Keep in mind that the JTAC is usually an enlisted soldier embedded with a ground unit. He is highly trained on ROE and positive ID, and generally has a good first hand perspective on what is happening on the ground. He is responsible for protecting the lives of the unit he is embedded with, and air assets are tasked to support him. From my experience, these are not warmongers, just guys doing their jobs, trying to protect lives.
It's worth pointing out that the 50-1 civilian to "bad guy" ratio comes from Pakistani intelligence, and no other sources have it that high. The figures are also only about Pakistan, where as far as I know we have no (or significantly fewer) JTACs. You're also talking about significantly different missions, whereas in one drones are supporting ground units and in another they are the primary unit.
I don't trust American figures about drone strikes, but I certainly don't trust Pakistani intelligence either.
No buts. Anyone who justifies any expenditure into technology-of-death over technology-of-life, is simply worshipping death. America would be far less violent if its people had to deal with its delivery on a more personal basis than the current technological means provide..
Drone pilots are dealing with the delivery on a more personal basis than much of the rest of the military, even arguably infantry soldiers.
I absolutely do not worship death, and that's a pretty inflammatory thing to say. I also think your grouping of "technology of life" vs. "technology of death" is far to simple. For one thing we are currently communicating over a medium originally designed to monitor nuclear silos.
I don't want to get into an argument and you are certainly entitled to your own opinion, but the military is a pretty old profession and has dealt with this problem before.
JTACs are basically radio/telephone operators, and often aren't physically with the unit calling in the fires because there are more platoons than there are JTACs, so the JTAC sits at the company (or sometimes up to the brigade) HQ and handles a whole bunch of platoons at once. He takes what the ground commander says (via radio in the field), and passes that to a control center via telephone, IRC (seriously), satcom, etc. The control center then routes a plane overhead and facilitates direct contact between the pilot and JTAC (not the ground commander). The real specialty of the JTAC is speaking in both Air Force-isms and Army-isms and communicating clearly with both parties. Imagine a weird game of telephone where adding another person in the chain actually makes the message come out more clearly at the end.
So to wrap up a long story, there's a whole lot of communication being passed around and it would be awfully difficult for a JTAC to just decide "I'm going to get that family over there killed because I feel like it"
Aircrews have their own ROE and approval process for engagements. They aren't simply trigger pullers for the JTAC. However, there is an implicit trust in the JTAC, and desire to protect the ground unit. If ROE is satisfied and approvals are in place, the aircrew is generally not going to second guess the guys getting shot at.
People with doubts about the process are going to tend to self select out of it. If they are sitting there with ambivalence about each release, at some point they aren't going to want to face it again.
