http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/21/us-airstrike-taliban-leader-mullah-akhtar-mansoor

There is an unexpected benefit to this new kind of warfare that its critics seem to gloss over (over and above the low risk it represents to our forces). In most military activities carried on at a distance, such as artillery or air strikes, more civilians than combatants are killed, and most combatant casualties are lower level grunts. Collateral damage and fratricide is all too common, even when the most conscientious efforts are applied in targeting and engaging the enemy. In drone strikes, in spite of the highly publicized exceptions, the percentage of top level commanders who are taken out is quite high. The technology may be extremely expensive in terms of casualties per dollar, but from a purely human accounting perspective, this type of warfare is relatively efficient and humane.

Has anyone kept a running tab on how many ISIS, Taliban and Al-Quaeda leaders have been taken out by drones or highly targeted and precise air strikes? Sure, there have been the usual SNAFUs but has anyone speculated on how many more innocent civilians and low level fighters would have needlessly perished if we had relied on more conventional methods in order to achieve the same effects on enemy leadership?

Besides, if the criticism of this type of warfare is that it is cold and impersonal, and that it removes us from the messy business of actually confronting a man face-to-face and killing him, can not that same comment be made about an artillery shell, or a conventional air strike, or even a rifleman firing at another teenager several hundred yards away.

Once a soldier, or a nation, makes the decision to take the lives of strangers, quibbling about the method seems ridiculous; especially from those who are not there faced with the choice, or the risks. I do recall that one of the things I really liked about my own Naval service was that I understood that if it ever hit the fan, everyone aboard my ship, from the lowliest boot seaman to the Captain or even the Commodore, had the exact same chance of buying the farm as I did.