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Moral: Now that we know we have them, how can we use them responsibly?
Drone attacks raise two important moral questions: how much collateral damage is too much? And, do drones alienate us from the truth that we are killing people?
In response to the recent Times articles about Obama's "Kill List" and cyber-attacks against Iran, the New Yorker’s Amy Davidson wrote,
Responsibility involves accountability, which is something, in this case, that appears to be badly lacking. Obama has not taken on a burden, but instead has given the Presidency a novel power.
Nobody wants to kill civilians, but what about non-militants that are just associated with Al Qaeda operatives? Is it okay to kill them accidentally? In the new context of drone warfare, the answer is apparently yes. According to Jo Becker and Scott Shane of the Times, Obama’s administration has adopted a new way to count civilian casualties: don’t call them civilians. Unless intelligence later proves the dead to be innocent (whatever that means nowadays) all military-age males in strike zones are considered combatants.
That said, here’s a question for you: how many Pakistani children does it take to get to the 'make-you-uncomfortable-center' of the moral-tootsie pop? If Osama bin Laden were standing by one child, many people would say, "Go ahead, sure." If here were standing in a group of children, they'd be like, "Whoa, wait a minute. Let's think about this." And if he were in a school, they would say, "Yeah, I don't really care that he's Osama bin Laden, we shouldn’t rain down Hell Fire missiles on a school of children."
Yet, as former C.I.A lawyer, Vicki Divoll told Jane Mayer in a 2009 New Yorker article, "People are a lot more comfortable with a Predator strike that kills many people than with a throat-slitting that kills one." Why is that? Part of the reason is the whole combatant-civilian distinction that distorts the collateral damage numbers. Another reason is that drone attacks are mostly covert operations, meaning that location, targets, leadership and accurate numbers are almost never released to the public, unless there is a leak.
Next: Why drone strikes will continue.
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