Have U.S. Drones Become a ‘Counterinsurgency Air Force’ for Our Allies?
Under the Obama administration, officials have argued that the drone strikes are only hitting operational Al Qaeda leaders or people who posed significant and imminent threats to the U.S. homeland. If you actually look at the vast majority of people who have been targeted by the United States, thats not who they are.
There are a couple pieces of data showing this. Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation has
done estimates on who among those killed could be considered militant leaders either of the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, or Al Qaeda. Under the Bush administration, about 30 percent of those killed could be considered militant leaders. Under Obama, that figure is only 13 percent.
Most of the people who are killed dont have as their objective to strike the U.S. homeland. Most of the people who are killed by drones want to impose some degree of sharia law where they live, they want to fight a defensive jihad against security service and the central government, or they want to unseat what they perceive as an apostate regime that rules their country.
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There was a
February article in the New York Times reporting that the goal of U.S. policy in Yemen was to kill about two dozen Al Qaeda leaders. Theres been about
50 drone strikes in Yemen since that article. Meanwhile, according to U.S. government statements, the size of AQAP has grown from
several hundred to
a few thousand members. So the question is, who is actually being targeted, and how does this further U.S. counterterrorism objectives?
http://www.propublica.org/article/have-u.s.-drones-become-a-counterinsurgency-air-force-for-our-allies