War On Drones Essay

Ever since I entered high school as a freshman, I heard terrible stories about the SAT eTitle Terrorist organizations and attacks are beginning to be a major problem in the world. In order to deal with these ever changing organizations nations like the United States have resorted to using drones to seek and destroy its targets. The first drone attack by the United States occurred in the fall of 2001. The target was a Taliban leader named Mullah Omar. However, the mission was a failure due to miscommunication (Woods). Jumping forward fifteen years, drones now play a major part on the war on terror. They are no longer a secret CIA weapon; now they are a fully militarised weapon of war. The United States is currently using drones to combat terrorism in multiple countries including Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Some people believe that it …show more content…
The only way to limit civilian casualties is to find a way to either prevent war (not going to happen) or find a way to perform surgical strikes on militant targets. William Saletan a journalist with Slate.com point to a U.N report focused on Afghan civilian casualties cause by the United Staes and other coalition allies. The U.N report mentions the fact that “civilian casualties from “aerial attacks” fell 42 percent”(Saletan). Later in the article it goes on to explain that the switch from mainly focusing on manned aerial attacks to drone operated attacks is the main reason for this massive decrease in civilian casualty rate. Saletan continues on later in the article comparing the massive civilian casualty rates of previous wars. In World War Two there was around a 40 to 67 percent civilian death rate; while in Korea it went up to 70 percent. These massive percentages were due to the use of unguided dumb bombs. While any civilian deaths are completely unacceptable the introduction of cost effective drones is attempting to lower these rates to an all time