The female Reaper drone (sensors and weapons) operator gives an excellent description - 1 minute 15 seconds in - http://youtu.be/dWEohpF-bOI on how the Reaper drone assists a patrol:

- in warning the patrol when to take cover and

- removing a threat

The CIA, DIA and Joint Special Forces etc are frequently involved in organising and providing briefings for drone missions, receiving real time feeds, telling drone pilots and operators to move "around that hill" or telling the operator to shift an optical sensor in another direction.

When receiving real time video feeds CIA officers may be involved in identifying "a high value target" and, if positive, then telling the weapons' operator to fire.

Its an intelligence and USAF community effort as http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/24/drone-warfare-life-on-the-new-frontline suggests.

The whole arc of the development of military technology across millennia has been geared toward greater and greater standoff capability, it's simple logic, the further you are away from your enemy the more chance you have of surviving. Drones aren't like land mines or nerve gas, their optics are powerful enough that the operators can see what a person on the ground is holding in their hands and the Hellfire missile has a lethal blast radius of 15 metres, that's precision targeting.
As another poster pointed out the Left see drones as an unfair weapon which cowardly White men use to kill brown men, never mind that in a ground war using hand held weapons White men still kill brown men at a rate of about 20-1.

Drones impersonalise war even more and they are a good weapon for Govts to use on their own people when they complain too much about being poor.

There is no real argument anywhere against using drones. If you want to argue about war and killing, but the method doesn't really matter.

If we modified the reapers to allow the (albeit small) pilot to be in the aircraft, would this change anything morally?

Drones also allow a high level of oversight on air operations, on sensitive missions the commanders and lawyers can be right beside the operator if need be, seeing exactly what they see.
I think some people see Western military forces as no better than the people they are fighting but there are rules of engagement by which they have to abide, they can only shoot back if being shot at unless given permission from higher up, and the higher ups do have military lawyers and civilian specialists advising them.

Hi Stezza

Adding a little pilot to a Reaper might make it an Apache Helicopter or an A-10 Warthog. But I don't think it a goer?
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Hi Jay of Melbourne

The sheer conscious intentionality of drones plays on the minds of the human rights crowd.

The President can sign an "Executive Order - Finding" on (say) al Qaeda commanders to be killed. A general and his legal officer can then OK the killing in real time while the Reaper is over the target.

This is all too considered and intentional for the human rights people who presumably would prefer mass casualties caused by the "fog of war".