Sometimes people make a startlingly mindless argument. One recent example is "Drones for Human Rights" (New York Times, Jan. 31).
"Drones are not just for firing missiles in Pakistan," began Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Mark Hanis, who co-wrote the op-ed. "In Iraq, the State Department is using them to watch for threats to Americans. It's time we used the revolution in military affairs to serve human rights advocacy."
The syllogism Sniderman and Hanis, who describe themselves as cofounders of the Genocide Intervention Network, employ in this opening paragraph is unsettling enough. But what they advocate in the rest of their argument is even worse.