White House: Up to 116 civilians killed by U.S. in drone, other air attacks
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Barack Obama talked before signing the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 and the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Thursday.
WASHINGTON » The Obama administration says between 64 and 116 civilians have been killed by drone and other U.S. strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Africa since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
Today’s disclosure was the administration’s first public assessment of the number of civilians killed in these types of operations. Some human rights advocates say the number is significantly higher.
Obama also signed an executive order that makes protecting civilians a central element in planning U.S. military operations.
While sketchy details often emerge about individual drone strikes, the full scope of the U.S. drone program has long been shrouded from view. It is a key tool of Obama’s counterterrorism strategy.
The civilian casualties disclosed do not reflect U.S. air attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.
16 responses to “White House: Up to 116 civilians killed by U.S. in drone, other air attacks”
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1,000,000, but only a few in the U.S.
Moving his lips again which means he’s ________.
The unfortunate cost of war.
It’s more than unfortunate. That is why more middle easterners hate us all the time. We destroy their homes and kill so many innocent people. Let’s not forget doctors without borders. Has anyone been prosecuted? NO! That was a war crime on our part. We are far from innocent. War is not black and white. We are not always the good guys, we just think we are always right.
If China, or Russia, or someone else were dropping drones in various areas in our nation, and we had to constantly wonder if we happened to live next door to the next target, maybe we would have a better understanding of how others look at us.
But we all secretly believe that as long as they’re not American or white, their lives don’t really matter. So it could 60, 437, 23,000, or 1 million killed – it doesn’t REALLY matter, does it?
So what’s your point? Do you actually think dropping flowers, not bombs, would create such feelings of friendship that ISIS would stop their efforts to destroy us? Isn’t that what Obama tried to do when he first took office. In fact, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for trying and look at him now. War is not nice but America didn’t invent war. The world has been fighting for as long as there are historical records.
We are the reason there is ISIS!. Can you at least admit this is more than partly our fault???
116 is a lie. There have been many many more!
Unfortunately, that is how it has been throughout the history of man. It’s not just “as long as they’re not American or white”.
…and how many civilians were killed by ISIS and radical Muslims throughout the world? US killing civilians is a small price to pay if we have killed more ISIS.
Then at least understand why it will never end.
All we have managed to do is make more people around the world hate u, I am sorry to say.
It is not a small price. Innocent civilians lives matter just as much anywhere. We are not more important than any other innocent life!
This sure beats the mass bombings we did in Viet Nam which leveled whole villages. The only thing more precise than these drone strikes … would be a sniper bullet.
If we chose to justify a bad action by historically worse ones, we also chose to ignore one of history’s most important benefits.