When people decided it's the government's responsibility to fix the economy, but not to defend the country.

Was watching Harold and Kumar Christmas and it occured to me. We don't talk about Guantanamo Bay, the Afghan War (or its casualties) or drone assassinations.

Why is that? Really, truly without snark when did we collectively decide not to care about these things anymore?

Aizle: Drone strikes have a ratio of 49 innocent to 1 tied to terrorism. We also have a policy of firing, waiting for rescue people to give aid and then firing again to increase body count.

How you could "not have a lot of heartburn" over this barbaric and murderous practice is beyond the pale.

The United States government has made hundreds of attacks on targets in northwest Pakistan since 2004 using drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division.[4] These attacks are part of the United States' War on Terrorism campaign, seeking to defeat Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan.[4] Most of these attacks are on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border in Northwest Pakistan. These strikes have increased substantially under the Presidency of Barack Obama.[5] Some media refer to the series of attacks as a "drone war".[6][7]

Pakistan's government publicly condemns these attacks, but has secretly shared intelligence with the United States[8] and also allegedly allowed the drones to operate from Shamsi Airfield in Pakistan until 21 April 2011, when 150 Americans left the base.[9] According to secret diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks, Pakistan's Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani not only tacitly agreed to the drone flights, but in 2008 requested Americans to increase them.[10] However, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik said, "drone missiles cause collateral damage. A few militants are killed, but the majority of victims are innocent citizens."[11] The strikes are often linked to anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and the growing questionability of the scope and extent of CIA activities in Pakistan.

Reports of the number of militants versus civilian casualties differ.[12] According to the Pakistani authorities, 60 cross-border predator strikes in the period from January 2006 to April 2009 killed 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders and 687 Pakistani civilians.[13] [14] In a 2009 opinion article, Daniel L. Byman of the Brookings Institution wrote that drone strikes may have killed "10 or so civilians" for every "mid- and high-ranking [al Qaeda and Taliban] leader."[15] In contrast, the New America Foundation has estimated that 80 percent of those killed in the attacks were militants.[16] The Pakistani military has stated that most of those killed were hardcore Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.[17] The CIA believes that the strikes conducted since May 2010 have killed over 600 militants and have not caused any civilian fatalities, a claim that some experts disputed.[12] The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that between 391 – 780 civilians were killed out of a total of between 1,658 and 2,597 and that 160 children are reported among the deaths. The Bureau also revealed that since President Obama took office at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims and more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners, tactics that have been condemned by legal experts.[18][19][20] Barbara Elias-Sanborn has also cautioned that, "as much of the literature on drones suggests, such killings usually harden militants' determination to fight, stalling any potential negotiations and settlement."[21] However, analysis by the RAND Corporation suggests that "drone strikes are associated with decreases in both the frequency and the lethality of militant attacks overall and in IED and suicide attacks specifically."[22]

Drone strikes were halted in November 2011 after NATO forces killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in the Salala incident.[23] Shamsi Airfield was evacuated of Americans and taken over by the Pakistanis December 2011.[24] The incident prompted an approximately two-month stop to the drone strikes, which resumed on 10 January 2012.

(It's a little suspicious that they can only narrow down overall civilian and militant deaths to within a few hundred, but somehow know that exactly 160 children have been killed.)

"TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562 - 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 - 881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228 - 1,362 individuals," according to the Stanford/NYU study.

Could it be they have an exact death toll, but cannot tell civilian from militant (whereas separating child from adult is easy?)

Well here is my position.

1. Until such time as the makeup of the congress changes drastically, Guantanamo Bay is at a stalemate so there really isn't much to talk about.
2. We are going through the slow process of pulling out of the Afghan War so from my perspective it's moving in the right direction.
3. Frankly I don't really have a lot of heartburn over the drone assassinations. Going after the enemy in those situations in any other way would lead to more deaths (on both sides) not fewer.