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Even if we accept that premise, it seems to only give support to the notion that bombing elite goat farmers from a thousand miles away is smarter than having our poor soldiers get their asses kicked by them.
Only if bombing is effective in stymying these elite goatherds, which I don't believe it is, at least not on such a small scale. I mean, maiking jello doesn't risk our troops either, but as it has little effect on dealing with the Taliban, it's not a course of action that is suggested when our soldiers get riddled with bullets. I'm not going to say that it's impossible for a drone attack to be effective, as it could conceivably kill a key Taliban figure, but these ones certainly haven't been. Alternate solutions: We could send more troops, so they can outmuscle these men and their fierce goats. However, this doesn't seem feasible. Personally, I think the solution this leads us to is "leave them alone and continue pressuring Pakistan's military to deal with them".
Obviously, risk to our own troops doesn't make the same number of deaths more acceptable. Say we have two scenarios. Scenario 1: kill 2 bad guys, 10 civilians. Scenario 2: kill 2 bad guys, 0 civlians, 1 own soldier. Which is more acceptable?