Civilian deaths play an important role in drone warfare

I'm not here to condone any actions of the US government or any affiliated structures, I'm merely laying out the facts.

Fear has always been terrorism's greatest weapon. It only took 3000 American deaths (which is nothing compared to what's going on in the Middle East right now) to completely reshape the world we live in.

Drone warfare uses fear in the same way. It is well known that any franchise of al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organisation relies heavily on the support of their local populations. Civilian deaths that occur due to drone strikes are designed to limit the support these groups receive through the use of intimidation and a sense of impending death. Civilians are encouraged to terminate any interactions with known terrorist leaders, thus isolating the latter by robbing them of any local support they might rely upon.

Civilians are not collateral damage, they are the real targets.

I was following you up until you claimed they were the real targets. If civilians were the real target there would not be much left of Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

The reason civilians keep dying to drone strikes is because the terrorists generally hide amongst the civilian populations to the point its hard to tell where the innocent start and the terrorists end.

Considering that America takes a lot of flak from the middle-east and the world in general any time civilians get caught in the crossfire, it makes no sense for the US to target them.

Hahahaaaa what a load of rubbish!

If you are that convinced the USA targets civilians, why don't you take it up with the UN? You won't get far.

It's pretty hard to prove anything given the fact that most of the information relating to those killings remains classified.

How do you prove that the people the US claims are terrorists (apart from the more or less prominent ones) actually relate to al-Qaeda or any equivalent organisation?

It's pretty hard to prove anything given the fact that most of the information relating to those killings remains classified.

How do you prove that the people the US claims are terrorists (apart from the more or less prominent ones) actually relate to al-Qaeda or any equivalent organisation?

More importantly, how do you prove that Al Qaeda isn't still a faction of the CIA?

So going by the fact that "the information remains classified" you have rather backed up my point that you have come up with baseless accusations. Because any evidence is classified. Or do you have some sort of special access that the rest of us don't have the privilege off?

You seem to be overly protective of the US government.

& you seem to be lacking evidence.

I am not protecting the USA, I am saying you look like a muppet if you can't prove something. You have no evidence for what is frankly an absurd accusation.

The number of civilian deaths have steadily gone down over the last few years. Given the fact that there were no known breakthroughs in drone technology or quality of intelligence it can be assumed that drone strikes are now an effective deterrent preventing civilian cooperation with extremists.

Or could it be the use of drone strike has increased because they are an effective weapon that kills many insurgents whilst risking minimal lives on our own side. Just food for thought.

They would've used it much more broadly. Plus, it was never a 'faction', merely a bunch of mercenaries whose relationship with their employer soured.

The number of civilian deaths have steadily gone down over the last few years. Given the fact that there were no known breakthroughs in drone technology or quality of intelligence it can be assumed that drone strikes are now an effective deterrent preventing civilian cooperation with extremists.