Eugene Robinson: Our Robotic Assassins

The skies over at least six countries are patrolled by robotic aircraft, operated by the US military or the CIA, that fire missiles to carry out targeted assassinations. I am convinced that this method of waging war is cost-effective, but not moral. There has been virtually no public debate about the expanding role of unmanned drone aircraft as killing machines, at least not domestically. In the places where drone attacks are taking place, there has been understandingly a great uproar, but even in the rest of the world, questions are being raised about the legal and ethical basis for these "antiseptic" missile strikes. According to the Washington Post, a US military drone fired missiles in Somalia last week in an attempt to kill two leaders of the Islamist group al-Shahab, which is apparently tied to al-Qaida. The men were apparently wounded in the attack, the newspaper reported, according to an unnamed senior military official. Somalia thus joins Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya as nations where remote-controlled drones are conducting lethal attacks. The strike was deemed justified by US officials, according to the Post, because al-Shabab had become "somewhat emboldened of late" and was "planning operations outside of Somalia" against the United States or its allies. The Obama administration has greatly increased the use of missile-firing drones, and it is easy to understand why. The unmanned aircraft can be flown above hostile territory, and used to locate, track and obliterate targets without putting US lives at risk. Since the drones are controlled electronically by human operators, they can be directed in ways that respond to changing conditions on the ground: If a fleeing target SUV turns right, the drone can turn right as well!