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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 The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @05:06PM (4 children)
I'm outright stating that it is not worth reporting specifically any more than the number of rounds fired by soldiers is worth reporting. It's irrelevant trivia. It was only reported because "drone" is a scary word.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 20 2017, @08:56PM (1 child)
Well, soldiers firing their weapons in anger in a foreign country typically do it with the close collaboration of at least one of the local parties, or we have an international incident.
For example, when Israel or Russia go around raiding their neighbors, there are formal -if useless- protests.
US drones regularly blow up lots of people based on a US decision and execution, just because fuck-you-i-can, and we're now transitioning from "regularly" to "routinely" (aka Almost Daily).
That's totally worth reporting, analyzing, discussing, and sincerely being worry about.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 20 2017, @09:16PM
The attacks, yes. Singling out a method of attack, like TFA, is the irrelevant bit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @11:02PM (1 child)
> any more than the number of rounds fired by soldiers is worth reporting.
If we quadrupled the number of rounds used that would be worth reporting because it too would indicate a significant change in conditions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @11:20PM
No, it wouldn't. "Soldiers now fire FOUR TIMES as many bullets!" is yawn-inducing for all but the most diehard of nitpickers.
It was pretty much a yawn when the GAO stated that the US military uses a quarter million rounds of ammunition to kill a single "insurgent" [jonathanturley.org], back in 2011.