At a significant distance

During my morning commute i often hear recruiting ads for the armed services with someone talking about how he guides drones from somewhere outside Las Vegas. It's pretty amazing to think of directing a flying object 7,000 miles away. It could certainly inspire some youngster to sign up.

Then I read something like this.

' Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides [killing] 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent.'

h/t to Juan Cole

That realitiy is somewhat more dispiriting.

"Oopsie" does not quite cover it.
--the BB