"The drone program has resulted in mistakes, and the deaths of a high number of civilian bystanders, both of which are fueling anti-U.S. sentiment in the countries in which the U.S. is conducting targeted killing operations. Robert Grenier, the head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center during the Bush administration, said recently that “we have been seduced” by drones, and that drone killings “are creating more enemies than we are removing from the battlefield.” Whatever short-term gain there might be from targeted killing is outweighed by long-term damage to our national security. As Ibrahim Mothana, a Yemeni pro-democracy activist recently wrote, “Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair."
Nathan Wessler - Staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. (via mehreenkasana)