Drone Attacks

GPS, drones, spying, and nuclear war are all capabilities of the everyday items around us. These “normal” devices such as an iPhone or computer are all part of an enormous web infrastructure called the internet of things (IOT). The internet of things is a link between the online world and the physical world through connected devices which can achieve physical accomplishments such as taking a pulse. The Internet of things was said to have been discovered in 1999 during a presentation at Procter and Gamble. When Business moguls were trying to find a way to make the internet profitable, they manufactured the term internet of things. Ironically, IOT tracked its usage of term online through “Google Trends”. According to Google, since 2004 IOT was

In President Obama’s speech on drone policy, given on May 23, 2013 in Washington D.C., he asserts, “dozens of highly skilled al Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers and operatives have been taken off the battlefield... Simply put, those [drone} strikes have saved lives.” Many American’s support this view. According to a July 18, 2013 Pew Research survey, 61% of Americans supported drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia (Drake). However, this belief that drone strikes make the United States safer by decimating terrorist networks around the world is widely contested. An opposing viewpoint is that these strikes create more terrorist than they kill. There is a common misperception that drones are precise, killing only the target and entourage. According to a meta-study of drone strikes, between 8 to 17% of all people killed are civilians (Sing). People who see their loved ones injured or killed in drone

The 9/11 attacks killed 2,996 people and injured over 6,000. According to the U.S. State Department’s annual Country Report on Terrorism 2015, 28,328 people around the world were victims of terrorists in that year. By killing terrorists with targeted drone strikes, the U.S. military disrupts and slows down terrorist organizations. In the War on Terror, it is difficult to determine how successful drone strikes have been. However, if we did nothing to fight or stop the terrorists they would be able to recruit, grow, and attack without fear. Despite potential downsides, drone strikes need to continue. It is impossible to estimate how many terrorist attacks have been stopped or how many lives have been saved due to successful drone attacks, but imagine the devastation of unrestrained terrorist

The U.S government started using unarmed drones in 2000 to monitor Afghanistan when the country was at war. The drone program was expanded when the September 11 attacks happened as a way to counteract the terrorists. Drones were used a surveillance but this time most drones are armed with missiles to weaken and destroy terrorist groups power. The death toll from the expansion of the program, according to the human rights group Reprieve, found that in 2014 that US killed 1,147 people in Pakistan and Yemen in the course of targeting only 41 men. This has caused a debate on whether to continue to use drones or to destroy the programs. A large amount of

In August of 2012 an engineer from Yemen by the name of Faisal bin Ali Gaber, lost his cousin and brother-in-law to a drone strike that was sent with no warning to the town. The CIA and the US military had been using the deadly and lethal drones for well over a decade, also resulting in a death a few weeks prior to the incident in Yemen. The US government notices and has taken steps in trying to reduce their attack numbers, but the strikes were not eliminated fully, still resulting in more deaths.The drone usage should have stricter regulations to reduce the attacks by the US military, not only do they take innocent lives, they also cost a fortune and are being used as killer weapons without restrictions.

Most Americans are in favor of drone strikes. A 2013 survey suggests 69% of Republicans, 60% of Independents and 59% of Democrats support the use of drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen (ProCon). The next president of the United States will have to decide if our country will keep using drones and improve the drone program. It has been said that drone strikes are used as a “recruitment tool” for terrorist organizations such as the Taliban and the Islamic State (Pilkington and MacAskill). Even though most civilians in the Middle East hate drone strikes; the United States collaborates with local governments in the Middle East who gives us jurisdiction to carry out these strikes. For example in Pakistan where most drone strikes occur; they have decreased violence in that region. The Pakistani President even admitted to asking the US to conduct more drone strikes in his country (ProCon). If drones were not effective foreign government officials would not ask for more drone

Terrorism is extremely sensitive subject, and rightfully so. I believe the United States has attempted to help form some form of defense in order to combat the growing threat of terrorism. Although I agree something must be done, I tend to disagree with the strategy. Yet, I will admit I really do not know what I would do if I was in a leadership positions and was forced to make a decision or come up with a plan. One such problem was spoken about by the NPR, in the debate about the US Drone policy. In one manner, Drones provide a safe way for the killing of dangerous individuals without ever putting a US solider in danger. However, Critics are likely to point out these Drone Strike occasionally have civilian causalities. My point simply being

Though military personnel lives are safer with the presence of drones, many who oppose military drones claim that they have increased the death of civilians and do not create safer environments for civilians (Terrill 22). However, drones have been proved to decrease the deaths of civilians due to the technology that allows them to pinpoint their target and strike at that specific target rather than bomb an area that the target is in. For example, in Yemen where many drone strikes have occurred, “civilian death figures… are ‘in the single digits’” (Terrill 22). Drones are claimed to have less collateral damage than the collateral damage caused by manned aerial vehicles. “They strike quickly, and the missile can be diverted from its original target in an unintentional miss” (Hazelton 30). In the drone strikes in Yemen, even President Hadi admits that there are accidental civilian deaths (Terrill 22). But whether ground troops are used, whether manned aerial vehicles are used, or whether drones are used, there will always be a possibility for collateral damage and civilian deaths. However, President Hadi also admits that “Yemen’s air force cannot bomb accurately at night, but US drones do not have any problems doing so” (Terrill 22).

