The United States has conducted more than 27,500 drone strikes in the fight to expel the Islamic State from Iraq and Syria, according to a report from The New York Times by Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal. The American-led coalition keeps a record of civilian deaths that it deems credible, but the findings of Khan and Gopal in the report called “The Uncounted” suggest that the real number of civilian deaths is far higher than what the government reports. The report, conducted over 18 months, found that in the over 150 strike zones and 103 strikes studied, one in five strikes had resulted in civilian deaths. These figures, gathered from on-the-ground sources, eyewitnesses, local news sources, and analysts, found that the number of deaths is a staggering 31 times higher than the government has been reporting, leading Khan and Gopal to write that, “this may be the least transparent war in recent American history.”
These numbers are further proof that in this system, Iraqi suspects are considered guilty until proven innocent. The information used to identify ISIS fighters is often unreliable, and too often leads to the deaths of innocent civilians who fit the criteria of certain behavior patterns that make them a target. The most heavily relied upon type of information is SIGNIT, or “signals intelligence”, despite officials admitting that it is “poor” and “limited,” according to The Intercept. Furthermore, information is sometimes gained from single sources that may or may not be credible, such as people local to an area who see opportunities for personal gain if they hand over certain information, regardless of its credibility.
One result of this misinformation was a 2013 drone strike in Asadabad, the capital of the Kunar province of Afghanistan, which was recently covered by The Intercept. The blast took out a red pickup truck driven by 26-year-old Abdul Rashid. Rashid, a taxi driver, was also carrying seven other men, two women, and four children, including his 4-year-old daughter, Aisha, and her 18-month-old brother, Jundullah. Around 5:30 pm, about an hour into the journey and just after entering the district of Watapur, a total of five strikes in 20 minutes killed everyone in the truck except 4-year-old Aisha.
On September 8, 2013, the day after the strike, the International Security Assistance Force reported that “10 enemy forces” had been killed, but the report made no mention of civilian deaths, according to The Intercept. A final memo from the United Nations reported that ten civilians and six enemy forces had been killed. However, villagers said that no one with the names of the supposed enemy forces had been riding in the truck on that day, and furthermore, that the names were entirely unfamiliar. Former Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, who was also interviewed by journalist May Jeong for the report, said of the confusion regarding the death tally and the lack of investigation into what happened, that Americans thought, “well, this is a poor country, so why care?” He added, “We were numbers and not treated as humans. We need [America], but that doesn’t mean they have the right to kill us.”
The fact that it takes in-depth, multi-year reporting to cover a single strike is proof that this drone war is not nearly transparent enough, and that it is not even close to being as precise as the US government claims. Human lives have been turned into statistics, and ordinary citizens have been turned into suspects because they are men above fighting age with a regular behavior pattern. On the firing end of the drone war are another group of young men, chosen for their video game talents. A 2014 documentary, Drone, uncovered many of the secrets of the drone war, including the psychological damage to the young operators, who the documentary said had to learn to “come to terms with killing through joysticks.”
In short, the drone war has gross dishonesty on the side of the perpetrators and devastating losses for the largely innocent victims (only 17 percent of the some 200 people killed in drone strikes between January 2012 and February 2013 were intended targets). To continue the drone war in this manner is to blatantly disregard the inherent humanity of innocent, non-combatant civilians. The use of unreliable information and imprecise strikes is an underreported problem. Instead of acknowledging and working to fix our problematic air strike campaign, we bury the stories under layers of nationalism and supremacy and a few success stories. Until the drone war ends or, at the very least, is reformed so that civilian lives are valued and protected, the United States cannot possibly be the greatest nation in the world.