<story><title>If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We&apos;d Ground Our Fleet</title><url>http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-drone-strike-hit-an-american-wedding-wed-ground-our-fleet/282373/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rdtsc</author><text>It is profitable.&lt;p&gt;If terrorists disappeared tomorrow. Let&amp;#x27;s say we use our surgical strike weapons to target every cell every member, and in one hour they are gone. What would happen? Billions of dollars disappear from the pockets of everyone in the chain. Military contractors, drone maintenance, promotions, bonuses, career advancements, no more completed missions, medals, no job to go to.&lt;p&gt;So the direct financial and career incentive for everyone in the chain is to always make sure there is a stream of new terrorists, new cells, new intelligence chatter about &amp;quot;the Great Satan&amp;quot;. And that is indirectly accomplished by indiscriminately bombing civilians. Everyone who is involved in picking the target and knows it is a funeral, will know civilians will die. I can&amp;#x27;t help but think they also know it is job insurance as well. They would be stupid not to.&lt;p&gt;American public via media has been tested enough during releases of so many atrocities, torture tapes, lies, monitoring that by now, I think they&amp;#x27;ve built an accurate model of how much outrage will be generated and how much will actually threaten future operations, funding, reelection and so on (so far not much).&lt;p&gt;The bottom line, I don&amp;#x27;t even know and 100% believe them when they say these are all &amp;quot;mistakes&amp;quot;. The incentives and the motivation, especially in the long term, is for them not to really care if civilians get bombed.</text></item><item><author>sethbannon</author><text>The way America is conducting the war on terror is both self-defeating and morally repugnant.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>You realize that the fiction of a coherent &amp;quot;Military Industrial Complex&amp;quot; has been debunked several times right? One by the General Accounting Office showed that military contractors actually had higher profits in peacetime than wartime because they got money for &amp;#x27;research&amp;#x27; and didn&amp;#x27;t have to actually produce any product.</text></comment>
<story><title>If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We&apos;d Ground Our Fleet</title><url>http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-drone-strike-hit-an-american-wedding-wed-ground-our-fleet/282373/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rdtsc</author><text>It is profitable.&lt;p&gt;If terrorists disappeared tomorrow. Let&amp;#x27;s say we use our surgical strike weapons to target every cell every member, and in one hour they are gone. What would happen? Billions of dollars disappear from the pockets of everyone in the chain. Military contractors, drone maintenance, promotions, bonuses, career advancements, no more completed missions, medals, no job to go to.&lt;p&gt;So the direct financial and career incentive for everyone in the chain is to always make sure there is a stream of new terrorists, new cells, new intelligence chatter about &amp;quot;the Great Satan&amp;quot;. And that is indirectly accomplished by indiscriminately bombing civilians. Everyone who is involved in picking the target and knows it is a funeral, will know civilians will die. I can&amp;#x27;t help but think they also know it is job insurance as well. They would be stupid not to.&lt;p&gt;American public via media has been tested enough during releases of so many atrocities, torture tapes, lies, monitoring that by now, I think they&amp;#x27;ve built an accurate model of how much outrage will be generated and how much will actually threaten future operations, funding, reelection and so on (so far not much).&lt;p&gt;The bottom line, I don&amp;#x27;t even know and 100% believe them when they say these are all &amp;quot;mistakes&amp;quot;. The incentives and the motivation, especially in the long term, is for them not to really care if civilians get bombed.</text></item><item><author>sethbannon</author><text>The way America is conducting the war on terror is both self-defeating and morally repugnant.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>frogpelt</author><text>Let me guess, you think there&amp;#x27;s a cure for cancer but the doctors are withholding it and Exxon Mobil bought the patent for a combustion engine that would achieve 100+ mpg.&lt;p&gt;Any industry that is built on addressing problems that people naturally have is going to generate lots of revenue. 
It has been proven that people naturally fight with each other. People fight over race, religion, sports, politics, and territory. Nations do the same thing.&lt;p&gt;If you think it would end terrorism by killing all current terrorists and if you think it would even be possible, &lt;i&gt;I think&lt;/i&gt; you&amp;#x27;re misguided.</text></comment>