Just say no to extra-judicial killings

I am no soldier.  This is my disclaimer. 

I have never believed pre-emptive war to be righteous (it tends to be more about geopolitical chess than "protecting our freedom" in our post-colonial modern age); even if the ideals seem pure, all wars are won with ideas, while good people on both sides die.

Sure, strength of arms does win battles, but ideas are the foundation for societies, and all that we do.  If an occupier fails to win the hearts and minds of the occupied, than the occupier's time is limited.  We are always changing.

I support my brothers and sisters im the armed services, I just happen to recognize that if I was (or related to) an Iranian, North Korean, Afghan, or insurrectionist in any society, I would be hard pressed to be in any position to not support my brothers and sisters in those societies.

Fortunately,  I am a simple American  with internet access, and there is no war here on the soil I reside on.  Therefore, it is easy for me to love peace.

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Drone strikes, like assassinations, are extra-judicial killings.  Everyone who dies by them can be labelled as terrorist, extremist, or any other term the powers that be (government, media, your libertarian uncle) decide, because the dead have no opportunity to defend themselves to the living.

You want to support the troops?  Fine.  Support them and the evil they perpetuate in the name of your nation state all you want.  They are just following orders.  The problem lies in supporting the systemic abuse of executive and legislative authority that allows these things to keep happening.

While no war is moral, the war on terrorism is particularly lacking in morality,  because it is terribly hard to succeed in a war on a noun.  Such wars tend to be indefinite.  At least World War 2 had an ending point.  This war on terrorism will go on forever, because anyone can be labelled a terrorist--or, in the case of folks killed by targeted drone strikes, a potential terrorist.  Now that we are killing people based on what they might do (Iraq, Afghanistan, strikes in Yemen and Pakistan) there is even less accountability.  Our government is not worthy of our faith when it refuses to stop changing the rules.

Every time somebody dies in a drone strike, we have to take it on faith that person was a bad guy, or might do something bad.  It is bad enough that we haven't evolved to the point of seeing every human as a member of the same collective whole, but even worse when we do nothing when our government says any person, American or not, is susceptible to death by drone based on a pretense that may or may not be false.

Everyone deserves a fair trial.  If you have a gun and are killing people, then of course you are more likely to die.  But if you have done nothing but irritate the wrong government, what is to stop any government from sending a drone after you?

That is the slippery slope.  As soon as drone technology is in the hands of all nations, all nations can use the doctrine of pre-emption to kill...anyone.  We as Americans continue to set the standard for pre-emptive warfare and extra-judicial killings in violation of international law.  Let us hope no other nations follow our example, or it may be you at the receiving end of a drone strike from them, if your own government does not get to you first.

I do not mean to be so faithless in America; I was born here and I love this country and its people.  That is why I am so distressed when I see freedom dying as people slowly accept the imposition of a borderless police state in hopes of preservation of the illusion of safety.  We are better than this.  Everyone deserves due process.  Drone strikes are not due process.