by Nat Hentoff, Cato.org, July 29, 2010
News of our pilotless killer drones hurling more Hellfire missiles abroad has largely vanished from our press, despite President Obama’s fixation on this questionable aspect of our war on terrorism.
An impressive exception to the media inattention is investigative reporter Adam Entous of Reuters.
He reports that, contrary to the administration’s claim that only high-level terrorists researched are targeted, “the CIA has killed around 12 times more low-level fighters than mid-to-high-level al-Qaida and Taliban leaders since the drone strikes intensified in the summer of 2008.”
Another of his sources, who was involved in our robotic warfare and has since left the service, told him that the CIA’s targeting of low-level foot soldiers worries him because “it degrades the notion we’re going after serious threats to the United States.”
The increasing reliance on pilotless drones operated from afar is a slippery slope that can do serious injury to our standing in the world, not only among our allies but also by becoming a boon to terrorism recruiters.
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