So, the President Can Just Kill Anybody He Pleases, Right? U.S. forces have also used the Predator actively in Afghanistan and, most recently, in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. Today, I read an account of a drone attack near the town of Miramshah in North Waziristan that is reported to have “killed at least 14 people and injured 12 others,” including “at least six women and children.”

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What leads me to remark on this matter, however, is not its technological nuts and bolts or its connection with master-puppet relations in southwest Asia, but rather the complete insouciance with which the American public greets reports of deaths by drone. I do not exaggerate if I say that the general reaction is “ho-hum.” Well, the average American says, that disposes nicely of another “bad guy.” The gratuitous murder of the bad guy’s family members, neighbors, and other innocent persons in the vicinity appears to create no blip on the average American’s moral radar screen. Perhaps Americans do not consider Yemenis, Afghanis, and Pakistanis to be real human beings whose right to life we are obliged to respect? [History News Network]

I think recent events (and, for that matter, not so recent events) make it abundantly clear that they do not.