Consequences of US Drone Program

The US’ official line is that its drone strikes are precise and successful in their mission to attack those deemed to be a threat to the US.

Barack Obama, the US president, said: “Actually drone attacks have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. For the most part they have been very precise, precision strikes against the al-Qaeda…”

But a new report Living Under Drones released by human rights researchers at Stanford and New York universities says the US’ official narrative is simply false, and that many civilians have been killed and injured.

The report judged the most credible figures to be from 474 to 881 civilians killed by drones between June 2004 and September 2012, in Pakistan alone.

It also points out that the number of “high-level” targets killed as a percentage of total casualties stands at two per cent.

The report finds that the drone programme is “facilitating recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks”.

Source: Al Jazeera

*Regardless of your views on Al Jazeera, this article gives a good indication of how the US drone program is perceived by intellectuals in the Middle East.