Drone strikes

So if it's not "fair" to use drones durhamjen, does that mean that you think the scum who murdered those innocent people in Paris were playing "fair"? Sorry, but you need to lose the rose coloured specs and face up to reality.

I don't think the killers of the innocent people in Paris were fair, but I agree with Jen, I don't want to think or be equal to those killers by killing innocent people , this would put me on their level

Exactly Ceesnan and one of the main reasons that drones are used is they can target more accurately. I bet the jihadists are playing up the 'you're killing innocent children' angle to the max.

I don't think the killers of the innocent people in Paris were fair, but I agree with Jen, I don't want to think or be equal to those killers by killing innocent people , this would put me on their level

But that is ultimately selfish.
It is the bigger good that matters.

Pres Obama doesnt want to have blood on his hands.
Jeremy Corbyn doesnt want to press the button.

Guess what? Nor do other people, but sometimes we have to act on behalf of other people.

Soontobe - your current posts on the possibility of the Uk joining in the bombing in Syria are a far cry from those you posted earlier this year. I remember more than one occasion when you said you knew little about it and that as it was happening a long way away it wouldn't affect you.

I did know little about it back then.

I dont remember writing anything at all about the last part of your post. If you want to link to it, feel free.

soon, could you look at a child and tell him/her - I believe you have to die for the greater good

I said bigger good not greater good.
Plus no one tells anyone that.

PLus actually, that is a nonsense post really. As in not sense.

Time for bed

The accepted phrase is the greater good, I am afraid, Soontobe, not "bigger", just as we say lesser of two evils not "smaller".
Just one of those English idioms .

"A study conducted by a US military adviser has found that drone strikes in Afghanistan during a year of the protracted conflict caused 10 times more civilian casualties than strikes by manned fighter aircraft.

The new study, referred to in an official US military journal, contradicts claims by US officials that the robotic planes are more precise than their manned counterparts.

It appears to undermine the claim made by President Obama in a May speech that "conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and likely to cause more civilian casualties and local outrage".

Drone strikes in Afghanistan, the study found, according to its unclassified executive summary, were "an order of magnitude more likely to result in civilian casualties per engagement." "

From the Guardian. Drones are not more accurate.

I meant bigger not greater.

It may not be gramatically correct, and I dont know a better way of saying bigger, but bigger is what I meant.

I meant bigger as in more people, not greater as in best or better.

We seem to be back to the 'Great War' misinterpretation again...

I dont think I saw much of that thread.

I am out of here.........again

I thought you'd gone to bed, soon.

as you say Ana.

The greater good

I meant bigger not greater
It may not be gramatically correct, and I dont know a better way of saying bigger, but bigger is what I meant
I meant bigger as in more people, not greater as in best or better

Ah, soon, you might like to have a look at the "Great War" posts and the accepted meaning(s) of the word "great".
You might find that "greater" in fact is exactly right for what you wanted to say.

I didnt read the end of that thread.

Great does seem to be gramatically correct. But I think the meaning of the word has now changed. So we need to move with it's new meaning. So I dont think that great now fits what I was saying.

I expect new dictionaries will soon have the new meaning, if they dont have already.

That's a ridiculous statement, soontobe. What 'new meaning'?

soon, I understand exactly what you mean, and I guess other people do as well and are just being a bit pedantic! You know my feelings about Drones, and they haven't changed. War isn't a game, it has no rules as today's events have proved. To try and fight a war with one arm tied behind your back, or checking the rule book is worse than useless, and no country could expect it's armed forces to operate under those conditions. War is a vile business, but if needs be done, t'were best done quickly and efficiently.

Sorry, but I for one certainly don't know what soon means.

I am not disagreeing with the sentiments nigglynellie simply pointing out that we don't say " the bigger good" in English any more than we say the "smaller evil" (lesser evil)
"God is great!" (Or Jehovah or Allah if anyone prefers) not "God is big", The Great War or the Great North Road, for that matter, not big.
Just because a word can be used in different contexts shouldn't mean we reach for the wrong synonym.
Nothing to do with old or new definitions, just the right word for the phrase.
That is why non-native English speakers can find idiomatic English hard sometimes.

I can see what soon means. It's perfectly straightforward. To say that there are bound to be dasualities of war but we act for the greater/bigger good, is a reasonable point of view. Where's the problem.

And, quoting Iam64

" soontobe - your current posts on the possibility of the Uk joining in the bombing in Syria are a far cry from those you posted earlier this year. I remember more than one occasion when you said you knew little about it and that as it was happening a long way away it wouldn't affect you."

Umm - I think it permissible to change your views as situations develop.