Seductive Drones: Learning from a Decade of Lethal Operations

Late on 1 May 2011, in Washington, DC, President Barack Obama announced that United States Special Forces had killed Osama bin Laden in his home in the quiet Pakistani town of Abbottabad. As details emerged, human rights experts began to question the legality of the killing, specifically whether Bin Laden could have been captured, rather than killed. Just a few days later, the New York Times reported that the US had carried out drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, killing as many as 15 persons in Pakistan and two in Yemen. Plainly, no person killed in the drone strikes in the days following events in Abbottabad was as dangerous as bin Laden. Yet, few questioned those killings, in contrast to bin Laden's. Could the targeted persons have been captured rather than killed? A decade after the United States first began using drones for lethal operations complacency about their use may be taking hold. Many Americans, as well as citizens of other countries, may now accept that killing with drones far from armed conflict hostilities is both a legally and morally acceptable practice.