War on terror

Ex-Drone Warrior: Don’t Give the CIA Authority to Deploy Killer Robots in Afghanistan

Since the drone program began, the U.S. military has been keen on keeping data related to it under wraps. Due to the near-absence of official information, drone strike statistics answer few questions and raise many more. For example, when the Obama administration released the first official estimates of those killed in strikes during President Obama’s presidency, they only included those that took place outside the conventional wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, leaving human rights advocates and media organizations trying to fill in the blanks.

Under President Trump, whose stated opinions on transparency vary from negative to non-existent, the problem is only getting worse. However, the incredible work of accountability organizations such as The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in recent years allows us to fill in some of the blanks. Looking at drone strike data from Afghanistan, starting at the beginning of Trump’s presidency nine months ago, there have been a minimum of 2,353 confirmed strikes in Afghanistan, with between 684 and 1081 people reported killed in them, including anywhere between 51 and 116 civilians and children.