Conflicted argument...

A little thought...

Earlier today on NPR, I heard a counter-terrorism expert talking about the escalating war on terrorism in Middle Eastern countries. He was making a vary accurate point that while the nation itself is clearly in accord with us using weaponry, particularly drone fired weapons, they still publicly condemn the attacks. In part, it was thought that this open condemnation had more to do with civilian casualties of these drones. He stated that there is no way that the government could publicly support the use of such technology when innocents are caught in the crossfire.

Well, that's not right. If a drone fires on a crowd of people to kills terrorists and there are innocent victims, where's the cross-fire? Cross-fire denotes that party A is firing upon party B; whilst party B fires on party A. If a stray bullet fired from a random gun aimed at a target (by surprise), kills the target and kills an un-targeted child, it is not cross-fire. It seems more like reckless manslaughter. It was always the nature of these drones that they are unmanned and clandestine.

While cross-fire is generally applicable (especially in historical warfare), it seems like it misses the point of the true nature of the accident. I make no grandiose statements of "this is why we should/shouldn't...". But it stresses caution to give more attention to semantic differences in what you hear. Sometimes reporting can be very misleading.