College Voices
Drone Strikes May Create More Enemies Than They Kill
Lethal drone strikes provide a highly effective, low-risk method for eliminating key enemy combatants. According to a report of the Council on Foreign Relations, Presidential authorization of drone strikes has traced a dramatic upward trajectory.
Where Bush approved 57 strikes total during his Presidency, Obama approved an average of one lethal drone strike every 5.4 days over the course of his two terms.
The report notes that Trump is taking things to a new level. Since the start of his term, Trump has approved an average of one drone strike every 1.25 days.
In addition to being effective in eliminating intended targets, drone strikes have also resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths, or as the CIA refers to them, “bugsplat.”
How many civilian casualties, exactly? No one can be sure due to the convoluted nature of U.S. recording and reporting on the issue. For one, the U.S. counts all unidentifiable military-aged males at the scene as military combatants.
A report released from the White House, in 2016, put the number of civilian deaths caused by drone strikes outside of Iraq and Syria between 64 and 116 dead.
However, various reports from agencies including Amnesty International and Foreign Policy have criticized this
estimate as being far too low. The number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria remains unreported by the White House.
What we do know is that lethal drone strike practices by the U.S. have been highly criticized, and at times, have even been accused of violating International Humanitarian law.
The alleged violations include signature strikes, which allow for strikes against unidentified individuals based on their age and location; double-taps, which occur in a sequence of two strikes—a second strike following minutes after an initial strike—to eliminate any responders to the scene; and strikes on the funeral ceremonies of deceased military combatants.
Not only are these practices in violation of humanitarian law, these types of strikes also act as assets to the very powers they seek to bring down.
Islamic State, for instance, has frequently utilized the civilian carnage at drone strike sites to breed contempt for the United States and rally support for its own cause.
This “rally” strategy can be seen time and time again in the group’s online magazines and videos. In places like Pakistan and Somalia, where the U.S. has minimal on-the-ground presence, extremist groups are similarly able to channel grief and anger to construct anti-American narratives that fuel their mission.
While drone strikes can greatly weaken extremist groups by eliminating figureheads and disrupting operations, their unchecked use may give rise to more opposition than they eliminate.
By: Makella Brems
