Radio-controlled deaths in Pakistan continue

Apr 27, 2015 12:37 am
White House press secretary Josh Earnest detailed American policy about radio-controlled drones about as well as anyone in the administration does, at a briefing last week largely about the Americans killed in a drone attack on terrorists. Warren Weinstein, 73, of Rockville, Md., and an Italian hostage were killed in a January bombing from a radio-controlled drone targeting terrorists in Pakistan President Obama said April 23. While the media in America were riled up by the death-from-above to one if its own, civilian death-by-drone is nothing unusual. Leah Libresco at fivethrityeight.com details, as much as anyone could, the little data there is about civilian death from remote-controlled drone bombings. Drones killed between 421 and 960 civilians in Pakistan between 2004 and April 12, 2015, according to estimates from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the story says. Statistics here are sketchy, for many reasons. The U.S. government, for instance, does not count any men killed by bombings as civilians. The Long War Journal estimates that drones killed 156 civilians in Pakistan between 2006 and April 13, 2015, The New America Foundation guesses that between 2004 and April 12, 2015, 258-307 civilians were killed in Pakistan. The Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic estimated that drones killed 72-155 civilians in Pakistan in 2011. So, while this American's death was tragic, it was not alone among innocents killed by radio-controlled drones.