Adam Jacobson – Transnational Security – Position Paper 5 – 10/17/15 Michael Boyle, in his article “The Costs and Consequences of Drone Warfare,” argues that the United States’ policy of targeted killing by drones has been less beneficial and accurate than the U.S. government claims. The leaked “Drone Papers,” released this past week, which show the drone program as significantly ineffective and haphazard, reinforce Boyle’s conclusions. The “Drone Papers,” a cache of official U.S. government documents about the drone program mostly in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, while not the fount of groundbreaking information their publishers claim, are valuable in confirming information from unnamed sources the media has previously reported. For example, the policy of classifying any “military-age males” killed by strikes who were not being targeted as combatants instead of civilians, previously reported (and noted by Boyle), is confirmed in the documents. In many strikes, the government designated any bystander killed along with or instead of the strike’s intended target an “Enemy Killed in Action” or “EKIA.” Presented alongside other statistics in the documents, like that over a six-month period, those killed by strikes were …show more content…
government must acknowledge the program’s mistakes and correct them to bring them in line with international law and a smarter strategy. Part of this is acknowledging the civilian deaths caused by strikes and apologizing to victims’ families. The U.S. has taken steps to reform the program, reportedly tightening the rules for targeting (along the lines of Boyle’s suggestion to only target High-Value enemies). But without transparency, there’s no way for the public to know what is actually happening and to evaluate the program’s success, except leaks. The war will continue in secret, any ineffectiveness hidden, except to the innocent