You might want to rephrase that.

I’m assuming, since you provided no link, that this is probably the documentary. Sorry about the YouTube link. The one at BBC won’t play in the U.S.

Two points:

1) I would bet money I’ve done a hell of a lot more research on this than you have, from multiple sources across the political map.

2) The casualty figures from those sources are all over the map. Not just two conflicting answers, or four, but dozens.

My take on it:

I’m having trouble buying the really low numbers from the CIA, military, and administration, and I’m having a lot of trouble buying the really high numbers from the people we’re attacking. Both have a proven history of cooking numbers.

The real numbers are almost certainly somewhere in between, which isn’t much help, but even the high numbers are far less than any other military solution against these terrorists would provide.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has extensive details and estimates on covert strikes in Pakistan, Somali, and Yemem. This is the “go to” site for many other sources, including Wikipedia. I find these numbers to be acceptable as working numbers until something better comes along. Their range for civilian casualties is 451 at the low end to 1,047 at the high end.

“Thousands of civilians” is a bit hyperbolic.

The only real alternative to the drone attack strategy–if casualties are the primary driver–is no military solution at all, which could be discussed separately.

I can find no record of any friendly troops being killed by drones except two Americans in April of 2011.

What if the information is that the US has attacked and killed American troops, Canadian troops, British troops and Australian troops in these attacks? Is that “right”? Does that affect what is “right”.

As well as killing thousands of innocent civilians minding their own business in their own countries as the result of illegal acts of war. Does that affect what is “right”?

Not to worry. One does not have to deal with those moral quandries if they don’t leary. It is not written in the soil in which our heads are stuck. Safe and smug in their ignorance, they seem to be proud of their means of protecting their lack of information. Gives one pause.

When one learns the price of these attacks, one might question whether they are “right”. But if one refuses to acquire information one never has to question whether they are right or not. They are whatever they choose to believe. Regardless of reality, facts, results they can blithely slide through life comfortable in the knowledge that they are good people, always on the side of “right”. By their definition, of course, no matter what they have to ignore, block.

Jack Nicholson was correct when he have that impassioned speech – “You (in this case an impersonal “you”) can’t take the truth.”

It’s interesting. One can only pray there is no substance to karma and that the old saying “what goes around, comes around” is BS.

Second, they are acts of war. When some Russian dissident is hiding in an American embassy somewhere and they take him or her out with a drone missile we will take umbrage. Or if the person is hiding on American soil and the Chinese send a drone after them, we will also know an act of war has been performed.

They need to be more precise and deniable. And the US needs to realize that those attacks can and will be done on American soil, too. It will be impossible to take the moral high road in that case, but there is a class of people who will try.