When he was in office, former President Barack Obama earned the ire of anti-war activists for his expansion of Bush's drone wars. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning head of state ordered ten times more drone strikes than the previous president, and estimates late in Obama's presidency showed 49 out of 50 victims were civilians. In 2015, it was reported that up to 90% of drone casualties were not the intended targets.
Current President Donald Trump campaigned on a less interventionist foreign policy, claiming to be opposed to nation-building and misguided invasions. But less than two months into his presidency, Trump has expanded the drone strikes that plagued Obama's "peaceful" presidency.
"During President Obama's two terms in office, he approved 542 such targeted strikes in 2,920 days—one every 5.4 days. From his inauguration through today, President Trump had approved at least 36 drone strikes or raids in 45 days—one every 1.25 days."
That's an increase of 432 [sic] percent.
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Monday March 20 2017, @03:59PM (1 child)
We let Obama get away with playing with drones. Now, Trump can take that to the next level.
This is what someone called "Turn-Key Tyranny"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:25AM
Just sayin, it didn't start on Obama's watch, but any power given to the military, or president, or congress, or any other government body *WILL* be abused, it is only a matter of time unless examples are made when the public feels these groups are getting out of hand.
Sadly the public no longer has sufficient outrage to curb these abuses, so they will only grow larger until either the internal or external collapse of the US.