On Dec. 14, President Obama stood in the White House press room, tears in his eyes, and spoke for many Americans who had watched the terrifying events unfolding in Newtown, CT.
A little more than a month later, on Jan. 23, a pilotless aircraft owned and operated by the United States and controlled remotely by an individual on U.S. soil launched a targeted attack on the riders of two motorcycles in Yemen. The attack missed its target. It hit the house of Abdu Mohammed al-Jarrah instead, killing several people—including al-Jarrah’s two children.
There was no press conference for the al-Jarrah children.
While America’s drone program has drawn tremendous criticism from abroad and some criticism from across the U.S. political spectrum, the response from the mainstream religious community has been tepid. With the notable exception of Catholic activists who began protesting outside the Creech Air Force Base drone “battle lab” near Las Vegas as early as April 2009, there has been very little moral outrage—not only for the drone program’s civilian casualties, but also for its circumvention of legal due process.
Drone warfare demands an ethical response. These “seemingly omniscient and omnipotent camera planes, flying high above, mete out death and judgment based on images,” says theologian Sarah Sentilles.
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