President has the right to use drones in the USA on American citizens

Well, that's all lovely then, so long as it creates jobs in the robotics industry, I mean who gives a **** about killing and terrorising thousands of civilians along the way? Mere collateral damage cannot get in the way of the booming video games-turned-into-killing-machines industry.

You know that the targeted individuals these UAVs (they are not drones) the West are engaged in cause more harm to the local populace than hellfire missiles?

You've taken what I've said there completely out of context.

That would need some justifying - I doubt that it's true.

What is clear is that remote-controlled assassination of civilian individuals, entirely at the whim of US military controllers working from home bases, is now considered the norm of warfare. A truly appalling abuse of human rights is being routinely perpetrated and justified. The sort of justifications coming out from militarists on this thread are a sad symptom of the extent to which these atrocities have become widely normalised in people's minds. I know they purport to be targeting dangerous individuals, but we only have the US military's word for that, a word which has repeatedly proven in recent years to be utterly untrustworthy propaganda.

Worse still, the legal position is now confirmed that the US President is authorised to use these wherever he pleases and select US citizens(!) for murder.

Incredible that people can even think this is somehow right or justified.

Not really, your post read as only considering the impact on the US, disregarding any unfortunate side effects of using this technology on a massive scale, eg, the mass murder of civilians, which is what is basically being perpetrated.

In the future, these current actions of the US (and their obedient little puppies like us) will be viewed as horrible, callous actions and President Obama as a supreme hypocrite for coming in on a platform of getting the US out, whilst in office constantly racking up the scale and extent of the killing.

Takfiri ideological non-state actors (al-Qaeda, Taliban, al-Shabaab etc.) assert their position and power through means on intimidation and coercion. The assassination of elders of local tribes, particularly Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan, the coercion and forced marriage of Takfiri individuals marrying into families and the operational planning of attacking internal, civilian targets (areas of high density) and overseas indefinitely highlights these groups as being far more despicable than ourselves. They have no rule of law or justice (unless you count archaic, dogmatic religious fundamentalist law as justice), respect and conduct for the law of war and they do not have any legitimate authority to use violence. Let alone violence that is deliberately targeted against civilians, in contrast to Western rules of engagement.

By "normalised", do you mean accepting that collateral damage is a new concept in the conduct of war? Because that is far from being the case. Are you also suggesting that the West deliberately target the civilian populace? Even though, that would run completely against the strategy the West finds itself in - as the best methodology in fighting insurgency is to have the confidence of the local population. Infact, UAV attacks are "better" for the local population as they do not leave such a "footprint" of presence, thereby limiting the chances of rejection to intervention of harmful, dangerous and downright violent non-state actor groups.

Even more so, the moral implications for these non-state actors to effectively use the civilian populace as human shields as shelter, in an attempt to maximize collateral damage. The failure for Takfiri groups to differentiate themselves from civilian and combatant is a despicable act when harboring themselves in a densely populated civilian populace. I would like to reaffirm that is illegal under the laws of war. It falls back to Prussian War when French snipers fired upon German soldiers, in retaliation German soldiers were unable to differentiate between civilian and combatant and thus there were far more civilian casualties. Yet, this was the French snipers fault in the first place for not distinguishing themselves from the civilian population. The same applies here.

As for the legal position for the US President to use UAVs.. this is nothing new. There is nothing different than the US using aircraft piloted in the air than aircraft piloted on the ground.

Yep. Still out of context. My post was debating an opinion as to why robots will never be fully automated on the battlefield. What is in that post there is wholly irrelevant to your argument.

Mujahideen ≠ Taliban

The Taliban were created after the Soviets pulled out when the Mujahideen schismatized.

They would have been crushed by Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Northern Alliance had it not been for Pakistan, who gave the Taliban weapons, ammunition, supplies, training, officers and even ground troops. Again, attempting to compare what the USA did, supporting a liberation movement, to the actions of Pakistan, supporting an openly repressive fundamentalist Islamist movement, is bordering on lunacy.

LOL, are you the CIA representative on TSR or something?

We only have the US and your military's (I presume you are in the Army or something, judging from your tone) word for all this talk about them hiding in civilian populations. The story from Afghanistan is one of repeated attack after attack on entirely innocent civilian households and movements. Quite why we are supposed to believe this is all different in the tribal territories is beyond me.

I'm not in the military, I'm currently enrolled in a degree in Strategic Studies and International Relations.

You are mad to dismiss that they do in fact hide in Civilian populations, considering that is a fundamental insurgent doctrine that has been in practice since the 19th century. Perhaps you'd like to read your own article and read that the Taliban are responsible for 76% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan?

If you'd like an excellent synopsis of counterinsurgency tactics and methodology relating to the war in Afghanistan..

D. Killcullen (2009). The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the midst of a Big One. United States of America: Oxford University Press

Or, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/hellfire-morality-and-strategy

If you wish to debate this objectively, then that's fine. But do not sway in with ad hominem, hollow sources and hyperbole; partaking in a debate where your knowledge of counterinsurgency strategy is so unsatisfactory that it merely undermines your points, not aid them.

The Taliban are by all means an offshoot group of the Mujahideen. The Northern Alliance which you seem to worship have committed atrocities just as bad and sometimes worse than the Taliban- Ahmad Shah Massoud and his lackeys were just as responsible for the destruction of Kabul during the Civil War for example as forces backed by Pakistan not to mention Abdul Rashid Dostum whose brutality is infamous. I find it hilarious that the Islamic fundamentalists fighting the Soviet invaders are referred to as "a liberation movement" whilst those fighting the West are terrorists. Same way I suppose that the Contras and Pinochet's regime were fighting for freedom and democracy under the wings of mighty Uncle Sam.

Abandoning Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal and marginalising the Taliban was a huge mistake by the West which plunged the Afghan people into an even greater mire and resulted in the world being ill-equipped generally to use diplomatic means in order to moderate the Taliban's behaviour.

Yeah, because I need to be a professional counterinsurgency strategist to understand that the US are busy killing civilians on a wide scale in Afghanistan and surrounding areas with a high degree of callous indifference. I mean, obviously I need to transfer to the Defence Academy and don a uniform to get into it properly, to understand that the US is now determining which civilians should be killed on an arbitrary basis under the supposed pretext of a war, which they created and is anyway unwinnable. Ah well. I should realise that it all goes back to 9/11 and the obvious evidence that the bombers were all Saudis and that it was controlled from Saudi should be disregarded, because like any professional counterinsurgency expert, I should accept that ACTUALLY it was all from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yeah.

No no, just basic. But your juvenile response merely just undermines the debate further.

Your tin foil hat will be delivered shortly.

We're gonna need them in the new US mandate, which they of course believe to be a "mandate from heaven".

You do realise you're absolutely raving, right?

God, that almost deserves a neg, and I would, if I had your hit points.

Couldn't care less. You're the one who's left rationalism and the ability to read and understand at the door.