by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
We are in a long war against radical Islamic terrorism. The struggle seems almost similar to the on-again\/off-again ordeals of the past \u2014 such as the French-English Hundred Years War of the 14th and 15th centuries, or the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants in the 17th century.<\/p>\n
In these kinds of drawn-out conflicts, final victory will go to the side that responds best to new challenges. And we\u2019ve seen a lot of those since 9\/11, when the United States was caught unaware and apparently ill-equipped to face the threat of radical Islamic terrorists hijacking our passenger jets.<\/p>\n
Even when we adjusted well to the 9\/11 tactics, there were new threats, such as suicide bombers and roadside improvised explosive devices that seemed to nullify American technological and material advantages.<\/p>\n
But America is once again getting the upper hand in this long war against Middle Eastern terrorists, with the use of Predator-drone targeted assassinations to which the terrorists have not yet developed an answer. In systematically deadly fashion, Predators are picking off the top echelon of al Qaeda and its affiliates from the Hindu Kush to Yemen to the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n
New models of drones seem almost unstoppable. They are uncannily accurate in delivering missiles in a way even precision aircraft-bombing cannot. Compared to the cost of a new jet or infantry division, Predators are incredibly cheap. And they do not endanger American lives \u2014 at least as long as terrorists cannot get at hidden runaways abroad or video-control consoles at home.<\/p>\n
The pilotless aircraft are nearly invisible and, without warning, can deliver instant death from thousands of feet away in the airspace above. Foreign governments often give us permission to cross borders with Predators in a way they would not with loud, manned aircraft.<\/p>\n
Moreover, drones are constantly evolving. They now stay in the air far longer and are far more accurate and far more deadly than when they first appeared in force shortly after 9\/11. Suddenly it is a lot harder for a terrorist to bomb a train station in the West than it is for a Predator to target that same would-be terrorist\u2019s home in South Waziristan.<\/p>\n
All those advantages explain why President Obama has exponentially expanded the program. After five years of use under George W. Bush, such drones had killed around 400 suspected terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Under President Obama, in less than three years, Predators have taken out more than 2,200.<\/p>\n
The program is uniquely suited to Obama\u2019s \u201cleading from behind\u201d approach to warfare: killing far out of sight, and therefore out of mind \u2014 and out of the news. So comfortable is Obama with this new way of war that at a White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner, the president joked about using Predators on would-be suitors of his daughters: \u201cBut boys, don\u2019t get any ideas. Two words for you: Predator drones. You will never see it coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Pres. Barack Obama, the Predator drone avoids former candidate Obama\u2019s past legal objections by simply blowing apart suspected terrorists without having to capture them \u2014 and then to ponder how and where they should be tried. With a dead, rather than a detained, terrorist, civil libertarians cannot demand that Obama honor his campaign pledge to treat suspects like American criminals, while conservatives cannot pounce on any perceived softness in extending Miranda rights to captured al-Qaeda killers.<\/p>\n
Anti-war protestors demonstrate in response to American soldiers getting killed, but rarely about robotic aircraft quietly obliterating distant terrorists. American fatalities can make war unpopular; a crashed drone is a \u201cwho cares?\u201d statistic.<\/p>\n
Still, there are lots of questions that arise from this latest American advantage. Waterboarding, which once sparked a liberal furor, is now a dead issue. How can anyone object to harshly interrogating a few known terrorists when routinely blowing apart more than 2,000 suspected ones \u2014 and anyone in their vicinity?<\/p>\n
Predators both depersonalize and personalize war in a fashion quite unknown in the past. In one sense, killing a terrorist is akin to playing an amoral video game thousands of miles away. But in another, we often know the name and even recognize the face of each victim, in a way unknown in the anonymous carnage of, for example, the Battles of Verdun and Hue. Does that make war more or less humane?<\/p>\n
Once the most prominent critic of the war on terror, Obama has now become its greatest adherent \u2014 and in the process is turning the tide against al Qaeda. And so far, the American people of all political stripes \u2014 for vastly different reasons \u2014 seem more relieved than worried over Obama\u2019s most unexpected incarnation as Predator-in-Chief.<\/p>\n
\u00a92011 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services We are in a long war against radical Islamic terrorism. The struggle seems almost similar to the on-again\/off-again ordeals of the past \u2014 such as the French-English Hundred Years War of the 14th and 15th centuries, or the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants in the 17th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[59,171],"tags":[1051,540,161,12,74,1017,162,1016,180],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-vk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5939,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/terrorism-as-therapy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":0},"title":"Terrorism as Therapy","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Obama administration is intent on downplaying the Islamic roots of contemporary terrorism. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online One common theme emerges from the hearings over the Benghazi disaster: The Obama administration is intent on downplaying the Islamic roots of terrorists who harbor an existential hatred of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war-on-terror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3658,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/beyond-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":1},"title":"Beyond Iraq","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The threat from radical Islamic terrorists will not vanish when President Bush leaves office, or if funds for the Iraq war are cut off in 2008. A frequent charge is that we are bringing terrorists to Iraq. That is true in the sense\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2007"","block_context":{"text":"April 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/april-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7845,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/world-at-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":2},"title":"World at War","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ Defining Ideas Will the United States in its near future be hit again in the manner of the 9\/11 attacks of thirteen years ago? The destruction of the World Trade Center, the suicide implosions of four passenger airliners, and the attack on the Pentagon unfortunately have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Defining Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Defining Ideas","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/defining-ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via www.film.ru","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/511399-500x318.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8150,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslims-and-islamists\/","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":3},"title":"Muslims and Islamists","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"How do extremists relate to the population in which they live? by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online The terrorism in Paris is yet another bad chapter in an ongoing Western debate over a seeming paradox. Almost all recent global terrorism is attributable to Islamic-inspired violence \u2014 much of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Militants in an ISIS propoganda video","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/pic_giant_012015_SM_ISIS-Militants-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8154,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/untrue-truisms-in-the-war-on-terror\/","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":4},"title":"Untrue Truisms in the War on Terror","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media In the current tensions with the Islamic World, pundits bandy about received wisdom that in fact is often ignorance. Here are a few examples. 1)\u00a0 The solution of radical Islam must come from within Islam. Perhaps it could. It would be nice to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/religion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"mia_farrow_charlie_hebdo_1-13-15-1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/mia_farrow_charlie_hebdo_1-13-15-1-406x500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3636,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-war-on-terror-over\/","url_meta":{"origin":1942,"position":5},"title":"Is the War on Terror Over?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Do we still need to fight a war on terror? 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