Both the means and the methodology are patently limited. As a former CIA officer admits, “You can only see so much from 20,000 feet.” A drone can distinguish shapes only more or less imprecisely. For example, in April 2011, American drones were “unable to discriminate the highly distinctive combat outline of two Marines (with full battle equipment) from the irregular enemy.” A telling joke made in the corridors of American power went, “When the CIA sees three guys doing jumping jacks, the agency thinks it’s a terrorist training camp.”

Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, loc. 219