Quote from: xkeyscore89 on December 19, 2013, 04:29:20 PM

THE LAST THING I WOULD DO IS JOIN A WEDDING CONVOY, LIKELY MOVING AT HIGH SPEEDS WITH HIGH-QUALITY VEHICLES THAT MAY HAVE BEEN RENTED FOR THIS SPECIAL OCCASION (after all, how many people drive in Yemen?) THE PRESENCE OF A CONVOY THAT FITS THESE CRITERIA IS STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO WHAT THE U.S. WOULD CONSIDER STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE FOR TRANSPORTING AN HVT (high-value target).

Or the American government can stop being cowards and throwing stones from afar. You can't go around blowing shit up without any solid intel. Oh look there's a convoy of cars, better blow it up is not a tactic; it's murder and a war-crime. What business do America even have in Yemen? They're not at war with them.

Some of the answers on this are disgusting:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/q-a-answering-readers-queries-on-drones/?_r=1

Quote

The drones themselves are fairly accurate. In other words, they hit what they are trying to hit. But a drone strike is only as good as the intelligence supporting it. If the intelligence leading to a drone strike is bad, then there is a greater chance that a drone strike will kill civilians, or kill someone who posed no threat to the United States. There have also been cases of the C.I.A. and Pentagon carrying out drone strikes on individuals after being fed intelligence by that persons rivals.

The actual procedures are classified, so it is very difficult to know exactly what takes place before a drone strike is carried out. One particularly controversial aspect of the program is the use of signature strikes when the C.I.A. carries out the strike not based on intelligence about a specific individual but on patterns of activity of people at a compound or suspected training camp. .

MARK MAZZETTI