The piece, by Anna Mulrine, raises the three most commonly cited problems: the fear of copy-cat attacks, killing innocent civilians, and the lack of oversight over the program(s). In fact, it’s Obama’s assertion of his unilateral authority to use drones to kill American citizens, along with the general (and unproven) claim/assumption that drone use reduces terror attacks, that are among the biggest problems with their use. But the biggest problem with drones is that they are easy to use and cheap to build.

Drones are insidious because they lower the threshold for using violence and greatly reduce the risk to U.S. personnel–both of which make their use easier and far less costly in a domestic U.S. political context. And that is why the use of armed drones make waging war more likely in more places…which is exactly what we’ve witnessed over the last decade.