Drone Warfare: The United States and their Aggressive Drone Policy in Afghanistan
The United States has shifted its military strategies for taking out foreign enemies by reducing the number of boots they put on the ground and increasing the use of unmanned aerial vehicles referred to as drones. The use of drones is effective at sparing the number of U.S. soldiers and pilots being sent to deal with terrorist organizations (Grayson 2016). However it is ineffective in reducing the number of civilians that are killed or wounded through the use of these counterinsurgency strategies (Khalili 2012). This essay argues that the current U.S. drone policy in the country of Afghanistan is too aggressive and is doing more harm than good. Several incidents …show more content…
Alternatives need to be examined to make sure that the United States is not using drones without absolute certainty that civilian lives are not at risk. To help restore trust in Middle East and Afghanistan branches of the federal government need to be held more accountable. The United States can not continue to implement such an aggressive military strategy because it only creates more enemies in the long term.
When Barack Obama took office in 2009 he had a to deal with the Bush administration 's war in Afghanistan. “It was clear from early in his administration that President Obama would approach Afghanistan differently from his predecessor”(Hendrickson 2015). The Obama administration had began developing strategies that implemented technology through the use of drone warfare early in his first term. The “War on Terror” in Afghanistan was changing drastically now due to the increased use of drones which led to a major “dissociation …show more content…
This strike occurred in Obama’s first year in office “an American drone strike, one of the first ordered on the watch of the new U.S. president, Barack Obama. The early 2009 strike had killed a local elder, along with his son, two nephews, and a guest in the South Waziristan town of Wana”. (Shah and Zenko 2012). It is often that civilians are the innocent victims of human error that occur during a drone strike that was meant for members of groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. These errors lead to civilian casualties often on a mass scale because of how powerful these missiles are and the continued strikes of a single location. As of April 7, 2016 there were several drone strikes in Khost, Afghanistan that killed 17 civilians when people tried to get the bodies from the first strike, another missile was fired killing more civilians, and after that more civilians were killed by a third and final strike (Mangal and Mashal 2016). This is a perfect example how the use of drone warfare is too aggressive in Afghanistan. The first missile never struck the appropriate target and yet more missiles were fired without any confirmation on if the appropriate target had been struck or not (Mangal and Mashal 2016). The United States cannot continue to fire missiles from drones carelessly without absolute confirmation of who they are firing on. If this aggressive drone policy continues in
The United States has shifted its military strategies for taking out foreign enemies by reducing the number of boots they put on the ground and increasing the use of unmanned aerial vehicles referred to as drones. The use of drones is effective at sparing the number of U.S. soldiers and pilots being sent to deal with terrorist organizations (Grayson 2016). However it is ineffective in reducing the number of civilians that are killed or wounded through the use of these counterinsurgency strategies (Khalili 2012). This essay argues that the current U.S. drone policy in the country of Afghanistan is too aggressive and is doing more harm than good. Several incidents …show more content…
Alternatives need to be examined to make sure that the United States is not using drones without absolute certainty that civilian lives are not at risk. To help restore trust in Middle East and Afghanistan branches of the federal government need to be held more accountable. The United States can not continue to implement such an aggressive military strategy because it only creates more enemies in the long term.
When Barack Obama took office in 2009 he had a to deal with the Bush administration 's war in Afghanistan. “It was clear from early in his administration that President Obama would approach Afghanistan differently from his predecessor”(Hendrickson 2015). The Obama administration had began developing strategies that implemented technology through the use of drone warfare early in his first term. The “War on Terror” in Afghanistan was changing drastically now due to the increased use of drones which led to a major “dissociation …show more content…
This strike occurred in Obama’s first year in office “an American drone strike, one of the first ordered on the watch of the new U.S. president, Barack Obama. The early 2009 strike had killed a local elder, along with his son, two nephews, and a guest in the South Waziristan town of Wana”. (Shah and Zenko 2012). It is often that civilians are the innocent victims of human error that occur during a drone strike that was meant for members of groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. These errors lead to civilian casualties often on a mass scale because of how powerful these missiles are and the continued strikes of a single location. As of April 7, 2016 there were several drone strikes in Khost, Afghanistan that killed 17 civilians when people tried to get the bodies from the first strike, another missile was fired killing more civilians, and after that more civilians were killed by a third and final strike (Mangal and Mashal 2016). This is a perfect example how the use of drone warfare is too aggressive in Afghanistan. The first missile never struck the appropriate target and yet more missiles were fired without any confirmation on if the appropriate target had been struck or not (Mangal and Mashal 2016). The United States cannot continue to fire missiles from drones carelessly without absolute confirmation of who they are firing on. If this aggressive drone policy continues in