[anigbrowl]

That's true, but look how poorly we behave when we go in with troops instead, qua Iraq. The upsides (such as they are) of drone war are that it's very limited in scope and stimulates a conversation about objectives and interests, such as we are having now. As soon as you send troops in somewhere, a large swathe of the public stops even pretending to think about those issues and goes straight into 'support our troops, crush the enemy' mode, completely detached from any kind of strategic, fiscal, or ethical considerations.