President Obama has been mired by the controversial use of drones from both sides of the aisle throughout his presidency, the left concerned with the large death toll of innocent civilians and how targets are selected. Not surprisingly, conservatives accused him of overstepping his authority by engaging in war without clearance from Congress, even if its continuation/acceleration of President George W. Bush’s drone policy. It went so far as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul holding a filibuster on the Senate floor in 2013, alarmed that the President could potentially kill a United States citizen on domestic soil.
Along with kill lists and the deaths of U.S. citizens on foreign soil, the drone policy has raised a series of new issues in American foreign policy such as the necessity to destroying a target and its ramifications on the surrounding area. Human rights groups have consistently criticized U.S. airstrikes that have resulted in innocent casualties, and dismissed the recent tally offered by the administration of at most 116 civilians killed as too low. Based on information acquired from news articles and local reports, London’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism report at least 500 civilian deaths in the Middle East. Again this does not include current war zones Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
Part of the discrepancy, as the Obama administration sees it, is gathering data from unreliable sources including terrorist propaganda. The other reason may have to do with how casualties are categorized, with many critics believing adult aged males are automatically classified as enemy combatants. The government says this is false, that any casualty without any known affiliation or history was considered a bystander; however officials continue to push that they have enough evidence to justify an enemy combatants execution.
Besides the accuracy of the numbers, the timing of the release of information is also a bit skeptical. On a Friday afternoon before Fourth of July weekend when most of the public are tuned out not only from work but the world in general is a perfect time to admit to killing innocent civilians. It most likely also has to do with the recent book released tackling this very subject by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, a long critic and muckraker of the drone program.
All in all, Obama has limited the use of drones since 2013 after the immense backlash that emerged, although incomplete data makes it difficult to corroborate that assertion. Nevertheless, the administration is attempting to better inform the public of its use of drones, laying precedent for Clinton to hopefully improve. Unfortunately as the war with Daesh continues, airstrikes will remain in headlines and critics in the editorials
