The drone system enables not a big war, but a war small enough it can be pretended away. It also represents a new kind of war: not against an opposing national force, but against a list of individuals whose names are computed from the global surveillance programme.

Yes, if you look at drones-the-technology the protest looks a bit mistargeted. But that's just because it's a convenient label for drone-bombing-the-politics.

Compare nuclear weapons. You could say that they're just another increase in scale from the lethality of World war 2. But the politics (mutual assured destruction etc, antiproliferation etc) are different.