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Drone Strikes Essay

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The usage of drones in combat has increased greatly in recent years. While proponents say that drones destroy terrorist cells abroad with minimal civilian deaths, the data suggests otherwise. Drone strikes kill large amounts of civilians, violate international laws, and disregard the sovereignty of other nations including Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria. Drone strikes started during the War on Terror; the first ever military drone strike was conducted by U.S in 2002 in Yemen, to kill a targeted individual suspected of being Usama Bin Laden, in part due to “his height.” This man turned out to be an innocent civilian collecting scrap metal. Most of the time, government is not even sure of causalities, so the numbers provided…show more content…
When one’s entire family is killed by drone strikes, it may leave the victim feeling as if they have no other choice, but to join anti US groups or become suicide bombers and wreak havoc on those they feel have wronged them. In the last 14 years, suicide bombings and terrorist attacks have increased dramatically in the countries where the so called War on Terror and drone strikes have been held. This has led to chaos, a complete destabilization in the regions and a terrorization of the civilians. After drone strikes resumed in 2009 after a seven year hiatus, core membership in Al Qaeda grew from 300 members to 700 core members in the Arabian Peninsula in 2012. This explosion in membership has created an exponential increase in the amount of terrorist attacks in that region. Furthermore, the militants killed by drone strikes are very rarely significant threats to the United States or her allies. Studies done by Reuters found that only 14 out of the 500 militants killed in drone strikes between 2008 and 2010 held top tier leadership roles in groups such as Al Qaeda or anti-US Taliban. In that same time period the CIA killed 12 times more low level fighters than significant leaders or threats. Only 2% of all drone fatalities ended up being militant
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