Losing Count

I guess when you’re killing so many people it’s easy to lose count:

Government officials claim they’re ultra-precise killing machines that never, ever miss their targets. Outside groups say they’re covered in children’s blood. The fact is no one has a clue exactly how many militants and how many innocents have been slain in the U.S. drone war that spans from Pakistan to Somalia. Remember that before you start your next Twitter feud about the drone war.

Neither the American government nor the independent agencies have the consistent presence on the ground needed to put together true assessments of the damage drone strikes do. Most of the evidence is third-hand, whispered from a local soldier to a far-off reporter. The death toll claims, which vary wildly, are all educated guesswork.

This isn’t surprising when you consider the way drones are used. Drones fly over a target area, launch a missile into the area, and buzz off hoping the mission was accomplished. The United States government doesn’t care how many innocent people are killed in the missile blast nor do they have a method of actually determining such a number. In their eyes the people killed by those missiles aren’t actually people, they’re merely foreigners who are potentially associated with somebody who may dislike America.

The ramifications of drone usage should scare everybody. Many of the people killed by drone fired missiles are only guilty of being near somebody who hasn’t been proven in a court of law to have done anything wrong. It’s not even guilty by association because the people within the blast radius could have merely been passing through the area. How can a government that finds it acceptable to murder innocent bystanders be considered legitimate?