Signature Strikes

Yesterday I found myself on Brave New Foundation, one of the many indy media outlets we’ve examined over the semester. I began watching the featured video on signature strikes and there were a few quotes that really stuck out to me.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff, speaks to the system with which we gauge the success or failures of war. As he draws parallels to the flawed system of measuring success by body count in the vietnam war he begins to evaluate the accuracy of drones in this capacity and poses this question: “Tell me how [we’re] winning if every time [we] kill one [we] create ten more?”

The sad reality of drones is that their accuracy is just not good enough. While it may seem to some Americans that this removed tactic of warfare creates minimal casualties on both sides of the fence, this is just not true. Civilian casualties are the norm in signature strikes. 

The video comes to a close with a very powerful quote from Philip Alston of the UN: “"We got to get out of the mentality that you can shoot your way out of a terrorist war.”

I think this sums up the entire issue of the mentality of Americans in wartime. I will disclaim what I am about to say by adding that this tactic is much easier said than done but still I hold strong in believing this is the only way to logically end any war.

Americans thing that guns can do the talking for them but violence will only create anger and more rebellion against our forces.

We need to communicate with our opponents in any war. We need to take the time to understand their culture, learn their ways and their societal norms and then make attempts at counterinsurgency (a strategy of war-fighting that actively seeks to contain an insurgency that intends to overthrow the authority of the defending militant forces, COIN calls for soldiers to be  on the ground and asks these soldiers become accustomed with civilians of the surrounding area). 

I know that there are ulterior motives in our wars in the middle east but I would like to think that if we really wanted to get out of the war counterinsurgency would be the effective means to take. Drones and signature strikes make accidental targets of civilians and create a larger uprising against the US, they are in summation doing more harm than good and we need to eliminate this method of warfare.