John Tirman is executive director and principal research scientist at the MIT Center for International Studies. He is author of The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars(Oxford).
It is an odd coincidence, the sudden bright spotlight on drones at the same time as the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war, but it raises at least one common question: what is our attitude toward the innocent victims of war? The answer trends toward utter indifference.