[tet68]

I suppose Mark is right about this but somehow I would
prefer killing at a distance rather than watching the
light go out of someones eyes because I plunged a
bayonet into their heart, and besides blood stains
are hard to remove from herringbone twill.

[cripplecreek]

My problem is that it becomes too easy to accept collateral damage.

Obviously there is a role for drones but I think we need more restraint. For instance, I could have accepted killing Bin Laden with a drone strike even if it killed his whole family because they were at least intimately connected to him. However I have more trouble with using a drone strike that targets the car we want...and kills everyone around it stuck in traffic.

However, I don’t recall these drone strikes being so widely used when Bush was still president. Obama seems to have really ramped up the drone strikes.

[diogenes ghost]

Then perhaps you would not object when your neighbor gets Hellfired for that way overdue copy of Atlas Shrugged?

For, surely, this is what Steyn warns of.

[Joe 6-pack]

"...I would prefer killing at a distance rather than watching the light go out of someones eyes because I plunged a bayonet into their heart..."

~tet68

"It is well that war is so terrible–we would grow too fond of it!"

~Robert E. Lee

[Rembrandt]

“...I would prefer killing at a distance..”

Flash back 45 years. How would bombing alone have worked in Vietnam? Would it have eradicated all the VC and NVN? The only way to eradicate the VC/NVN was to use a four-fold approach:

- Bombing
- Feet on the ground
- Pressure from local government
- Elimination of Democrats

Unfortunately, we never succeeded with the fourth approach but the other three were succeeding.

Killing from a distance is only a “piece” of a strategy.

[chulaivn66]

“...I would prefer killing at a distance rather than watching the light go out of someones eyes because I plunged a bayonet into their heart,...” Don’t go soft on me marine.