. . . Two relevant pieces.
First, on Tuesday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta rejected calls to scale back the campaign of drone strikes against al-Qa'ida and other terrorist targets in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Second, in today's Wall Street Journal Sadanand Dhume aruges that the case for drone strikes in Pakistan is stronger than ever.
Both Panetta's remarks and Dhume's op-ed are responses to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's claims regarding civilian casualties in U.S. drone strikes. Although Obama counter-terrorism czar John Brennan's claim that drones hadn't caused "a single collateral death" since last August is likely risible, the BIJ's numbers should be taken with a major grain of salt given that they rely entirely on sources who have an incentive to fabricate or exaggerate casualty figures.
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