Warfare has changed much in the decades following the carnage of the Second World War, and the brutal wholesale destruction of the A-bomb has been replaced by the lethal practicality of the unmanned drone. On one hand the effectiveness of drone strikes is clear. According to a New York Times article published in May of 2009 entitled "Death From Above, Outrage Down Below":
"The appeal of drone attacks for policy makers is clear. For one thing, their effects are
measurable. Military commanders and intelligence officials point out that drone attacks have
disrupted terrorist networks in Pakistan, killing key leaders and hampering operations.
Drone attacks create a sense of insecurity among militants and constrain their interactions
with suspected informers. And, because they kill remotely, drone strikes avoid American
casualties." - David Kilcullen & Andrew Mcdonald Exum
But as the article continues to clarify, drone-strikes do more damage to the countries they are supposed to be freeing from tyranny than they do good; all at the expense of American prestige in the region. Drones simply kill too many civilians. whenever drones are used to destroy military targets abroad, it only increases the popularity of the militant extremists they are meant to target. People are more fearful of a faceless enemy that kills wantonly from hundreds of miles away than they are afraid of the extremists occupying their own communities.
Drone strikes kill vastly more civilians than they do actual terror suspects and terrorist leaders. According to human rights group Reprieve, that number comes out to 41 men targeted and 1,147 killed. That is a success rate of 3.5%, hardly accurate although accuracy is the very label these strikes have been sold under to the American public since even before the Bush administration. And these results are not partisan. Unmanned drone strikes have continued to overwhelmingly kill civilians under Obama's administration as the US continues its misguided military presence in the Levant.
What really should make the average citizen angry about these strikes is that the US government is never made to answer for these crimes the same way that despots and dictators in the Middle East and elsewhere are. If Assad is the one firing the missiles then he is a criminal, if it is the Pentagon ordering the strikes then it can just be chalked up to tactical error. But these are not error percentages on a computer screen, (or even more colloquially disdainful, 'bugsplats') these are innocent human lives being forfeited for the sake of preserving an American idea of peace in the communities in which they are trying to make a living.
The United States will likely never have to answer for the lives of civilians taken in places like Pakistan or Iraq. When a Western power is at war, it seems only the country on the receiving end can be to blame. Even in the case of civilians. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't condemn these actions for what they are: acts of terror. An act of terror should not be labelled differently depending on who is the initiator and who is the recipient.
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