Drone Strikes In Afghanistan

The war between Afghanistan and the United States has been one that has lasted longer than any war; the civil war combined with both World War I and World War II do not match the duration the United States currently faces with Afghanistan. With both countries engaging little to no military conflict, the U.S. continues to be on Afghanistan’s territory, securing the country from the rise of militias potentially threatening our counterpart’s sovereignty. Many people have been arguing whether the US should withdraw from Afghanistan and when. Currently, as the U.S. plans to withdraw from the Afghan nation, the issue is not one that pertains to the U.S. and Afghanistan, for they are not the only two involved. American forces had planned to leave the opponent’s nation but fear the security along with the sovereignty of Afghanistan continues to be one that is porous. The initiation of the war was the 9/11 attack and has been lasting for 13 years. However, many people complain about the extreme high cost of the war The United States should withdraw completely from Afghanistan because of the high cost of the war, popular opinion’s support, and very few al-Qaeda members are left.

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a sixteen-years-old boy, was a third American killed by CIA drone strikes in Yemen while searching for his father, Anwar al-Awlaki, also an American citizen, who had been killed in a U.S. drone strike (Finn and Browning). Although drones kill not only terrorists but also innocent civilians including children like Abdulrahman, many drone strikes have been made to Pakistan between the year of 2004 and 2012. This is because the United States military successfully kills targeted enemies without losing a soldier by using drones. However, civilians living near the targeted area are killed by the drones as killer drones can’t accurately focus on the enemies. Therefore, the military’s

Scott Shane quotes Micah Zenko in his article when he says “… a total of eight Americans have been killed in drone strikes. Of those, only one, the American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who joined Al Qaeda in Yemen and was killed in 2011, was identified and deliberately targeted” (Shane, Zenko 3). Shane is correct when he says that drones should not target Americans, but he fails to mention why they were targeted. These eight Americans were killed because, they were engaged in hostile activity towards the United States. Awlaki was a part of Al Qaeda and was actively plotting to take down the United States. The other seven Americans were not innocent, these people were killed in the blast of drone strikes that were targeting enemy combatants. They were not hostages, but they were still in the immediate vicinity of they hostiles. The other seven were just like Awlaki, they were there to join one of the terrorist groups we are at war with. That is the only way that those citizens were that close to those enemies. The second argument against the use of drones is that drone pilots are at risk of developing psychological disorders. Lindsay Warrior, the author of “Drones and Targeted Killing”, says that “[m]uch of the discussion surrounding drones emphasizes the fact that their use reduces the risk of U.S.

Afghanistan’s government is in a state of chaos and it is America’s fault. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, America quickly reacted and fought the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden; taking then out of power. The problem with that, is the Taliban were the ones keeping Afghanistan stable. America has tried to stabilize the Afghan government but has failed due to: the constant violence and acts of terrorism, the many ethnic groups and their conflicts, and the rough, mountainous geography of the country.

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

The first recorded drone strike conducted by the CIA was on February 4, 2002, just 5 months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The intended target was al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Instead, the attack killed three innocent villagers scavenging for scrap metal. Today, the number of deaths caused by drones is astounding. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, around 3,000 people have been killed in Pakistan since 2015. In Yemen, those numbers are somewhere between 500 and 700, and in Afghanistan it’s somewhere around 800 and 1,000. These numbers reflect a variety of citizens, including terrorists, civilians, and even children. In total these numbers exceed the amount killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks by thousands.

