Why I Take Action Against Drones

by Jasmin Maurer, PEP Director

Drones have been touted as the smart, efficient alternative to putting troops in harms way in today’s combat missions. But the more you look at the US drone program, the more you start to realize that’s not quite true.

A close examination of the US drone program counters any claims to efficiency. For one, drones crash and malfunction. In 2009, the US Air Force reported that one-third of their Predator drones crashed. At $4.5 million a pop, this is an expensive program to be having so many mishaps.

In 2012, as fights were taking place in Congress over where to make cuts in the federal budget to reduce our deficit, $3.9 billion in taxpayer money was used for the procurement of drones by the Pentagon. This does not include the additional drone budgets for the CIA or the Department of Homeland Security.

So we have an expensive program that we funnel money into while cutting funding to education, healthcare, and other vital social services. And this program has a tendency to crash one-third of the time. A reasonable person assumes then that these drones must be doing their job to take out terrorists and keep us safe.

Except that they’re not. It’s reported that only two percent of all deaths from drone strikes have been high level al-Qaida targets. The definition of a militant is also troublesome. It claims that any male of combat age is a militant, no evidence needed to back that claim. We’re additionally not helped by the fact that the Obama administration won’t reveal how targets are chosen.

Reports are now showing that a large number of those killed in drone strikes are civilians, including children. Drones hover over some communities 24 hours a day. For the residents of these communities, the buzzing of drones is a constant, the attacks coming at random.

The high levels of trauma invoked by the constant buzzing, endless fear, and seemingly random deaths of loved ones has spurred a great deal of anti-American sentiment. It’s been argued that these strikes are not only not stopping terrorists, it’s creating them as drones become the ruthless face of America.

So we have a program that is expensive, malfunctions, and kills a lot of people, most of whom are not the terrorists that we say we’re looking for. In other words, this is an inefficient system that does not keep our country safe. In fact, I would argue it makes us less safe.

And now we’re bringing these drones home to use along the border between the US and Mexico, opening air space for them in our own communities. There’s not a lot of rules attached to how their used right now either, leaving it open for their misuse. I don’t think you need to be wearing a tinfoil hat to be worried about this.

I can’t even begin to do justice to the countless other reasons to be critical and wary of the US drone program. There are the cases of the operators of these drones suffering from PTSD. There are the questions of the legality of their use. There is the great loss of human life.

But these are at least some of the reasons why I’ll be attending this Saturday’s action against the US drone program, calling for their removal from Africa, the Middle East, central Asia, and here at home. I hope others will join me in calling attention to the negative consequences of using drones.

Please join us at US Drones Out of Africa and Everywhere!
Saturday, April 13th
Assemble at noon
Soldier’s Memorial (1315 Chestnut)