What we should do about ISIS...

[Gary_Kumquat]

@Tamerlane

*John Mace was responding to a claim that drone strikes kill 10 civilians ( or more ) per militant. The above cite does not contradict his skepticism. I’m not in favor of the tactic myself as a general proposition. But hundreds of civilians dead is bad enough without exaggerating the scope of the tragedy.

Nearly 90 Percent Of People Killed In Recent Drone Strikes Were Not The Target

Documents detailing a special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan, Operation Haymaker, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. In Yemen and Somalia, where the U.S. has far more limited intelligence capabilities to confirm the people killed are the intended targets, the equivalent ratios may well be much worse