No Body Bags Here

Trey Smith

As the US and its allies ponder what to do about Syria, one suggestion advanced by the protagonists of armed intervention is to use unmanned drones to attack Syrian government targets. The proposal is a measure of the extraordinary success of the White House, CIA and Defense Department in selling the drone as a wonder weapon despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The attraction of the drone for President Obama and his administration five months before the presidential election is self-evident. The revelation that he personally selected targets from the top ranks of al-Qa’ida for assassination by remote control shows the President as tough and unrelenting in destroying America’s enemies. The program is popular at home because the cost appears not to be large and, most importantly, there are no American casualties. The media uncritically buys into claims of the weapon’s effectiveness, conveniently diverting voters’ attention from the US army’s failure to defeat puny opponents in two vastly expensive campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. (emphasis added)
~ from The Myth of the Drone War “Successes” by Patrick Cockburn ~

I think that the three words I put in bold above -- no American casualties -- goes a long way toward explaining why the majority of Americans ACCEPT our nation's drone program. We don't need to worry about body bags of American troops returning to our shores (though they do keep coming from other war venues). So long as OUR men and women remain out of harm's way, we're satisfied with ANY means of warfare.

Yes, we may end up killing scores of civilians -- noncombatants -- but that's okay so long as our troops aren't the ones being killed and maimed. We may be destroying families, but that's okay so long as they aren't our families. We may be destroying businesses and farms, but that's okay so long as they aren't our businesses and farms.

No wonder much of the rest of the world dislikes or even hates us. They can easily see with their own eyes that all the majority of Americans care about is Americans. No one else matters!