Obama’s “exceptionally precise” and “surgical” drone wars kill 28 civilians for every 1 intended target, according to a report from a British civil liberties group.
The study claims that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen killed 1,147 civilians, or “unknowns” as the study terms them, and only 41 suspected terrorists, over the last 12 years.
The strikes also did not appear to have a high rate of success. Strikes against the same 17 targets in Yemen were responsible for nearly half of all civilian causalities—and four of those 17 are still alive.
“Similarly,” the report continues, “in Pakistan, 221 people, including 103 children, have been killed in attempts to kill four men, three of whom are still alive and a fourth of whom died from natural causes.
More of the study’s claims include that the government’s targets are frequently reported killed multiple times before they are, in fact, dead. In Pakistan, 24 men were reported killed multiple times, while 874 unrelated people died in strikes on them, 142 of them children.
For just one target, the group says, the CIA killed 76 children and 29 adults in two failed strikes. He is still alive.
Data on drone strikes is infamously difficult to obtain and highly disputed. In addition to the government’s general reluctance to divulge information on their drone programs, they define “militant” as “all military-age males in a strike zone”—which automatically redefines likely civilian deaths out of the government record.
Information used for a study like this is usually gathered from independent organizations or anonymous government sources.
You can read more about the methodology for the study here.
In the past, others have placed the civilian casualty rate even higher, at 50 to 1.
(h/t The Week)
