Carrie Johnson in npr.org sums up a report by the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank that includes a number of former Pentagon and C.I.A. officials. It contends that the U.S. policy of using armed drones to carry out attacks on suspected terrorists "rests on questionable assumptions and risks increasing instability and escalating costs."
From a spiritually literate perspective, it is imperative that we see the validity and ethical guidelines implied by the Stimson report. Many in the military say that drone strikes are here to stay, yet these targeted killing operations have resulted in the deaths of many innocent civilians. This is very troubling to the soul since it means we are living and will continue to live in a perpetual state of war.
In her book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, Medea Benjamin makes a good case against these weapons:
"Drones don't revolutionize warfare; they are, rather, a progressive evolution in making murder clean and easy. That's why the increased reliance on drones for killing and spying is not to be praised, but refuted. And challenged."