Article

Print Print Email Email Share Share Cite Cite
Style: MLA APA Chicago Close

loading...

Killing Isn't Cool

Author: Micah Zenko, Douglas Dillon Fellow
February 12, 2013
Foreign Policy

General Stanley McChrystal is speaking out against the Obama administration's use of drone strikes, echoing previous warnings and clashing with the White House's carefully cultivated narrative:

To the Daily Telegraph:

It's very tempting for any country to have a clean, antiseptic approach, that you can use technology, but it's not something that I think is going to be an effective strategy, unless it is part of a wider commitment.

To Reuters:

They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one.

To journalist Trudy Rubin:

[Drones are] a very limited approach that gives the illusion you are making progress because you are doing something.

And to television anchor Candy Crowley

It can lower the threshold for decision making to take action that at the receiving end, feels very different at the receiving end.

View full text of article.

More on This Topic

Op-Ed

Talking in Circles

Author: Micah Zenko
Foreign Policy

Micah Zenko explains why the speech made by Harold Koh, former state department legal adviser, earlier this week is nothing more than a...

Op-Ed

Clip the Agency's Wings

Author: Micah Zenko
Foreign Policy

Micah Zenko recommends that the Obama administration "implement the 9/11 Commission's unfulfilled recommendation and make the military...

Op-Ed

An Inconvenient Truth

Author: Micah Zenko
Foreign Policy

"The hypocrisy behind U.S. targeted killings has long been apparent to casual news readers, and it is now confirmed by internal intelligence...