Jack Serle is a data journalist on The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Covert Drone War team who joined the Bureau in 2012 and was part of the team that won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2013 for their work on drones and the US covert war on terror. Serle reports that the first known CIA drone strike took place September 19, 2002 in Yemen that turned out to be only the first in a long, rapid fire line of strikes to come in Middle Eastern countries with suspected al-Qaeda activity. Since 2004 in Pakistan alone, there have been 419 drone strikes in which approximately 2,463-3,977 people have been killed and of these thousands only 725 have been positively identified (“Naming the Dead”). Additionally, Serle finds that since 2002 in Yemen there have been as many as 121 confirmed strikes which killed approximately 467-695 people, since 2007 in Somalia there have been as many as 19 strikes which killed approximately 25-108 people, and in Afghanistan there have been 32 strikes which killed approximately 332-486 people (“Drone wars”). No matter how you look at it, these numbers are an astounding markup in these short years and it’s quite a wonder that these strikes and deaths don’t get more news time. It seems that when it comes to something as shady and gray area as CIA drone strikes the phrase “if it bleeds,

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) first made their appearance in 1919 when Elmer Sperry, who also invented the gyroscope and autopilot, attacked a captured German ship with the first UAV loaded down to with explosives(("U.s. army unmanned," 2010). At the time this was a revolutionary weapon, but if we fast forward 80 years from the time of that experiment, UAVs became a common and prolific part of the modern battlefield. Although there is little debate as to the legality of their use on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, in recent years there are been much debate as to the role they should play in the larger American declared Global War on Terror or

Unlike drone attacks, using ground troops can result in less unnecessary casualties. When a bomb is dropped it kills not only the target but the people around them. Lives of innocent people can be saved if we had a more accurate point of view. Within 5 months, “nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.”(Cite #1) Sending soldiers can significantly lower the percentage of innocents killed. When “a drone strike kills more than one person, there is no guarantee that those persons deserved their fate. … So it’s a phenomenal gamble.”(Cite #1) Right now, American soldiers are safe flying drones from thousands of miles away. Sending troops risks American blood but fewer accidental deaths that leave families

Imagine living with fear on a day to day basis with the expectation of a missile having the capability of obliterating where you’re standing right now by a single man on a computer in a matter of seconds without the slightest warning. The use of drone strikes in military operations is unacceptable. Accidental aftermath and the murder of innocent lives outweigh the desire to kill a few radical terrorists which can be achieved with ground soldiers lessening the amount of innocent bystanders killed in the process. To the stop this recklessness it is necessary that all drone strikes are ceased until suitable policies are implemented. Although drone strikes play a key role in fighting the war against terrorism the fact that military is striking fear into the hearts of the natives affecting their day to day lives in a negative way in reality makes us the actual terrorists.

Drones have been used in a way that is affecting innocent civilians at home and abroad. The negative use of drones under the Obama administration and the lack of accountability is evident as Professor David Cole states: “You can't get any of the political accountability, the legal accountability, the world accountability, until there is transparency.” (US catholic 1). What this says is that there is a big lack of transparency from people very high up in the military sector. The Government has been very unclear about what happens with a drone strike and instead just tells us that drone strikes are happening. The lack of detail and lack of acknowledgement for middle east civilians is a huge problem. Without the government and military being clear with us the news of several civilian deaths from drone strikes will continue to be a major issue. The problem lies with the fact that the government also does not fully acknowledge its own drone program

Opponents argue that by removing one of the key restraints to warfare – the risk to one’s own forces – unmanned systems make undertaking armed attacks too easy and will make war more likely. Evidence is beginning to emerge that it is the persistent presence of UAVs sitting over remote villages and towns simply looking for ‘targets of opportunity’ that may be leading to civilian casualties. The CIA oversees drone strikes as part of counterterrorism operations, but US officials refuse to discuss the program publicly. According to a tally by the nonpartisan New America Foundation, since 2004 there have been more than 260 US drone strikes in Pakistan, which the foundation estimates killed between 1,600 and 2,500 people. Not everyone feels comfortable with all this. Critics say that the legal and

For some years now, United States involvement in foreign countries has been limited, but their presence has been widely known and discouraged. For those Islamic states drones strikes had been present for years but for how long?The first official drone strike was 9 months after 9/11, it was on Taliban Supreme Commander Mullah Mohammed Omar. It was initially a CIA secret weapon.The CIA had kept the project secret for as long as they could, but U.S. Air force general William Begert. For years drone strikes in Islamic states have been problems and have been addressed by both countries. Many call them a problem while I say they are not.