The drone war in Pakistan
Behram said he learned from conversations with editors and other journalists that if a drone missile killed an innocent adult male civilian, such as a vegetable vender or a fruit seller, the victim’s long hair and beard would be enough to stereotype him as a militant. So he decided to focus on children.
.. But he went on to defend drones as the most discriminating aerial bombers available in modern warfare—preferable to piloted aircraft or cruise missiles. Jets and missiles cannot linger to identify and avoid noncombatants before striking, and, the President said, they are likely to cause “more civilian casualties and more local outrage.”
.. The conflict with ISIS once again pits the world’s most technologically advanced military against a stateless guerrilla group. In such a contest, civilian casualties are not only a moral issue; they constitute a front in a social-media contest over justice and credibility.
.. The proportion of civilians compared to combatants killed on the ground during American wars since Vietnam has been disputed by researchers. But even the most conservative estimates of civilian casualties place the ratio at one-to-one. In the 1999 NATO-led war in Serbia, where jets used laser-guided and other precision bombs, around five hundred Serbian civilians and three hundred Serbian soldiers were killed, according to the Independent International Commission on Kosovo.