Reply #201: Let's see...

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

Well, for starters, I'm focusing on the number of civilians killed in the drone attacks. The reason being that this is a thread dedicated to that issue (not for debating the merits of each and every military action our nation has engaged in...).

Secondly, the fact that coverage comes from outside this country alone does not mean it tells the entire, or even a necessarily more accurate, story. That seems to be a myth that's pretty popular on this board, that somehow the U.S. media is the only media with a bias in the world. Ridiculous.

Third, it's fair to say that in your average drone strike fifty civilians are not killed. If we're working purely off of the averages, at worst a handful are killed in each incident. Just trying to keep some perspective here, because you seem intent on portraying each and every drone strike as some mass slaughter of civilians on a scale that challenges the brutality of the Taliban's strikes on civilians (which simply isn't the case, not by a long shot). With that said, I agree with your conclusion (if not your numbers or your portrayals of drone strikes), but then again, that's why we go to pretty great lengths to keep the civilian death toll low, isn't it?

Fourth, it isn't insignificant to us, even here in the United States, for precisely the reasons you stated. We want to win this war (well, some of us) and we can't do so by massacring civilians.