U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, mapped

efergus3

AhhhhhhHa!, not by a Moderator. The plot thickens!

venom11

Hello, I am from Pakistan. Reading the comments on this website really intrigued me. People really have no idea what is going on in Pakistan, except for those living there of course. First of all, to the people who are debating about the feasibility of the attacks, in terms of civilian casualties, the debate would never last long if U.S citizens were involved.
Furthermore, the sudden influx of terrorism in Balochistan is one of the post-Afghan war effects. As millions of refugees sudden fled to Pakistan during and after the war, many of whom were terrorists.
The U.S kills hundred of citizens to kill one Taliban leader, only for a new and more crueler one to step-up and rally the masses against the U.S.

Sork

“The U.S kills hundred of citizens to kill one Taliban leader, only for a new and more crueler one to step-up and rally the masses against the U.S.”

The statement in this old game “September 12th” on newsgaming.com still holds. Your goal in the game is to kill all terrorists on the screen. Soon you will realize the game has no ending, and no scores. In fact it is no game at all.

Anonymous

“reliable press accounts?”

I don’t buy it. The sources cited are the same ones that have repeatedly declared that specific leaders targeted in drone attacks were killed, only to have them pop up days later unharmed. Some individuals have been reported dead by these media orgs. multiple times, until the military finally got them, gave up, or they disappeared.

Anonymous

Hip hip hooray for our brave button pushers! Fearlessly risking carpal tunnel syndrome in order to spread freedumb and dumbocracy by raining death on brown people who may or may not be an intended target.

Sork

Our base is under a tack!

What are the US special forces doing when the drones do all of their work? There isn’t even confirmation that the missiles killed the person they wanted. Firing a missile into a farm is just like blowing up a car bomb in a market to try killing a few soldiers.

And I don’t think the Geneva convention applies to the “war on terror” more than the “war on drugs”. But still USA is considered one of the civilized countries, as well as the most potent military force, and shouldn’t behave like a cowardly brute.

Tom Hale

I hate that so many civilians have been killed. One may wonder if the number of lives that may be saved by killing the militants (terrorists?) is equal to or greater than the civilian lives lost from the drone attacks. Who decides if the theoretical number of innocent lives saved is worth the actual number of innocent lives lost? I personally don’t think it’s worth it. We know we’re killing innocents when we bomb these areas -a known number is always worth more than a theoretical number, isn’t it?

Redratio1

That analysis is pretty poor. Lots of maybes on the stats for militants or civilians identies on the ground, but then BOOM! certainty on the 32% civilian death toll.
Really?
Not saying it isn’t possible, but it is pretty weak. More of an agenda piece than an analysis piece.

Anonymous

Standing next to Taliban considered harmful

MarcusHL

Pakistan’s militants are notorious for claiming that “many” women and children are killed whenever one of these missiles strikes. Most times when any civilians are killed, it is the militants who deliberately put them in harm’s way. Those “reliable press accounts” are simply not reliable at all. And let’s not forget, to earn a missile from an American drone, you probably already have innocent blood on your hands.

I found this post to be rather disingenuous.

Antinous / Moderator

Those “reliable press accounts” are simply not reliable at all.

Whereas press reports from embedded journalists who report what they’re told by the military under threat of losing their place in the jeep are always accurate. Because they’re regular people, not Muslims.
- efergus3
  
  “Because they’re regular people, not Muslims” Or Christians, or Jews, or..

efergus3

“crwd f spprtrs”? Srry, ll glty by ssctn. Lt llh srt thm t. nd, prsnlly ‘ld lv t thrw n lttl nplm. Gv thm prvw f whr thy’r gng.

efergus3

I WANT MY VOWELS BACK!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  You probably should have thought of that before you let terrorist consonants use them as alphabetical shields.
mdh

Do you not see just how similar you are to the “crowd of supporters” you want so badly to see hurt? Hatred has made you brothers.
- efergus3
  
  Sorry, not the same. They are amateurs, I’m a professional. I swore to ‘uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America’ and they demand that it be replaced by Sharia law. Ain’t going to happen.
efergus3

Please explain your rational for this? I DO NOT advocate violence.

Anonymous

It is utterly utterly inconceivable for me that NATO/USA can be working this without hardly ANY public discussion on the horrific consequences of these robot-wars. Can anyone really justify this to anyone, even military leaders? Obama? Brown? Merkel? Anyone? Is it a free and just society that slaughters civilians with robots armed with missiles? NO! The hearts and minds are already lost , even our own.

Well, if Al-Q’s idea behind 9/11 was to make the western societies violent and irrational, they sure have managed to do so. This only shows that the western ideals indeed are crumbling in the ruins of the 2001 sadness, and the destructive hate&anger is still breathing out our nostrils.

Anonymous

“militants hide amongst the population” is the WEAKEST EXCUSE for war crimes ever. If YOUR town or home was being bombed by robots in the sky… YOU’D BE A MILITANT TOO!! A “militant” is simply a human being not from any official military that doesn’t agree with the occupation. It’s a bullshit term.

stuiethegod

I’d hate to be a nay-sayer but their percentages are deceptive. They derive their civilian causality rate from the high end of their range. Looking at the full range of the provided statistics, the civilian causality rate is actually somewhere in the range of 0% to 32%.
I’m trying to be pro drone bombings or anything, I’m just saying these stats are pretty useless, 32% civilian casualty rate WITH a margin of error of 32%?

