Lindsey Graham: Drone Strikes Have Killed 4,700 People

[rachel1]

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) estimated that the United States has killed 4,700 people in drone strikes, saying he supported the Obama administration's program.

"We've killed 4,700," Graham told the Easley Rotary Club in South Carolina on Tuesday afternoon. "Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of al Qaeda.”

...

Micah Zenko at the Council on Foreign Relations said the number Graham cited is the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's "highest estimated range for 'total reported killed' in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia: 4,756." Estimates put forward by other independent groups are significantly lower, although as Ackerman pointed out, the Bureau's number doesn't include drone strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq -- which could push the toll higher.

The federal government has refused to give any death toll at all. The Obama administration currently takes the position that it can use drones to strike U.S. citizens deemed threats overseas and that it has no legal obligation to admit it, even after the fact.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/lindsey-graham-drone-strikes_n_2734133.html


As usual, despicable dregs of human waste such as Lindsay Graham could not care less about allowing innocent civilians to be murdered so long as a "war" has been declared.

I have to wonder if he, or any other bloodthirsty warmongers, could comfortably advocate slaughtering a few innocent school children so long as one potential mass shooter was killed as well.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. And Lindsay Graham would have been fine with the drones and the number if

it had been * or Mitt in the WH.

[Recursion]

2. Has it saved lives or not?

I'm not sure how many people the mujahideen we killed would have killed if they had lived, but if their past is any indication it would have been quite a few, mostly Muslim civilians in southwest Asia. So on the whole did we save Pakistani lives? That's hard to tell.

[Bandit]

8. Right burn the village to save it.....

We have created more enemies than than friends through our actions and I am beginning to believe that is our goal.. The more people that hate us the more need for huge Defense spending....

[Recursion]

9. That's a tempting model but it's not that simple

We alienate some Pakistanis and make others feel much safer. We kill some innocent people and also kill people who have killed innocent people in the past and want to kill innocent people in the future. Nothing here is simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker.

[JaneyVee]

3. Every year I keep hearing Al-Qaeda is down to 3 people, yet war still continues.

[rachel1]

7. The MIC and their warmongering cronies have to keep perpetuating war somehow

because wasting billions, if not trillions, of dollars and slaughtering countless innocent people are not enough.

[msongs]

4. according to the US constitution we are NOT at war nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. And, the killers will be getting nice medals, instead of trials, for their deeds.

[rustydog]

6. How many did "Shock and Awe" wipe out, war-monger?