[Closed] Drone Strike authorised by Cameron

I wasn't using it as an example of how it should be!!

Maybe not, but thats how it is. That's the reality of 'accountability' as far as our glorious leaders are concerned. Do you think it'll ever see the light of day? Seriously?

Which explains, probably more than anything else already mentioned on this thread, why we can't just accept it when they tell us to just trust them in areas like this. They have demonstrated repeatedly that they are the least trustworthy people on the planet! And they're busy pursuing their own agendas, where legitimate democratic oversight would be... inconvenient... shall we say

would you be happy for foreign powers to start taking people out in the UK using drones?

No but we have a government in control of the country and hence laws. Syria is in the midst of a civil war with no effective government control in many areas and a complete lack of law. So they aren't the same situation at all.

Drone strikes endlessly hit the wrong targets / kill civilians.

Really got any evidence for that?

No but we have a government in control of the country and hence laws.

Laws which in this case, our govenment chose to completely ignore. You know... the ones about assassinating people without any legal process? Pretty basic, fundamental stuff like that?

Will we see it released, in the full unedited form. I'm not holding my breath.

But to me, that's the situation that needs changing. Not the decision to take out someone with intent and capability and a near future plan to commit atrocities against our citizens, I think that's a legitimate target, sorry if others don't see it as so.

No but we have a government in control of the country and hence laws. Syria is in the midst of a civil war with no effective government control in many areas and a complete lack of law. So they aren't the same situation at all.

Ah so one rule for them, another rule for us. What a surprise.

Really got any evidence for that?

Finally, on 15 October 2010, Hellfire missiles fired from a Predator or Reaper drone killed Hussain, the ****stani Taliban later confirmed. For the death of a man whom practically no American can name, the US killed 128 people, 13 of them children, none of whom it meant to harm.

A new analysis of the data available to the public about drone strikes, conducted by the human-rights group Reprieve, indicates that even when operators target specific individuals – the most focused effort of what Barack Obama calls “targeted killing” – they kill vastly more people than their targets, often needing to strike multiple times. Attempts to kill 41 men resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November.

Among those killed that day were 22 children. The youngest, Khadje Ali Mokbel Louqye, was just one year old. A dozen women also died, five of them reportedly pregnant.

Yet these numbers mask the many individual families annihilated in the attack. Mohammed Nasser Awad Jaljala, 60, his 30-year-old wife Nousa, their son Nasser, 6, and daughters Arwa, 4, and Fatima, aged 2, were all killed.

Then there was 35-year old Ali Mohammed Nasser Jaljala, his wife Qubla (25), and their four daughters Afrah (9), Zayda (7), Hoda (5) and Sheikha (4) who all died.

The youngest killed, Khadje Ali Mokbel Louqye, was just one year old
Ahmed Mohammed Nasser Jaljala, 30, was killed alongside his 21-year old wife Qubla and 50-year old mother Mouhsena. Their daughter Fatima, aged 13, was the only survivor of the family, badly injured and needing extensive medical treatment abroad.

The Anbour clan suffered similarly catastrophic losses. Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye died with his wife, son and three daughters. His brother Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye’s seven-strong family were also wiped out.

So what would you have done o great binners? You don't seem to acknowledge the difficulty of the situation at all in your enthusiasm to castigate those in charge. It's so easy isn't it?

No but we have a government in control of the country and hence laws.

And our government in control of the country and hence laws didn't seem too bothered about those laws when we invaded Iraq illegally and killed far more people than Al-Qaeda ever have.

It's only Western soldiers getting maimed by IEDs which makes headline news.

Hardly. 6600 US soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 600 British dead soldiers. Wounded; over 50,000 US and over 10,000 British. If you put in other countries and civilian contractors the numbers are pretty shocking.

I doubt if even a tenth of those wounded have been near a headline, even in their local papers.

I've gone into detail about my solution to the whole middle eastern problem many times Molls....

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Binners you may disagree but the main consensus seems to be that it was within the law.

Grum I think you'll find the present government weren't the ones in power when we invaded Iraq. And I struggle to see how invading a country is the same as a clearly defined strike on a single car with known combatants in it. This is closer to the SAS killing of three IRA members on Gibraltar in '88.

