ABSTRACT
The main goals of US counterterrorism are threefold: the strategic defeat of al Qaeda and groups affiliated with it, the containment of local conflicts so that they do not breed new enemies, and the preservation of the security of the American people. Al Qaeda uses the strikes that result in civilian deaths, and even those that do not, to frame Americans as immoral bullies who care less about ordinary people than al Qaeda does. And As Sahab regularly casts the leaders who are killed by drones as martyrs. In reality, there is no equivalence between al Qaeda's violence and US drone strikes—under the Obama administration, drones have avoided civilians about 86 percent of the time, whereas al Qaeda purposefully targets them. Drones are undermining US strategic goals as much as they are advancing them. For starters, devoting a large percentage of US military and intelligence resources to the drone campaign carries an opportunity cost.
