Live by the drone, die by the drone?

Admiral Dennis C. Blair

Those of us ordering drone strikes risk falling victim to a drone strike according to Admiral Dennis C. Blair, former Director of National Intelligence.  The Admiral shared this fear on January 22 during an interview hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.

. . . what I do fear the most, though, is that a terrorist -- and let me say I don't fear too much other nation- states that gain this capability. It's very -- you know if another country has it and is using it against you and then you can use the full -- the full array of both defensive systems and of retaliation to keep it from being used against you effectively.  

I do fear that -- and if al-Qaida can develop a drone, its first thought will be to use it to kill our president, senior officials, senior military officers. And it's possible, without a great deal of intelligence, to be able to do something with a drone that you can't do with a -- with a high-speed -- with a high-powered rifle or with -- driving a car full of explosives or the other ways that terrorists now use to try to kill senior officials. 

Had we better, on this account, think twice before firing missiles from drones at terror suspects? Admiral Blair doesn't think so:

And I think that there are ways to deal with that -- but it -- and I also think that whether we use them or not -- the way in which we use them or not won't affect the zeal of terrorists groups to be able to get them and to be able to kill senior officials for all of the reasons that we are familiar with.

Admiral Blair does not believe U.S. drone strikes stoke the "zeal of terrorists groups" to get drones and kill us. Although trusting the Admiral would allow staff to sleep easier, we find the counter-arguments compelling:

1. Drone strikes may cause survivors to hold grudges against the department.  They help terrorist groups attract recruits to their cause.
2. Every time we kill a terror suspect in a drone strike, we lose an opportunity to interrogate someone who might have had knowledge of an impending drone attack.  We're always assassinating people we should be torturing.
3. We massively fund the development of drone technology, some of which is easy to copy.  
4. We have set ourselves up to lose the propaganda war.  If the terrorists killed a senior official in a drone strike, would the department get sympathy or would people be shaking their heads saying, "Live by the drone, die by the drone"?

Admiral Blair said that if the terrorists are aiming to take out senior staff with drones, "there are ways to deal with that."  As the department tweeted earlier this week, we know how to address the threat of drone terrorism:

Once our advanced drone technology gets into the hands of terrorists, we're going to have to seriously rethink civil liberties.
— U.S. Dept. of Fear (@FearDept) January 24, 2013

Dragonfly Spy Drone Tested Over Washington

US Air Force tested a spy drone over Washington DC.
The Washington Monument is visible in the background.
Copyright © 2011 United States Department of Fear.

The Secretary of Fear was invited by the US Air Force to witness a test of an advanced insect spy drone that closely resembles a dragonfly on Sunday.

The event took place on the National Mall in Washington D.C..  Most tourists and residents of the capital had taken cover on account of a hurricane alert.

SecFear told Fear Department Blog, "We like to send in the mosquito drones to observe protests and monitor troublemakers."

The Independent discussed our deployment of insect drones:

Vanessa Alarcon, a university student who was working at an anti-war rally in the American capital last month, told the Washington Post: "I heard someone say, 'Oh my God, look at those.'

"I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?'. They looked like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Bernard Crane, a lawyer who was at the same event, said he had "never seen anything like it in my life". He added: "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical or is that alive?'"

The incident has similarities with an alleged sighting at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York when one peace march participant described on the internet seeing "a jet-black dragonfly hovering about 10 feet off the ground, precisely in the middle of 7th Avenue".

Entomologists suggest that the objects are indeed dragonflies. Jerry Louton, an expert at the National Museum of Natural History, said Washington was home to large, impressively-decorated dragonflies that "can knock your socks off".

However, he admitted that the dragonfly theory did not explain claims made independently by three people at the Washington event.