CIA Attacking Unknown Targets With Drones

I have posted before about how the United States is misusing drones to attack people in countries we are not at war with -- and how many of the victims of these attacks turn out to be innocent women and children. But the true picture may be even worse than that.

Starting in September of 2010, the United States (mainly the CIA) directed 114 drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These attacks, according to the government, are only supposed to be directed at either Taliban insurgents or al-Queda operatives. But in more than 25% of those drone attacks, the government now admits it really didn't know who they were attacking -- and simply called those attacked as "foreign fighters" or "other militants".

That means they have repeatedly attacked individuals and groups that they did not know for sure were terrorists. They just thought they might be terrorists because they were acting suspiciously or had been in contact with suspicious persons. These people might not have been terrorists at all, and show just how badly our drone program is being run. It should be unacceptable to attack anyone when we are not sure who they are -- and even if we are sure about a terrorist, they should not be attacked if surrounded by innocent civilians (especially women and children).

Innocent civilians are not "collateral damage", but human beings that have been murdered by our government. I don't have a problem with using drones to attack enemy soldiers in a war zone, but they should not be used to indiscriminately attack unknown people or in a situation where civilians are known to be. Doing this is not just wrong, but it creates more enemies for this country than it kills.

Why are we still in Afghanistan anyway? We are not accomplishing anything except to prop up one of the most corrupt governments in the world, and to run up the death toll of both Americans and Afghanis. It is time to end this nonsense and bring ALL our soldiers back home. And it is time to prohibit the use of drones outside of a war zone -- and then only if we can be sure no innocent civilians are there.