Protecting Daisy

Yesterday's poll shows that 83% of Americans support the targeted drone strikes on members of al Qaida. What will happen to a political party that opposes drone strikes? What will happen to a political party that opposes targeted drone strikes against Americans who have joined al Qaida? (Surely no-one thinks that drone strikes should be untargeted.)

I understand pacifists. They oppose drone strikes, tank battles, nukes, ICBMs, etc. They have a consistent, positive position, and I have always been willing to put my own life on the line to protect their right to be pacifists. That's why I joined the army many years ago. I respect pacifism.

Not everyone currently opposed to targeted drone strikes is a pacifist. Some seem to occupy a kind of ahistorical no-man's-land in which the American government has not routinely killed, say,  Americans who joined enemy forces we opposed in war. 

I've asked myself why 83% of Americans take the position they do. My position is that we should get out of the Middle East and stay out of Africa and let them evolve at their own pace (or devolve). Let China deal with them. In the meantime we are in a new kind of war with al Qaida, and the new war and new technology have outrun the international laws of war, which no nation obeyed in the first place. 

My conclusion is that 83% of us support having al Qaida targeted and crippled for selfish reasons.  We want our children to live. Al Qaida has made it clear that it hopes to kill my six-year-old granddaughter and her peers. Al Qaida wants to kill Daisy. The duty of our government is to protect Daisy and her peers. Failure to do so will erase a political party from the scene. The Democrats and Republicans understand the bottom line. How best to protect Daisy is open to discussion. New rules are open to discussion. But let's keep it realistic.