Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal sat down with HuffPost Live on Wednesday to discuss why drones are "here to stay."
Back in January 2013, McChrystal told Reuters what scares him about drone strikes, saying that "resentment" stemming from the attacks is "much greater than the average American appreciates."
When asked Wednesday about the Obama administration's reliance on the tool, McChrystal stressed that drones are a technology that will continue to have a presence.
"Every administration that's had access to unmanned aerial vehicles has used them," McChrystal said. "It's a new technology and it's here to stay, and it should stay."
But McChrystal also reiterated the importance of recognizing perceptions surrounding the use of these weapons. He cited the historical example of former President Bill Clinton's August 1998 decision to fire missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan.
"If you'd asked the average American the next morning whether we were at war with either of those countries we would've said 'No. We fired some tomahawk missiles,'" McChrystal said. "But if you asked people close to the impact, they might've had a different view."
Watch a clip of McChrystal's interview above.
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