@fredchuckdave: As a UAV operator for the Army, I respect your opinion but I have to disagree and I see all war as de-humanizing. I imagine when people initially switched to gun powder or air raids that war was not personal anymore to that generation. To them, war should be a man thrusting a spear into someone's eye. Not squeezing a trigger from 200 yards away or pressing a button from 5,000ft in the sky.
Most UAVs are used for reconnaissance and save many lives. They do this by doing route recon missions for IEDs, watching over FOBs, over-watching patrols/raids or watching areas of interest.
More people die from conventional bombing and air strikes than drone strikes. When a CTC with ground forces calls in an airstrike - dozens of the additional people get killed or injuried, sometimes hundreds. Drone strikes are far more precise with less collateral damage of property and human life. I saw one mission involving a terrorist leader/bomb-maker who killed a lot of people and soldiers with IEDs. He was traveling in a pick-up truck with 3 other terrorist and he was in the drivers sit. He was elusive and hard to track and the team was order to take him out. They dropped a bomb on the moving vehicle and only the driver (terrorist leader) was killed. Ground forces moved in and grabbed the other 3. No conventional bombing can be this precise. (Full disclosure, this is a declassified mission and not in violation of OPSEC.)
These results are fairly common in UAV air strikes but I agree, just because they are safer doesn't mean we should violate other country airspace whenever we want. Even though the military doesn't do that anyway, look at the 3 letter agencies for that.
Sorry for any typos or grammer issues, typing this on my phone.
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