Military Drone Strikes Research Paper

I had been cringing about day for so long. I was completely terrified to go into that room. As the door opened I was exposed to a cold draft and I could feel the dense air. The day I was told this needed to be done was horrifying, and now it’s actually happening. They rolled me over to a new bed and I looked around seeing doctors everywhere. There was a table that they rolled next to me and on it was things that I can’t even explain. They put a green mask on me with tubes going through both sides of it. They told me I’d get drowsy and all of the sudden I closed my eyes and it was happening. I was getting knee surgery.

Byman’s first argument is that US drone strikes are extremely efficient in their purpose: eliminating high value targets in foreign countries that pose a threat to national security. He cities a study done by the New America Foundation, which found that “U.S. drones have killed an estimated 3,300

was uninterested in attending any schools because he simply did not want to. He did not pursue

Years preceding the terrorist attack on the 11th of September 2001, the CIA and the United States Air Force had already developed the facility to use aerial vehicles, piloted remotely, as weapons. Yet, it was the occurrence of 9/11 that sparked the use of armed remote-piloted aerial vehicles (better known as drones) in the global ‘War of Terror’ led by the United States. The purpose of this position paper is to examine the legality of the covert armed drone program, specifically in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan. It will consider the extent of accuracy of the legal frameworks relative to the drone program and targeted killings. To do so, exploring the context in which the United States justifies its actions and military strategies regarding the Global War on Terror is important. This paper will be providing a review of, amongst other references, two pieces of academic literature that discuss the presence of drone warfare in Pakistan: Mark Mazzetti’s The Way of the Knife: The CIA, A Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth and David Sanger’s Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power. They will be used as evidence to support the questionability of the legal frameworks relative to the armed drone conflict.

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

The film goes on to criticize the American governments claim that drone strikes are only authorized when there is certainty that no innocent criticizes will be killed. However, the film points out that in the vast majority of those killed by drone strikes were not high value targets, and often US officials were not certain who they killed, and how many were killed due to their reliance of signature strikes. By rely on signature strikes to designate targets, callously disregards the need to determine the identities of who will be hit by such strikes, and, as the film argues, this is clearly illustrated by the fact that when signature strikes are carried out larger numbers of civilians are killed compared to strikes where targets are properly

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

Shortly after September 11, 2001, former president George W. Bush declared an international “war on terror.” He then sent troops to threatening countries such as Afghanistan; these troops personally conducted operations in order to honorably defend our country. Fast forward eight years and insert current president Barack Obama who continues the campaign against terrorism with a different approach. Instead of using real soldiers on the ground to fight terrorism he is essentially using robots. Obama’s counter-terrorism approach consists of targeted drone strikes where UAV’s are used to assassinate suspected leaders of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda. Meanwhile these strikes don’t always work, and they can hurt innocent

My highest match in the quiz was Hillary Clinton. The three biggest issues that meant the most to me were same sex marriage, equal pay for both sexes and drone strikes. I think the reason these issues mean a lot to me is because they are all issues of the 21st century. For same sex marriage I voted yes and for equal wages I also put yes. The question that struck me the most was “do you support drone strikes for suspected terrorists?” to this I answered not to kill suspected terrorist, but to gather intelligence. I did some research on the topics and what I found was interesting. In 2013 female fulltime workers in almost every field of work made seventy-eight cents for every dollar that their male counter parts which is a gap of twenty percent.

Fourteen years ago on February 2nd, 2002, the CIA first used an unmanned Predator drone in a targeted killing. The attack was performed in Paktia province, Afghanistan, intended to kill Osama Bin Laden or at least someone who worked for the CIA had thought so, they ended up firing the drone against a “tall man”, someone who was 6 inches shorter (at 5 feet 11)than Bin Laden whom had long hair and was wearing robes. Even though this height is taller than average, it goes to say nearly anybody within this range who is a “tall man”, wearing traditional clothes and with lengthy hair (which is a very vague description for the CIA to go by), could have been mistakened for Laden himself. Drone warfare does not only target those who are not a threat,

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

According to Jeffrey H. Smith and John B. Bellinger III for politico.com magazine, “first, improve transparency in drone strikes. The United States should at minimum disclose the number of strikes, the number killed, the affiliations of those targeted, the number of civilian casualties, and the procedures for targeting decisions. It is true that many foreign governments do not want us to acknowledge that drone strikes are being conducted from or on their soil, but the United States should begin the process of weaning those governments from the cloak of secrecy” (SMITH, BELLINGER , "Mr. President, We Need Rules for Drones - POLITICO Magazine"). Secondly add more oversite to ensure that individual’s rights and freedoms do not become compromised by; profiling, prosecution without due process. Finally, according to Jeffrey H. Smith and John B. Bellinger III for politico.com magazine, the United States should not have the ability to use lethal force unless there is absolutely no other

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

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

I woke up again in a hospital bed. I glanced down and saw I was in a hospital gown.