What’s it like to live in fear of drones? Poll: Are they acceptable overseas?

The first time I found myself underneath a drone was late November 2007, in the mountains south of Tora Bora on the Afghan-Pakistani border. It was 10 p.m. and I was sitting in a car on a dirt track with a small group of Afghans, waiting for word from a tribal chief — in whose hands I had put my life — that the Taliban, higher up in the mountains on his land, would meet with an American journalist.

Two guards squatted by the car, like birds of prey, their thin wool shawls over them, hiding their rifles. I heard a sound in the sky like a lawnmower engine, a steady buzzing above us to our right. It was a Predator, armed surely with missiles. The modern, high-tech world was intruding up here in the mountains.

“It’s been here a few days,” whispered Sami, my interpreter. “Everyone knows it’s here.”

I was afraid of the Taliban and now, of the Predator. I imagined young Americans sitting in a far-away office, staring at a small screen, getting ready to press a button and kill us all before going to lunch. – CBS interviews reporter, Jere Van Dyk

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