ACLU: Civilian Deaths from CIA Drone Strikes: Zero or Dozens?

[EFerrari]

Posted by Jonathan Manes, National Security Project at 11:09am

For well over a year now, the ACLU has been urging the government to level with the public about the number of civilians that are being killed in its drone strike/targeted killing operations. The government has been tight-lipped — refusing even to confirm or deny the existence of any records relating to civilian casualties in CIA drone strikes. Last month, however, John Brennan, the White House's top counterterrorism advisor broke this silence, telling reporters that "in the last year 'there hasn't been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we've been able to develop.'"

Zero civilian casualties — during a period when there were more than 100 CIA drone strikes — sounded almost too good to be true. As it turns out, it was. According to a new report from the UK's award-winning Bureau of Investigative Journalism, released last night, at least 45 civilians were killed in 10 strikes since August 2010. Among these, the Bureau reports that it has identified, by name, six children killed in drone strikes. More civilians are likely to have been killed in an additional 15 strikes for which precise information is not available.

In response to queries from the Bureau, a senior official stood by Brennan's zero-civilian casualties claim and insisted that "the most accurate information on counter-terror operations resides with the United States." The trouble is that United States refuses to share its information — even basic information — with the public.

Indeed, it is absurd that senior government officials would claim that there have been no civilian casualties in drone strikes in Pakistan, and at the same time refuse to confirm or deny the existence of civilian casualty data in response to the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act request. This kind of selective disclosure not only deprives the public of basic information about the human cost of the government's actions, but it also undermines the credibility of the government's statements. The public has no basis to trust John Brennan's zero-civilian-casualty estimate because the government has refused to disclose what its figures are based on, or even the criteria it uses to distinguish fighters from civilians in CIA drone strikes.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/civilian-deaths-cia-drone-strikes-zero-or-dozens

[Enrique]

1. there goes the CIA's credibility

;-)

[EFerrari]

3. Shhhhhhhh! Their moms might read DU.

:)

[Forkboy]

2. K&R

[Jefferson23]

4. Too good to be true, that is an understatement. K&R n/t

[EFerrari]

6. I read a report about one study, a conservative one, that said 1 in 4

people killed by drones in Pakistan is a civilian.

[Jefferson23]

8. It is so wrong, and for what? This activity and that's a polite word for it

has deep consequences. Anti- American sentiment keeps expanding, we are not trusted for valid reasons.

[OnyxCollie]

5. K&R. nt

[gratuitous]

7. So, who will investigate these war crimes?

Or, if you prefer, crimes against humanity? We could do it ourselves, in regular courts of law under established rules of evidence and procedure. Or we could leave to others, who might not be quite so careful about observing regular rules of court, and who are just looking to inflict the maximum revenge for the deaths of their friends and loved ones.

The choice is ours but it won't be ours forever, or even for very long.

[EFerrari]

9. I just saw that Clyve Stafford Smith at Reprieve has organized

an exhibition, with a Pakistani lawyer, of the first published photographs of drone victims. I was actually looking for something else, a lawsuit they've filed.



Shahzad Akbar, the pioneering lawyer who has been leading the legal fight against the American use of drones in his native Pakistan, said: “I constantly meet the relatives of those killed in these drone strikes, and they are all angry at America. This policy is simply further radicalising an unstable region. Noor Behram shows great courage to capture these pictures in order to show the world what is really happening. People living in countries supporting this war with their tax money need to ask questions from their governments if their money is being spent on such gruesome murders of women and children.”

Reprieve’s director Clive Stafford Smith said: “This is another terrible US policy in the War of Terror. I hate to expose the world to pictures of a child with his head blown half off, but this is what the CIA calls ‘collateral’ damage. In a country that is not at war with America, everyone else calls it murder, and the drone attacks are causing vastly more harm than good.”

http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2011_07_18_drone_photos/

[gratuitous]

10. At the very least, asking questions would be nice

The defensive and nearly violent (or sometimes not "nearly," but actual) reaction from the government, the military and their supporters says as much as anything a critic or inquirer of the government or the military ever could. We are doing a lot more harm than any conceivable good with our program of remote-controlled assassination and mayhem, and that harm is not confined to the folks luckless enough to be under our missiles and bombs.