Drones: We Need Debate, Not Sound Bites

It's an election year in the US. National security is becoming a top issue. Everyone's talking about ISIS, and terrorism. The evolving US militarism is bubbling just below the surface.

Okay: let's put the question on the table.

REAL debate is not the 3-ring circus that you see on TV during prime time,
full of personalities and ad hominem attacks, but rather a knowledge- and
research-based exchange of argument and counterargument directed at
focused analysis of a specific question. Passion and competition, yes,
but, more than anything else, debate is an exercise in critical thinking!

Let's hear some real debate: Is military action the solution? Is violence the way to fight violence? Are we going to "drone" our way to a peaceful world?

Before we let some politician get away with a cheap sound bit, let's subject the question to real scrutiny:

Does the use of drones really offer countries like the US the best solution for addressing violent threats?

Let's see a real debate.


Related posts

Anyone who has had to write a speech knows that the hardest part is to land on the main idea. Once you've got that right, the rest practically writes itself.

(See "The way to respond to ISIS is not through violence." on Scarry Thoughts.)





A virus is able to be so successful precisely because it (most of the time) doesn't kill its host. I can't help thinking that we simply are not being intelligent about how to respond to violence. How might recognizing the "viral" nature of violence help us to respond to it more intelligently?

(See Violence: Taking Over Like a Virus on Scarry Thoughts.)






We can now entrust all the dirty work -- including war -- to robots. (Or can we?)

(See A Modest Proposal: Debate the Drones on Scarry Thoughts.)