Obama’s 284 Drone Strikes in Pakistan A map of every reported drone strike in Pakistan. One of the most controversial aspects of U.S. foreign policy received mere seconds of discussion in the 90-minute final presidential debate.
“We already know President Obama’s position on this,” said moderator Bob Schieffer. He turned to Mitt Romney. “What is your position on the use of drones?”
“I believe that we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world,” Romney responded. “The president was right to up the usage of that technology and believe that we should continue to use it to continue to go after the people who represent a threat to this nation and to our friends.”
Romney agrees with the president, and so do most Americans, but majorities in almost every other country disapprove of drone strikes, according to the Pew Research Center. Drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia have damaged America’s reputation in strategically important countries.
Critics argue the drone strikes are an overextension of executive power, kill too many civilians, and breed more terrorism. Proponents, including Obama and Romney, say the drone strikes are necessary to prevent terrorism. The CIA recently proposed to expand the strike program into other regions.
In June Slate published a map, based on data from the New America Foundation, showing the locations and kill estimates of reported drone strikes in Pakistan, where most of the drone strikes occur. Since that map was published, the media have reported 22 more, for a total of 284. The map above includes these additional strikes.
Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy Pakistanis displaced by a drone strike. Under President Obama, more than 300 have occurred. By SCOTT SHANE Published: November 24, 2012
WASHINGTON — Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials. Related
The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.
Mr. Obama and his advisers are still debating whether remote-control killing should be a measure of last resort against imminent threats to the United States, or a more flexible tool, available to help allied governments attack their enemies or to prevent militants from controlling territory..........................>>>>...................>>>>.............http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/world/white-house-presses-for-drone-rule-book.html?hp&_r=0
"(CNN) -- The news that Abu Yahya al-Libi, the No.2 leader of al Qaeda, is now confirmed to have been killed in a CIA drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region along the border with Afghanistan further underlines that the terrorist group that launched the 9/11 attacks is now more or less out of business.
Under President Barack Obama, CIA drone strikes have killed 15 of the most important players in al Qaeda. Similarly, President George W. Bush also authorized drone strikes that killed 16 important al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan while he was in office.
As a result, according to senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, there now remains only one leader of any consequence in al Qaeda and that is Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became the head of the group following the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, in a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan in May 2011."
Obama's U.S. Drone Policy sounds like it's been a resounding success!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Logged
