X Close   Sunday November 6, 2011  Drones may win battles, but
not the war  IN September, Anwar al-Awlaki, the alleged Osama
bin Laden of the Internet, was killed by an American drone after
he stepped out of his truck in the remote interior of Yemen.
Last week, another American drone killed the brother of a top
Pakistani Taliban commander and three other aides.  It is hard
to diss drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as they are
known. For one thing, UAVs are able to carry out tasks
considered too “dull, dirty and dangerous” for humans. Packed
with technology, UAVs have a “Jetsons meet the Flintstones”
quality about them, particularly in Afghanistan, where the
Taliban reportedly ride on horses.  Most importantly, UAVs have
shortened the process of finding, identifying and destroying
potential targets. In military jargon, this “kill chain” has
been reduced to a matter of seconds – near-instantaneous death
by robot.  Writing in Wired For War, Peter Singer, a fellow at
the Washington-based Brookings Insti