Drone Warfare: A Rhetorical Analysis

Drone Warfare, enacted by George Bush and expanded on by President Obama to provide a haven for Americans against the terrorist group, al-Qaeda. The use of weaponized unmanned surveillance drones allowed for far better independent targeting decisions, rather than retrieving intelligence from sources within the real country where the warfare would take place. These strategic implications created a question among Americans, is the use of drones to target individuals right? This question has arisen due to a high number of civilian casualties, making it seem inhumane to do. However, Kenneth Anderson provides readers a strong argument as to why drone warfare is strategically effective in his article, “The Case for Drones” with his organization pattern,
The goal in this article is to convince readers that drone warfare is strategically effective by giving information and examples as to what exactly drones can do, such as being able to eliminate a group of terrorists on a truck with weapons heading to a country border to perform an attack. Anderson also gives information that supports the opposing side and then counters it while presenting his opinion. He presents these opposing ideas as they are understandable to stand behind and defend, but he believes there is a different and better way to look at them. This is shown by an example being given on how drones are inefficient because when they kill a leader, a new one will rise which will continue to happen repeatedly. This point is countered by Anderson stating that it is essential to kill off ranked terrorist leaders so it will allow for the inability to perform another large scale attack like that of 9/11. The use of giving both information that supports his and the opposing side strengthens his argument by
One of the main points of opposition to the use of drones is that they cause far too many civilian casualties. Anderson looks into this idea and proves that this point is widely over exaggerated by stating that the media provides false information over the number of civilian casualties and in the worst case, there are on average only one eighth to two and a half civilian deaths for every drone strike launched. By Anderson using numbers and data to back up his ideas, it makes it hard to argue against that specific side as you would be arguing against straight up facts. The final way in which Anderson presents an effective argument is by asking questions that the readers may have of his argument, then proceeding to answer them in detail. What this does is give Anderson the opportunity to go over any major ideas that someone may have on the opposing side and to get any last points or specific information out. A strong example of this strategy is used on page 21 when Anderson asks, “Why should the United States be able to conduct these drone strikes in Pakistan or in Yemen, countries that are not at war with America?”. This question is a major concern with drone warfare, and Anderson asks it so that he can answer it in a way that can convince readers to his view. Throughout his article, Anderson uses many ways to make a valuable argument.
Many factors came into play