Does liberal squeamishness have consequences?

The CIA were pilloried by the liberal Establishment for their role in Guantanamo and haunted by images of prisoners with tubes up their noses being force fed.  Out of this, some argue, arose a desire to come up with something more hands off, more antiseptic and the argument goes this gave rise to drones. 

There is clear evidence that anti-American jihadists exploit liberal squeamishness about killing non-combatants for military advantage.

From this empirical observation, counter terrorism hawks, who have Obama’s ear, conclude that killing non-combatants is simply the price to be paid for overcoming enemy defences.

 Another consideration, along the same lines, is that surgical accuracy can be dispensed with if the aim of drone attacks is to discourage enrolment in terrorist training camps and to force our enemies to devote more time to defending themselves than to plotting against us.

Immoral it might be, but killing non-combatants will serve these purposes just as effectively as killing combatants.