I try to put myself in the shoes of the potential drone targets. I live in Los Angeles, which seems to be the official city of the police helicopter (always followed closely by the news helicopter, because the possibility of violence is entertainment). Over the years it's gotten to the point where multiple times a week they're buzzing around the neighborhood, stabbing the backyard with their searchlights. I've never quite gotten used to it. Especially if I'm out at night, I wonder, "Is there a police sniper in there, and do I look like the perp they're searching for?" This is in spite of the fact that I know police snipers don't go in the helicopters (at least I think they don't, please don't correct me if they do!).

The idea that those police helicopters, which already make me feel like a mouse stuck in an open field surrounded by owls, could be replaced by unmanned drones armed with missiles fills me with abject terror. Not only would I have to worry about myself getting falsely targeted, I'd have to worry about the next door neighbor being falsely targeted.

Now, if the police helicopters were replaced by drones, that would be scary. Imagine if they were replaced by drones operated by another country. Scary times ten. Now it isn't a question of if I'm a criminal, or if I look like a criminal, it's a question of whether or not I'm near enough to someone acting against the national interests of that country.

The abject helplessness of being in the eye of an unmanned drone, the complete and utter impotence of being unable to strike back at it... that is a special kind of terror that the drones bring. We talk about 'terrorism' a lot. Obviously all warefare inspires terror--but what makes an attack a terrorist attack? From the American perspective, 9-11 was a terrorist attack and Pearl Harbor wasn't, even though they both inspired terror. 9-11 inspired terror because there was nothing to fight back against--it was people who were quite demonstrably willing to get killed in order to achieve their objective. In fact their objective was to be killed. Once they died, there was nothing tangible to fight back against. The inexorable nature of that kind of attack inspires a particular fear, and attacks specifically designed to inspire that fear are considered terrorist attacks. Drones are similar--there is literally nothing to fight back against, and their distant, silent nature means the possibility of death is ever-present.

That said, yes. If a platoon of Marines were to attack my house, my death would be as inevitable as my death would be if a drone strike hit my house. And as an American I do live with a particular type of fear, which is that of the DEA and SWAT team escalations. At any point, a no-knock warrant could be incorrectly issued for my house and I could have paramilitary troops attack. And I could get killed because the wrong SWAT officer got startled by the wrong thing (As a follower of statistics I fully understand I'm more likely to die of a heart attack, but we're talking about semi-rational fear--if everyone were a truly rational operator we wouldn't nearly the issues we have now). And that happens frequently in the US and is the sad product of an erosion of due process brought about by a mixture of racial fear and the Drug War (well, the two are often the same thing).

But there's two ways of interpreting the escalation of SWAT raids and the concurrent escalation of incorrect shootings. One is that it's a problem of due process, and needs to be rolled back in frequency. Two is that it's a problem of precision. The second argument is where people start talking about the supposed benefits drones, because they're in theory more precise. There are certainly people trying to argue to the public that a drone strike is highly precise, clinically correct, and technologically accurate. The article is arguing against that. And I would add to the article's argument that the amount of general fear (and therefore hatred of government, and therefore terrorism) inspired by escalation will be increased by drones.

To me, the relative precision of drones vs SWAT or ground troops is beside the point and obfuscates the real reason why populations get radicalized against US policy. Simply put, there is no precision until there has been a trial by jury. Even then precision is in question, which is why there's such an argument about the death penalty. When due process is undermined, the population becomes more alienated from the government, and more individuals become radicalized, and more terrorism happens.