And it says we MIGHT save 50 POTENTIAL victims, so apparently our clairvoyance is not perfect. My main point here is that we're NOT clairvoyant, and there may be other means of preventing these potential attacks. Drone strikes would be my very last choice, because of the potential for killing innocent people as well as the aforementioned point about creating new enemies with these attacks. It is a never-ending cycle with a possible snowball effect. We appear to be using the strikes as a first choice, with the justification that it's easier, cheaper and
doesn't risk American lives. Well it might not risk lives right then and there, but creating additional enemies DOES risk American lives. It's an extremely shortsighted strategy. Your example of a compound is not what's going on today, and would have to be fleshed out in more detail but my initial feeling is, it sounds like a David Koresh type situation and I definitely didn't approve of our response - which, in hindsight, did greatly influence Timothy McVeigh and thus led to further deaths of innocents down the road (not defending him, just pointing out how human beings are not rational and the killing of innocents can motivate them even when they are not directly related to those killed.) For another wonderful example, look how the killing of nearly 4,000 innocent people on 9-11 turned out for certain Arab countries. When is enough enough? How many times must the cannonballs fly before they're forever banned? How many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died? The more enemies our country has (and the fewer friends), the less secure we will be - regardless of our military might - and I see us making far more enemies than friends lately.
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