"The people who defend drones, and the way they are used, say they protect American lives by not putting them in harm’s way... What they really do is embolden decision makers, because there is no threat, there is no immediate consequence. They can do this strike. They can potentially kill this person they are so desperate to eliminate because of how potentially dangerous they could be to the US. But if it just so happens that they don’t kill that person, or some other people involved in the strike get killed as well, there are no consequences for it. When it comes to high-value targets, every mission you go after one person at a time, but anybody else killed in that strike is blanketly assumed to be an associate of the targeted individual. So as long as they can reasonably identify that all of the people in the field view of the camera are military-aged males, meaning anybody who is believed to be age 16 or older, they are a legitimate target under the rules of engagement. If that strike occurs and kills all of them, they just say they got them all."
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Quoted by Chris Hedges in A "traitor" to the American death machine faces years in prison — while the killing goes on, Salon (12 July 2021)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Hale_(intelligence_analyst)
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Daniel Hale (intelligence analyst)
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