the target.

The use of drones by the administration of US President Obama – he’s used more than any other US president – generates a fair amount of controversy over legalities and morality. Is it legal for a US president to order the death of another human being – and particularly, as was in the case of Mr. al-Awalki, a US citizen – on foreign soil, without congressional approval and without legal due process?

Peter Gelling, writing for the online news website Global Post, does a great job of laying out both the statistics and the ethical issues. Between 2004 and 2007, there were 13 drone strikes in total. In contrast, there have been 81 strikes so far this year in just Pakistan and Yemen alone, he reports. (Many morefairness – are becoming increasingly suspicious of the actions of a globally powerful country like the US that can turn off a life with the flick of a switch?

Most great powers have considered themselves superior to their rivals and have believed that they were advancing some greater good when they imposed their preferences on others. The British thought they were bearing the "white man's burden," while French colonialists invoked la mission civilisatrice to justify their empire. Portugal, whose imperial activities were hardly distinguished, believed it was promoting a certain missão civilizadora. Even many of the officials of the former Soviet Union genuinely believed they were leading the world toward a socialist utopia despite the many cruelties that communist rule inflicted.Of course, the United States has by far the