Personally I don't have any sympathy for the two nut jobs that were targeted with drones. As far as I can see it:

1. IS/ ISIS is a terrorist group. If you say you're going to join them / make videos saying you're going to / travel with the intent of doing so then you should lose your British citizenship (thus rendering them stateless) and should be actively targeted as an enemy combatant (with the exception of children taken by their parents).

2. At the point a person travels to Iraq / Syria to join ISIS they should be treated as a traitor with their entire assets to be taken by the state and disbursed to those who are fleeing the chaos caused by ISIS.

3. Public support for the goals of ISIS is not compatible with a life in Britain and should be dealt with as such - including the immediate loss of all benefits and social housing. Children should be removed from households where parents have extremist views with a view to getting them fostered / adopted by other families.

4. Anyone who believes that the Caliphate is a great place should be given free travel and the option of permanently leaving the UK with loss of citizenship part of the process. The houses freed up should be given to refugees / those who have values compatible with life in a democracy / secular state.

Binners you may disagree but the main consensus seems to be that it was within the law.

Depends who's law. And who's consensus. Have I missed something? Assassinating people is now legal according to our present laws is it? Without anything so inconvenient as a trial, or people supplying evidence? I must have missed the news piece when they said they'd legalised that.

As with Iraq. If its against our law, or international law, we'll just use somebody elses. See also extraordinary rendition etc. We can't torture people? Lets go to somewhere where we can then.

Grum I think you'll find the present government weren't the ones in power when we invaded Iraq.

Have a look at the present Tory front bench and see if you can find one of them who voted against it. Another reason Chilcott will never see the light of day. The Tory's are as up to their necks in it as Blair. They were all unquestioningly tagging along with George

Binners you may disagree but the main consensus seems to be that it was within the law

That isn't the consensus I am reading on this thread.

[quote=binners said]
Have a look at the present Tory front bench and see if you can find one of them who voted against it.

How many of them had a hand in creating [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier ]this[/url] ?

Public support for the goals of ISIS is not compatible with a life in Britain and should be dealt with as such - including the immediate loss of all benefits and social housing. Children should be removed from households where parents have extremist views with a view to getting them fostered / adopted by other families.

1984

How many of them had a hand in creating this ?

Its the job of an opposition to raise questions about exactly this type of thing. Blair was proposing invading a country, and going to war FFS! All over the world, people, including the UN weapons inspectors, were saying there were no WMD's. The basis on which we went into that war. Millions of people took to the streets to protest against it. Remember? You'd think maybe some of the opposition front bench might want to articulate some of these perfectly reasonable questions about the legitimacy of invading Iraq.

Did they?

Did they ****!

And now they're demonstrating, just as much as Blair did, their contempt for international law

1984

Not so much 1984 more 2005 when home grown islamists with a rabid hatred of the west / western life blew up 52 of their fellow british citizens on London tube trains.

The failure to recognise salafism / wahabi ideology and vigorously confront it is precisely why British citizens are now blowing themselves and others up all over the world, and why our security services are actively monitoring around 5-6,000 individuals the share the same intent.

How many of them had a hand in creating this ?

Well I thought it was utter bollocks at the time, so unless they are all monumentally thick they must have had their doubts. Let's face it, if anything the Tories would have been even more gung-ho than Labour if they'd have been in power.

The failure to recognise salafism / wahabi ideology and vigorously confront it is precisely why British citizens are now blowing themselves and others up all over the world, and why our security services are actively monitoring around 5-6,000 individuals the share the same intent.

So why have we never attacked the root and main funder/promoter of wahhabism/salafism I wonder, and in fact continue to supply it with billions of dollars worth of weapons, and fly our flags at half mast when it's ruler dies? That country would be one of the worst human rights abusers in the world - who's citizens carried out the 9/11 attacks (so we invaded another country that had bugger all to do with it).

I sometimes read the BBC comments section when i feel inclined for a giggle. However on this occasion I agree with the ones I have read (sorted by popularity. A selection of the few are:

No explanations needed.

The traitor got everything he deserved.

Enemy of the UK ,should to be treated the same way as the rest of the murderous I.S. scum.

He’s one of the reasons that hundreds of thousands
of people are fleeing for their lives in fear.

Well done government.

Stop giving these idiots the title of being British. They are traitors and gave up their right to be British when they left to join the Islamic State. Same goes for any other imbecile who decides to join them.

I'm sure these to fellows would have no hesitation in killing myself or my family or any other infidel or apostate, It's a relief we got to them first.

