Distant killing.

The word drone has the power to make me shudder. When I saw a film of drone attacks in Afghanistan some years ago I was horrified at the destruction of buildings and loss of life to those we normally consider innocent. Women and children were seen running from the horror and I wrote blogs wringing my hands in distress at what I'd seen on the television ......so what on earth has changed my mind set so radically so that now I actually greeted the news this morning that we had sent drones to Syria to kill British men plotting attacks in this country with joy!
I was pleased to think we had prevented terrors attacks in this country by killing the men involved.
That was my first reaction....now I am worried by that instinctive emotion.
Since the first attack on Iraq when we were told that we were using intelligent bombs I have had grave anxieties about killing the innocents involved but we have now had so many appalling incidents detailed before our eyes in this age of instant communication.
The sight of the beheadings filled us all with horror . The knowledge of the jihadi groups manned by young people born and brought up in this country fills us with incredulous need to retaliate somehow....but drones?
Being able to pin point an individual hundreds of miles away and then to bomb him is I am sure a triumph for technology . But I am not sure it is for humanity. Of course I want these people stopped and part of me is delighted that David Cameron took this decision...but the other part of me is asking...."What ever next? " And where is God in all this? It is very hard to try to take a Christian point of view in the face of actual evil...to turn the other cheek does not work in this context!
Two different parts of me are arguing it out...to drone and kill our enemies or to allow people who are our adversaries to kill some of us without hindrance....it's a moral dilemma that I can find no answer to!

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