Empirical studies of targeted killings and civilian casualties in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism show that drone strikes may obtain either of the following two outcomes:

I think right now the most talked warfare tactics is based on the drone strikes. US military has been using unmanned aircraft to fight against terror in remote places. The controversial part is the success rate of killing bad people, there has been high percentage of civilian people killed during drone strikes. Most people think the military has gone too far, and many countries turned against US. The drone strikes are not perfect, but it has reduced different terrorist group activities. To use drone strikes we need very accurate detail and intelligences otherwise lives of civilians are in danger.

hough the actual number of civilian causalities was always high, yet, according to US officials, drone strikes have caused relatively few civilian deaths, and sometimes drones caused no harm at all. Luckily, there were some leaks in the media regarding the causalities. Obama Administration officials have claimed that the number of causalities is just between 20 and 50 civilians since 2008. In a report, US officials claimed there were just 50 civilian deaths since 2001 to 2011. Former Director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, said, that airstrikes in Pakistan made a limited amount of collateral damage, he said it in 2009. CIA and US officials was busy in hiding the real collateral damages caused by drone strikes. The actual damage on property was all ways very high according to the eye witnesses and the local media reports.

(SIP-B): This devastating drone strike has roots in reality. There have been several incidences in which towns were destroyed and people were killed as a result of a drone strike. (STEWE-1): In 2012, American forces were trying to hit an al-Qaeda militant, Abd al-Raouf al-Dahab, in a drone strike. However, the man was nowhere nearby and the drone strike “hit a passenger van and killed 12 people returning from the market,” (“Rights Groups Decry US”). When their family members arrived, they found their “charred bodies in pieces on the roadside, dusted in flour and sugar that they were bringing home to their families,” (“Rights Groups Decry US”). (STEWE-2): In addition, the deaths of two hostages, one American and one Italian, as a result of drone strikes verify the type of drone strike that destroys Najmah’s village. “The deaths of Warren Weinstein, an American development expert, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian aid worker, were a disturbing reminder of the unintended consequences of an execution programme of questionable

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

Over the course of Barack Obama’s first year in office, he authorized nearly four times as many strikes in Pakistan as George Bush did during his eight years in office. Over this time period drones have eliminated an estimated 3, 300 al Qaeda, Taliban and many other jihadist operatives. Although the use of drones has many critics because of the deaths of multiple civilians, but the use of drones and targeted killing has helped to eliminate many prominent members of terrorist organizations, some of which have carried out horrific executions and even acts of genocide, whom are threats to The United States and other allied nations, drones are also highly capable low-cost weapons that help to reduce the number of civilians and allied soldiers.

CIA and JSOC drone strikes are illegal. They violate the Hague Convention that states contracting powedrs cannot attack one another without declaring war or giving an ultimatum with conditional declaration of war (Hague III: Opening of Hostilities, 1907 ). The CIA has also drifted away from its primary mission of collecting data. The drone strikes conducted by the CIA kill many militants however also kill just as many innocent civilians. Yemen and Pakistan are the victims to

Most people think of the War in Afghanistan as a war that the United States have been fighting over the last decade. But the truth is that Afghanistan has been a country familiar with war for over the last 35 years. Afghanistan became an independent nation in 1921 and The United States formally recognized Afghanistan as a county in 1934.(1) The first war involving the independent country of Afghanistan was against the Soviet Union when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan lasted a little over 10 years and set the conditions for a future war between Taliban in Afghanistan and the United States. Latter the United States declared war in Afghanistan after the terrorist attack on the United State on September 11th, 2001. The war was not against the country, but against the Taliban military and insurgents residing in the country. This war is still ongoing today, which makes the Afghanistan War the longest war ever fought by the United States of America.

As stated earlier drones have the capability to be used very precisely but that is not always the case. Many civilian casualties have been taken by drones including children. The military reports that civilian casualties are rare but people are saying otherwise. The Amnesty report supports media accounts from October last year that a 68-year-old woman, Mamana Bibi, was killed by a missile fired from a drone while she was picking okra outside her home in North Waziristan with her grandchildren nearby. A second strike minutes later injured family members tending her (Boone, 2013). Brandon Bryant a former US Drone pilot spoke about his experience on NPR. He fired missiles into Afghanistan from a Las Vegas control room. Now, homeless and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Bryant’s second shot with the drone is one he will never forget. On a routine mission, he was ordered to fire a missile at a house with three suspected militants inside. Moments before the missile hit, Bryant says he saw something run around the corner of the building. “It looked like a small person,” he says. “[There] is no doubt in my mind that that was not an adult(Power,