The more degrees of separation there are between the order to kill and killing, the easier killing becomes.
This can cause all sorts of effects, including a fear of the sky itself, as can be see by the comments of this 13 year old who shortly after became the third member of his family to be killed by a drone in Yemen: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/drones-dream-ye...
It is also notable that the weapons used by predator drones when not just recon (as in the boingboing article) are hellfire missiles, burning innocents as well as targets.
It has been shown that "cutting the head off the snake"/killing leaders of these groups just doesn't work - ultimately since 2001 we have spent $1.6tr, killed thousands of civilians and the number of jihadists has gone from 1,000 to 100,000, with groups increasingly effective.
While an immediate threat/node is removed, the environment these attacks create leads to a multiplier effect on new nodes unless one is prepared to go for full on repression and savagery, in which case you are mirroring the enemy.
Finally the mass consumerisation of drone technology means it is only a matter of time before smaller versions are used against us, something that will cause huge levels of regulation on booming drone startups and likely wiping out of equity for many in the coming years.
But think of the opportunities for the drone counter-measures industry that hasn't been born yet.
In all seriousness, drones are tools. If you put hellfire's on them, they become quite deadly tools. However the root of the problem is not the tool, it is the people who decide to deploy the tool and the mechanisms in place that enable them to do so.
Focusing on "drone assassinations" detracts from the main storyline of "assassinations." The "drone" angle is just that, an angle.
This can cause all sorts of effects, including a fear of the sky itself, as can be see by the comments of this 13 year old who shortly after became the third member of his family to be killed by a drone in Yemen: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/drones-dream-ye...
It is also notable that the weapons used by predator drones when not just recon (as in the boingboing article) are hellfire missiles, burning innocents as well as targets.
It has been shown that "cutting the head off the snake"/killing leaders of these groups just doesn't work - ultimately since 2001 we have spent $1.6tr, killed thousands of civilians and the number of jihadists has gone from 1,000 to 100,000, with groups increasingly effective.
While an immediate threat/node is removed, the environment these attacks create leads to a multiplier effect on new nodes unless one is prepared to go for full on repression and savagery, in which case you are mirroring the enemy.
Finally the mass consumerisation of drone technology means it is only a matter of time before smaller versions are used against us, something that will cause huge levels of regulation on booming drone startups and likely wiping out of equity for many in the coming years.