I have to admit that I'm very conflicted about the use of drones. As the person who has been responsible for making sure that we note every single one of our military casualties, I see the definite advantage of unmanned drones for surgical strikes being a modern way to engage in warfare and keep the casualty count low. I can't see the Military-Industrial Complex loosening their hold on this country, so as long as we're going to keep fighting, at least we can keep wives from being widows, children from losing parents, and parents from burying their children.

But...

When I see reports of drones hitting wedding parties, mosques and other civilian collateral damage, I have to question whether being so detached from these attacks allows us to lose our humanity over the loss of lives.

So with the caveat of my conflicted feelings on the use of drones, the framing of this particular article in The Daily Beast really struck me as very odd.

[State Dept. legal adviser Harold] Koh, perhaps the most forceful advocate of human rights law in the Obama administration, was preparing a speech in defense of targeted killing, and wanted to do his homework; he wasn’t going to put his reputation in jeopardy without knowing the drone strike program and its protocols inside and out. He spent hours at Langley grilling agency lawyers and operators. The operators were naturally suspicious of Koh—a wariness only fueled by Koh’s blunt demeanor. “I hear you guys have a PlayStation mentality,” he said. contain how much we consider the civilian casualties, there's fairly good arguments that this kind of self-delusion is significantly hurting our long-term interests.