Obama said his administration has “worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained.” Whether the use of drones has been “properly constrained” is a subjective matter. The Stimson Center, a global security think tank, for one, warned in 2014 that heavy reliance on drones “risks increasing instability and escalating conflicts.” But as a matter of independent analysis, Obama has ordered many more drone strikes than his predecessor, George W. Bush. ------ Obama: As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we’re threatened, which is why I’ve prohibited torture, and worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained. -------- No official figures are available, and for a time the Obama administration would not even publicly admit that such CIA-controlled attacks were taking place. But independent reports have found a dramatic increase in the use of covert, remote-controlled drones and missiles to attack targets in Pakistan and Yemen. An independent estimate by the nonpartisan New America Foundation, based on what it deems to be “credible news reports,” puts the number of attacks at more than 450 since Obama took office, more than nine times as many as took place while Bush was in office. In Pakistan, the group concludes, somewhere between 1,838 and 3,041 people were killed by drones approved by Obama. Most of them were militants, the report states, but about 150 of them were civilians. As we noted in a story in April 2013, estimates by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in Britain, while slightly different, give a similar picture.#DavidAAFL
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 23:31:12 +0000
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