The drone wars: Defending America's best weapon against terror

The case is easy. Not even the critics deny its success against terrorists. Able to go where American soldiers can’t, the Predator and Reaper have since 9/11 killed more than half of the 20 most wanted al Qaeda suspects, the Uzbek, Yemeni and Pakistani heads of allied groups and hundreds of militants. Most of those hits were in the last four years…

Never before in the history of air warfare have we been able to distinguish as well between combatants and civilians as we can with drones. Even if al Qaeda doesn’t issue uniforms, the remote pilots can carefully identify targets, and then use Hellfire missiles that cause far less damage than older bombs or missiles. Smarter weapons like the Predator make for a more moral campaign…

While this aggressive aerial bombing is commendable against a dangerous enemy, it also reveals the paradox of President Obama’s antiterror strategy. On the one hand, he’s willing to kill terrorists in the field, but he’s unwilling to hold these same terrorists under the rules of war at Guantanamo if we capture them in the field. We can kill them as war fighters, but if they’re captured they become common criminals.