Is The Debate On Using Targeted Drone Strikes About To Return?

Tanzina Vega, CNN: Will the drone debate come back?

(CNN)The death of two innocent hostages — including one American — in a U.S. drone strike targeting al Qaeda is renewing the debate over the use of the controversial technology.

Drones are a central element of President Barack Obama's counterterror strategy as the administration bets that sending the unmanned devices into places like Pakistan and Afghanistan poses fewer political and military risks than mobilizing ground troops. But the strategy has provoked a backlash from critics who say drones too often result in civilian casualties and are shrouded in secrecy.

Obama's announcement on Thursday that a U.S. counterterrorism operation targeting an al Qaeda compound in January accidentally killed the hostages -- American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto -- gave new perspective to the debate. Activist groups quickly called for increased transparency by the administration in how it carries out counterterrorism drone strikes.

Update #1: Obama's Orwellian Language on Drones -- Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg
Update #2: Drone strike kills two hostages. Time to rethink remote warfare? -- Peter Grier, CSM
Update #3: Hostages’ deaths raise wider questions about drone strikes’ civilian toll -- Greg Miller, Washington Post

WNU Editor: What has come out from today's revelation that U.S. drone strikes killed two Al Qaeda hostages is that as much as the U.S. likes to talk about precision-targeted killings .... the fact is that U.S. drone strikes do cause heavy casualties .... and most of the time the ones who are being killed (see below graph) are the innocent. But there will be no debate .... the Republicans are in favor of the drone program, and the Democrats are not going to turn against President Obama.