Is Anyone Surprised the U.S. Gov’t Just Lied About How Many Civilians It Has Killed in Drone Strikes?

The only thing surprising about the figures recently released by the U.S. government in regard to how many innocent civilians have died in U.S. drone strikes is that they released any figures or admitted to any civilian “collateral damage” at all.

Foreign Policy reports:

With a long-awaited presidential executive order and a two-and-a-half-page “report” released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Obama administration has carefully revealed some additional information about “U.S. Government” (no distinction given between CIA and U.S. military operations) “strikes” (no mention of drones or unmanned aircraft) against “terrorist targets” (broadly defined) that are “outside areas of active hostilities” (meaning Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia).

According to the ODNI report, between Jan. 20, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2015, there were 473 strikes that killed between 2,372 and 2,581 combatants and between 64 and 116 noncombatants.

“Between 64 and 116”??? It’s like asking a psychotic ax murderer whose been on a rampage for decades to remember everybody they hacked to death.

Other reports that don’t come from the killers have calculated that as many as 90 percent of people killed in U.S. government drone strikes are not the intended targets. That to kill 41 targeted terrorists meant the deaths of a total of 1,147 people. That, in just one lovely example, 14 people were killed returning from a Yemeni wedding when military officials mistook their vehicles for al Qaeda militants’, you know, like ya do. The horror just goes on an on.

No, the only thing surprising here is that the Obama Administration would even admit to cutting short the lives of “between 64 and 116 noncombatants”. And notice how they refer to those victims as “noncombatants,” not “innocent people including women and children who were murdered in extrajudicial drone strikes”.

Like they know who is a “combatant” when everyone looks like a bunch of ants running around on the ground. Like the media knows who they are even talking about when they call a group of drone strike victims “militants”.

And, as Salon of all propaganda outlets pointed out —

[The media] simply cite always-unnamed “officials” claiming that the dead were “militants.” It’s the most obvious and inexcusable form of rank propaganda: media outlets continuously propagating a vital claim without having the slightest idea if it’s true.

What is “true” anymore?

Like anyone even knows how many countries the U.S. is currently drone striking anyway. Remote controlled warfare has devalued humanity for everyone.