Why wouldn't I be real?

There is no evidence to support the notion that collateral damage (while unfortunate and very problematic in many areas) causes significant rise in terrorists abilities to recruit new subjects. They are able to do that "perfectly fine" anyway. Losing a child or a nephew does not make a peasant suddenly long for harsh Sharia-rule.

The argument is mostly put forth by critics who have no more than Hollywood movies as "evidence" to back it up.

I will take the word of a military intelligence analyst over that ... any day and twice on Sunday.

Unlimited manpower?

Are you aware that civilian populations in areas controlled by these groups wish for more western intervention - not less? Their girls are being raped and kept from getting an education. Their boys are killed or recruited into armies of fanatics. They are forced into a rule of Sharia for which they have no desire. They are forced into paying tribute to the groups for "protection"; while being systematically abused by them.

The civilian population does not see these groups as any kind of "salvation" and no, they are not flocking to the local terrorist recruitment center when their nephew is killed by a drone strike. They curse these religious fanatics as much as we do, the recognize that the nephew died because of the fanatics presence, and they prey the US will continue to fight, because for them the alternative (ie. permanently being under the control of religious fanatics) is so far far worse for them.

It seems to me that while you claim I am not thinking as "a religious/political/get-out-of-our-country fanatic" you are at the same time trying to apply common sense to their way of thinking. And I believe you have a thoroughly misguided understanding of their rationale for being as fanatic as they are.

See, they don't believe that America is "the Great Satan" because their leaders are killed. No, the US is "the Great Satan" because girls can go to school and get an education, girls can marry whom they please, rape is illegal, stoning is illegal, and alcohol is served in public places.

Even if nobody killed their leaders they would still see the US as "the Great Satan" and continue their holy war - now better organized and with better leaders. Not because of Drone Strikes, but because their twisted minds honestly believe we should all die for sending our girls to school and allowing them to choose their husband for themselves.

Seriously. They are so far beyond any kind of rational thinking that the only alternative to fighting them is winning once and for all!

This is an interesting philosophical dilemma discussed for thousands of years.

If you ask a true consequentialist then the answer might be n-1; where n is the number of people saved.

If you ask a parent then the answer will often be n - [own_children] .

If you ask a pacifist the answer will be 0 ... hence the scarcity of pacifists.

Your question cannot be answered without establishing further parameters for he discussion. Such as "is the preservation of society worth paying lives for".

It is not only done to protect Americans in the US. It is also done to increase the chance that the affected countries can build and grow a healthier population and economy. The best way to do that is through education - which incidentally the extremists groups oppose.

So yes, things could be way worse. If you stop fighting these groups, so they no longer has the US as their enemy, they will turn their attention back to the local population in a bid to impose Sharia upon them. They will force children out of school and establish rules and a society which will over time will significantly decrease the life quality of millions. And it will get worse and grow more terrorists, because a rule of Sharia governed by fanatics only has one outcome: An army of fanatics large enough to wipe out the "unbelievers".

There is no alternative to fighting them; except perhaps winning once and for all.

Best recruiting strategy?

Aaaaah, don't be so quick to jump to that conclusion. I think you've seen too many Hollywood movies. It may help these groups on some levels, but the civilian population who gets tyrannized by religious fanatics imposing Sharia upon them seldom see them as any kind of "salvation". If the death of an innocent civilian in a drone strike can "recruite" someone, then they were already lost.

These people are so fanatic they justify murder and rape of 6-8 year old children, while murdering and mutilating any other civilian who stands in their way.

The normal population in areas terrorized by these groups often wish for increased western intervention - not the opposite. For very very obvious reasons.

Actually that is completely wrong. They may use "the Great satan USA" as justification now, but trust me, if the US withdrew and ruined that somehow, they would just find some other way of justifying what they do.

You're talking about religious fanatics but you are trying to apply common-sense-thinking into the equation. That makes no sense at all.

Religious fanatics spawn all over the globe, with and without the help of the US. And in areas where US influence is sparse or absent they happily use other excuses for their behavior.

Stop applying any kind of common-sense to these peoples reasoning. They're so fanatic and moronic they are justifying the murder and rape of 6-8 year old girls for crying out loud; as well as slaughtering and mutilating innocent civilians along the way.

Most civilian population in areas hit by extremist morons actually wish for increased western intervention - not the opposite!

Not at all. Not if the smaller groups are less organized, struggle for funding, and have internal powerplays for leadership positions.

Fine. The streaming client is available for Linux, and is officially supported on their own Linux distro. The streaming server is "planned" for non-windows platforms but is not available yet.

Be negative about it if you must. But from a business-perspective it makes perfect sense to make things in the order they did. And you know it.

This would require working video decoding equipment for DRM protected content in an open architecture (PC) on an open operating system (Linux).

In other words: Won't happen; sadly.

They (Valve) could have included a DVD player and DLNA player though. I am quite surprised they didn't.

That has slightly more latency than actual Ethernet though ...

What are you talking about?

The streaming functionality is obviously more interesting when a windows-host is involved, so one can stream a Windows-game to a Linux box (for example running SteamOS on a NUC), but Steam itself works perfectly fine on Linux as does a number of games.

What "trick" are you talking about?

OK, so "there has been no significant correlation between successful strikes and a reduction in al-Qaeda attacks".

Am I the only one thinking things might have been much worse if no terrorist leaders had been taken out at all?

I can't believe this claim.

I bet they did this a decade ago, and this article is just a way to make people believe it hasn't actually happened yet ...

- Jesper

The major flaw in this assumption is the simple fact that swapping tickets in order to cheat the system and use cheaper tickets is not "arbitrage" nor is it "exploiting price differences for the same asset".

The tickets ("assets") are obviously not the same when you switch them, and get away with using other tickets than you really should have.

- Jesper