Predators In Pakistan

Will Saletan ponders our use of drones in Pakistan. A few reasons why this is becoming more common:

Why the increase? Media reports from the ground and military sources indicate several factors: 1) Pakistan isn't really helping, so we've taken the killing into our own hands. 2) We don't want to literally use our own hands, since our ground forces might be captured. So, where possible, we're using drones instead. 3) Drone attacks cause less friction with Pakistan than ground incursions do, since U.S. personnel are never at the scene. 4) We're sick of our troops being picked off in Afghanistan, so we're using drones to even the score. 5) We're relying more on drones to spy in Pakistan because we've failed to develop informants on the ground. 6) Or maybe we're getting better ground intelligence, which is giving us more hot targets to shoot at.