Whether you hail the drone strikes or deplore them, this sort of buck-stops-here approach does credit to the President, and is a comfort to all who work the mission:
Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.
“He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.”
Not to mention the awesome precision skill-set which has characterized the GWOT under this Administration:
The victims here are pretty much saints:
In 2010, ten foreign medical workers, including six Americans, were killed in Badakhshan while returning from an excursion to treat eye ailments in remote villages in an attack blamed on insurgents.
But even saints need intel back-up:
The mission reportedly involved U.S. and British special forces who had planned and rehearsed the operation, suggesting they had some intelligence about the location.
Exactly like the UBL snatch.
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