The [Crash], This Time

There go $176 million! A Navy drone, or unmanned plane, has crashed in Maryland. Fortunately, no one got hurt...except American ego and taxpayers' checkbooks. Drones have been at the center of a controversy over its use as a weapon in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, because they frequently kill innocent civilians in night raids especially. They are a symbol of the impersonal war, in which people are killed indiscriminately, at a distance, with the emotional detachment of a video game. It's killing without getting your hands dirty nor seeing the consequences of your actions up close. The ultimate abuse of superior firepower.

Maybe a few drone crashes in heavily-populated areas in the U.S. would help Americans understand how innocent victims and their families feel about the use of these unmanned aircraft.

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