Tom Hale

Why should the lives of civilians forced to live among militants be considered forfeit? I’m sure they would prefer to go about their normal lives without worrying that they or their family may be killed.

We have the most advanced and best funded military in the world -there has to be a better alternative to what we’re doing in Pakistan with the UAVs.

Pavlovs-Dog

Not to tread down a dangerous road here but I guess I’ll have to say it. These numbers are inherently unreliable insomuch as there is a strong incentive for the militants to (a) hide among the civilian population and (b) pose as civilians in life and death. The more they are able to disguise the number of their casualties as those of civilians the more luck they have in winning the PR war.

PapayaSF

Indeed. And note that under the Geneva Convention, if combatants hide among civilians and those civilians are killed or injured when attacked by the other side, it’s a war crime committed by the combatants among the civilians, not by the attackers.
querent

“These numbers are inherently unreliable insomuch as there is a strong incentive for the militants to (a) hide among the civilian population and (b) pose as civilians in life and death.”

It’s also true that there is a strong incentive for the US military and its apologists to skew the numbers the other way. As you say, there is a PR war.

I don’t know that these numbers are from either, but it is a thought.

Anonymous

If I was a terrorist, I’d move away from the stick pins.

dfornika

Is there any legal justification for these strikes? My understanding is that the strikes against “militants” violate UN regulations against summary executions and any offensive military action by the US in Pakistan represent a border violation.

The civilian death toll is clearly criminal and could be prevented by the US by ending these drone attacks.

Have we just reached a point where the US and NATO have gotten away with so many crimes in the region that we’re willing to accept anything they do as legitimate military operations?

mralistair

so that’s a good few hundered Pakistani civilian deaths… a county we are not even supposedly having a war in. would this happen anwhere else? Laos in the 60s maybe

pavlov’s dog: there’s also pretty good reason for the US to downplay the number of civilian deaths.. so we really might was well guess the real number. though it’s nice to know which ballpark we are talking.

Mephy

That means 68% of the people being killed are enemies. Not a bad kill rate, if you ask me.

Don’t fool yourself, Pakistan has no problems letting us send in our drones. They just fret and posture to ensure their own people don’t kick them out of office.

If Pakistan officials REALLY didn’t want the US to send in drones, we wouldn’t do it. But we’ve bought off their government already. I guarantee you that the US allows them to tell their people they oppose such things, but under the table they have given 100% consent.

Anonymous

If 68% is a kill rate our military can live with, they are simply incapable of helping the civilian population.

dfornika

I’m sure the people that the bombs are landing on have a problem with “letting” the US send in the drones.

efergus3

And try this on for size:http://www.fareedzakaria.com/ARTICLES/newsweek/101501_why.html

efergus3

“According to South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), a terrorism database, 2,155 civilians were killed in terrorist violence in 2008 and nearly 1800 civilians have been killed in the first ten months of 2009 as compared to around 1600 civilian deaths from 2003 to 2006.” http://www.cfr.org/publication/15422/pakistans_new_generation_of_terrorists.html How dare they kill so many more innocent people than us!

tomrigid

This is part of Pakistan, but only on the map. On the ground it’s a closed, fundamentally autonomous territory.

The US military is murdering people there, by remote control. But it’s a war; are these methods worse than the likely alternatives? Would carpet-bombing be better? Selling arms to rival tribes and stirring the proxy-war pot until everybody is dead? Or agitating in Islamabad until a junta brings in an aggressive and compliant national regime, one more willing to swing the big internal military stick?

There’s no good war–on this we can surely agree. There may be necessary war, though if we ever agree on the parameters of such a thing we’ll probably be in terrible trouble. As repulsive as this dehumanized violence might be, is it worse than the likely alternatives?

Joe in Australia

between 834 and 1,216 individuals” [...]

“around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts”

That’s a pretty big margin of error for “reliable press accounts”. In fact, if you take the high end of one estimate and the low end of another it seems that the drones may have killed militants that didn’t even exist.

timothystotz

Must agree with efergus3, while adding this thought experiment: Say we had a confirmed location, date and time on Osama and Zawahiri, inside Waziristan, when they were both to address a crowd of supporters in a makeshift auditorium. How many thousands of citizens need to be in their audience before one WOULD RESIST sending in the rockets or the drones?

Many of us would never go near the trigger, obviously, out of basic conscience. But I find that I get to a pretty high number before I flinch. Like, really high. Like, easily 3000 to 1.

Because these men are creating large numbers of kamikazes, and they want Pakistan’s nukes. And they have been quite successful with suicidally crazy stunts before.

Aleknevicus

timothystotz: How many if the auditorium is full of Americans rather than Pakistanis?

efergus3

Aaahhhh, yes – I meant to do that, yes. (Sorry!)

Anonymous

Drone Attacks will never be stopped by US. These attacks are only to boil Pakistan and to create a reason to take over a developing nation, fort of Islam and a nuclear power, Pakistan.
Here is an obvious common sense, when Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are attacked or supposed to be attacked then why not Pakistan?
CIA is highly supporting Pakistan’s neighbor countries to destabilize Pakistan’s economy by suicide attacks, target killing and robberies.
The ultimate target can be to resist and compete the most progressive economy of the World, China and to give smooth channel for World’s fourth largest Economy, India who is strongly urging to be a Veto member in UN.
USA will interact with Pakistan till the Afghanistan is not cool down; again US will repeat history regarding disloyalty.
Pakistan must reunite Arab World and its Allies to counter the upcoming economical and geographical disputes.
Samiullah Bhatti