Nothing less than the total extermination of IS is acceptable - we need to rid the World of this sickness.

Based on the article linked to below and the governments own advice then yes it was legal.

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/07/lawful-uk-forces-british-isis-fighters-syria ]Lawful killing of British ISIS fighters[/url]

But I have said this before - IS is a legitimate target - we can, and do bomb them at will - just not in Syria. The only technicality here is that we bombed them in Syria. If they were 1cm over the boarder in Iraq nobody would have batted an eyelid. It's just a technicality. Our ban on military action in Syria was about targetting Assad and helping bring about a change of regime - well things have changed somewhat, these two were in Syria, but not engaged in the civil war with Assad, they were engaged in other activities that threatened our security.

Why target two specific people in Syria out of all the IS people in Syria we could have bombed? Clearly we must have been pretty convinced we had something on them. The fact they were British has nothing to do with anything.

I sometimes read the BBC comments section when i feel inclined for a giggle. However on this occasion I agree with the ones I have read

Great! Well thats that sorted then. Maybe we should let people who write comments under news articles, probably while pissed, having failed to take their medication, set all government policy from now on?

Are you going to the bar? Will you get us a Stella? And some pork scratchings? I'll tell you what... these bloody immigrants.....

Based on the article linked to below and the governments own advice then yes it was legal.

The same people who said invading Iraq was legal? Well... thats beyond dispute then, isn't it? The Chilcott enquiry just exonerated them all, didn't it?

Oh wait.... hang on a minute.....

toppled the much better armed/equipped Iraqi government in 3 weeks.

not sure they were as committed/focused though - it probably doesn't count as martyrdom if you die fighting for the governments army unless it a holy war.

toppled the much better armed/equipped Iraqi government in 3 weeks.

Binners - isn't this a place where opinions and voices can be heard without prejudice? Did you read any of the comments i quoted? To what extend do you disagree or agree with them?

"Based on the article linked to below and the governments own advice then yes it was legal."

read the article critically it does not actually lead to the conclusion that the killing was legal just that it might have been . Have a look at the Canadian gun boat case referred to there was an obvious relatively immediate threat that could justify an attack here it is less clear particularly as Cameron seeks to justify the need for the killing as participation in plans to that had already failed to attack at events that had already passed without incident.

wrecker - Member
because it's really hard fighting people hiding among the civilian population.

It really is, always amazes me how the security services were utterly shit at stopping IRA bombs, but manage to thwart about 99% of islamic attacks! 😆

Either they've improved immeasurably, or we're dealing with extremely dimwitted jihadis(4 lions must have been a documentary! :lol:) or what we're discussing here is essentially propaganda.

The same people who said invading Iraq was legal?

No Lord Goldsmith stepped down in 2007 and there have been another 2 Attorney Generals before the present one.

Either they've improved immeasurably,

[url= http://www.headoflegal.com/2015/09/07/law-and-the-killing-of-reyaad-khan/ ]Legal analysis by former government lawyer[/url]

wobbliscott + 1
We're engaged in a war with IS, two IS fighters lost their lives.
They had British passports, although getting them to trial and a life sentence at the tax payers expense may have been preferable, military expediency chose the-diplomacy-by-other-means route.

Although I am quite liberal I am getting a bit tired of liberal hand-wringing about some poor ickle IS fighters who support a murderous regime that have no respect for any laws beyond the one's they are making up.

Problem with this is you will never know the details. And the legality is all in the details.
On the PMs desk there would have been a report detailing all the Ins and outs about these individuals, how this information was gathered, by whom and what methods where used.

I would imagine the majority of it would have been human intelligence led, use of informants, covert surveillance all coupled with effective signals intelligence. Disclosing all that information to the general public would most likely leave a great many people happy with the decision.

However, it would confirm the presence of individuals who could really do without appearing on the next IS youtube video, it would compromise those who inform on these animals and more importantly it would arm IS with the information to effectively counter the methods used to effectively target them.

I know many of you will, no matter what is said and done, refuse to believe this was legal and/or justified, who will continue to debate from the position of an armchair quarterback, mostly in part to their hatred of government and the military. I wish more information could be shared and it wasn't left down to a 'you'll have to trust us' statement. But sometimes that is what is needed to keep a great many other people safe.

