand, are these drone strikes just making Al Qaeda "respond with more aggressive attacks" and giving them a recruiting tool for their extremism? It is a very difficult situation.
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