The Predator War

Via e-mail from Dr. Amitai Etzioni, University Professor and Professor of International Relations at The George Washington University:

Jane Mayer made the liberal case against drones in The New Yorker (October 26, 2009). We provide a blow by blow response here (Joint Force Quarterly) and discuss the issue on Talk of the Nation, here. Everyone is entitled to human rights, but we cannot wait for terrorists to strike before we go after them. And, although little known, the US military has a carefully crafted procedure for determining which drone strikes are allowed and which would cause too much collateral damage.

The onus for avoiding collateral damage altogether is on the terrorists. They have to stop exploiting their status as civilians, stop using civilians as human shields, and homes–as headquarters, as locations to store ammunition and for snipers to ply their deadly trade. (For more, see Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy [Yale 2007] and our website.)

Dr. Etzioni’s e-mail requested comments concerning this issue.