I don't agree with it, but I understand and respect the need for it.

seosamh77 - Member
It really is, always amazes me how the security services were utterly shit at stopping IRA bombs, but manage to thwart about 99% of islamic attacks!

Either they've improved immeasurably, or we're dealing with extremely dimwitted jihadis(4 lions must have been a documentary! :lol:) or what we're discussing here is essentially propaganda.

Little off the mark there me old fruit. Politics hampered the rates of successful operations against the IRA. We were brutal in the early days, beaten confessions and the like, so as should happen, the elected officials pulled the reigns. Problem was they pulled too hard and that tight leash ended up making us pamper to them. Hence why so many convicted murderers of civilians walked free under the good Friday agreement. Sad, but true.

wobbliscott + 1
We're engaged in a war with IS

Except we're not though, are we? Since Iraq, you can't just go to war without the approval of parliament. For very good reason.

If Dave wants to got to war, which he clearly does, thats fine. He needs to put it before parliament, say 'we want to start bombing ISIS in Syria', debate it properly, and put it to a vote. Thats what happens in democracies. Supposedly.

But this looks like taking us to war by the back door, without recourse to the democratic process. Does anyone seriously think this is a one off? Or the first of many?

If you believe in taking on the Jihadi's, and you want the British military to launch another middle eastern adventure... fine... lets have it put before parliament, and see what everyone else thinks. See how enthusiastic everyone is for that?

FFS are me and binners agreeing?

It's all semantics binners. Technically we're at war with IS, but you cannot really be at war with an organisation. IS and their affiliates are a threat to the security of most western democracies, so as and when required the government will authorise strikes using military hardware against specific targets.

I get your points, and no matter what I say you will have your stance on it. Which I respect because it ensures balance. I just wish more information could be made available but for many more reasons than I could type it won't.

As for a ground campaign. It won't work because mission creep and politics will take over. Of late we don't have a good track record of making a plan and auctioning it. We flick from one idea to the next, with no consistency. All that does is get people killed and piss off the people we're supposed to be helping.

If only we had applied the same standards a few years ago

Files obtained by the website Wikileaks have revealed that the US believed many of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent or only low-level operatives.

The files, published in US and European newspapers, are assessments of all 780 people ever held at the facility.

They show that about 220 were classed as dangerous terrorists, but 150 were innocent Afghans and ****stanis.

It's all semantics binners. Technically we're at war with IS, but you cannot really be at war with an organisation. IS and their affiliates are a threat to the security of most western democracies, so as and when required the government will authorise strikes using military hardware against specific targets.

I don't care whether its semantics or not. We as a nation, appear to be embarking on another middle eastern adventure. Without being consulted, without any parliamentary debate, without any judicial oversight, and being asked to take their word as to the evidence.

Maybe we've just got a bit complacent? What with all the previous escapades having worked out so well?

Maybe we've just got a bit complacent? What with all the previous escapades having worked out so well?

Who can argue at the size of our dicks

I agree with Binners if you look at it very black and white, they have executed and now we have.

However, it appauls me that the Western World is prepared to kill people, because its legal. The 'legal' thing is all about appeasing us Westerners in to justifying what will happen, and ultimately to try and not loose the Government/President the next election.

To me if your going to have a war, its b@llocks all about legal justification. It's whether the country is impassioned to want to do some thing about a situation.

Me personally, all the talk of taking migrants in is pointless unless something is done about the situation at home. The only way to change things in their own country is to start killing a few people.

Mike - you put it so more eloquently than I ever could, but you're bang on! 😉

Me personally, all the talk of taking migrants in is pointless unless something is done about the situation at home. The only way to change things in their own country is to start killing a few people.

I think the question we need to be asking ourselves, dispassionately, is what will our involvement actually achieve? We've not got a good track record on improving matter through military involvement, have we?

Syria is in the midst of a bloody civil war with lots of participants, all as mental as each other, and all sorts of regional powers playing out their own agendas through proxies.

How is our presence, militarily, going to improve matters?

Its hardly likely too. Its just another party getting in there and throwing bombs around. Theres probably enough of those already

**** you binners, not that eloquent 😉

but hey why don't we all just get on with it and execute who we want.

Fair point, but surely it would be cheaper just to drone strike Cardiff directly?

Would have caused a lot less complaints.

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We should have a poll, choose the next destination I reckon..