By akademiotoelektronik, 06/06/2022

Drones are the least worst weapon of war Slate.fr

Play time: 6 minutes

"UNITED NATIONS: Drones killed more Afghan civilians in 2012." This is the title of a recent article by the Associated Press. It started like this:

The message seems clear: More and more Afghan civilians have been killed by drones.

That's not true. Drones do kill civilians, but they account for a lower percentage of casualties than all other weapons of war combined. Therefore, they are the worst weapons of war ever-except all other weapons.

What does this UN report say? There was no increase in civilian casualties caused by the United States and its allies last year. They even fell by 46%. More specifically, civilian casualties caused by "air strikes" decreased by 42%. Why are you doing this?

Air raid failure

The account of this incident in the United Nations report (page 31) is a perfect example of a completely failed air raid. An eyewitness said: "At about 4 pm, I heard shelling." After finding the girl who was killed and wounded, the jet attacked us with a machine gun and another woman was killed. "

A jet plane. Machine guns. Bombing. Les drones ne sont pas en cause. The bomb is the problem.

Look at the number of flights in Afghanistan last year. There has been an increase in drone attacks. According to the United Nations report, there were 212 more drone attacks in Afghanistan in 2012 than in 2011. At the same time, the number of conventional, man-made air strikes has dropped. What was the result? Another 16 civilians were killed in drone strikes and another 124 were killed in bombardments. As a result, 109 lives were saved.

On Monday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai banned his security forces from demanding NATO air strikes on residential areas. Why are you doing this? Because a week ago, an air raid killed 10 civilians. What kind of air raid? Bombing.

A constant scene

No matter what war happens, the same terrible story always starts again: Sniper, innocent death. During the Second World War, civilian deaths as a percentage of total war losses were estimated to be between 40 and 67 percent. In South Korea, the figure has risen to 70%. In Vietnam, according to some calculations, Americans kill one civilian for every two North Vietnamese soldiers killed. During the Gulf War, we probably killed one or two Iraqi soldiers for every civilian, despite initial reports of large numbers of Iraqi deaths.

In Kosovo, a post-war commission determined that about 500 Serb civilians were killed in NATO bombing operations, which is close to the 600 Serb soldiers killed in the same period. In Afghanistan, civilian casualties between 2001 and 2011 are estimated to account for between 60 and 150 percent of Taliban deaths. In Iraq, it is estimated that more than 120,000 civilians have died since the 2003 invasion. That is more than five times the number of casualties among insurgents and soldiers defending Saddam Hussein's regime.

How to explain the number of civilian casualties? You just have to look at these numbers carefully. In Vietnam, for example, aerial bombardments in 1969 killed more than 50,000 North Vietnamese civilians. In this war, indiscriminate weapons (bombs, shells, mines) kill more people every year than rifles and grenades.

In Kosovo, ammunition is more precise and NATO is as cautious as possible. But according to a post-war report submitted to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, NATO insists on not allowing aircraft to fly below 15,000 feet (5000 m)-Rules adopted to "minimize the risk of pilot loss"-" This often leads to the pilot being unable to make visual contact with the target before hitting it. "

In Afghanistan, a 2008 report by Human Rights Watch determined that "civilian casualties in airstrikes against suspected Taliban targets are rare. Most of the civilian casualties from the airstrikes occurred in lightning strikes, often at the request of ground forces, who were suddenly attacked by insurgents. "

Advantages of UAV

Unmanned aerial vehicles can easily solve these problems. They can fly very low without worrying about losing the pilot. With them, it is possible to study a goal calmly, rather than react in drastic action. It can observe and guide the missile to the target. Replacing bombs with missiles also saved lives.

Il suffit de regarder ces données en provenance d’Irak: au cours des incidents qui ont provoqué des pertes civiles, l’arme la plus meurtrière de toute est… le kamikaze ceinturé d’explosifs. The second deadly is the aerial bombardment by coalition forces. En comparaison, les frappes de missiles ont tué moitié moins de civils par erreur.

What's the drone record? Three organizations studied their performance in Pakistan.

Balance sheet of unmanned aircraft

Since 2006, Long War Magazine says drones have killed 150 civilians, a figure compared to 2,500 al-Qaida and Taliban members. Therefore, the civilian casualty rate is 6%. The LWJ recorded 48 civilian deaths between 2010 and 2012, while the Taliban/al-Qaida death toll was around 1,500. That's 3%.

The New America Foundation uses far fewer methods of counting votes. But even using the NAF's high estimates, drones would kill 305 civilians compared to 1,500 to 2,700 enemy combatants, with a 15 percent casualty rate in the long run. The NAF and LWJ figures clearly show that civilian casualty rates have been falling. From 2010 to 2012, the NAF's highest figure estimated 90 civilian deaths, and its median estimate of combatant deaths was 1,410, with a civilian casualty rate of 6 percent.

The Bureau of Investigative Information has the highest number. The BIJ estimates that between 473 and 893 civilians have died since 2004, bringing the total to about 2,600 to 3,500. According to the BIJ's highest estimate, assuming that any loss other than civilian loss is a loss of combatants, we get a 35 percent figure, and if we get a lower estimate, we get a 22 percent figure. But once again, if we cut these figures year by year, they show quite radical improvement. Between 2010 and 2012, the BIJ recorded 172 civilian deaths, with a total death toll of 1616 and a civilian casualty rate of 12 percent.

Yemen

In Yemen, the NAF says drones killed 646 to 928 people, of whom 623 to 860 were al-Qaida fighters. Assuming that anyone considered a non-combatant is a civilian, the civilian casualty rate is between 4 and 8 percent.

LWJ's numbers in Yemen are less flattering: In 2011-2012, 35 civilians died and 274 combatants died, accounting for 13 percent. The BIJ does not provide the data it has on Yemen, but if we add all the civilian casualties it estimated in 2012, we get a ratio of 10-11 percent. In an attack that occurred in May 2012 and many witnesses attributed it to an aircraft, the BIJ reported more civilian deaths than combatants. If this attack is not included in the drone category, the civilian casualty rate will be reduced to 7% in 2012.

Unmanned aircraft have many defects, but there are no defects in civilian casualties

Of course, people may ask which of these vote counting systems is the most reliable. But the general trend is clear: The civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio of drones is lower than that of all other weapons deployed in recent wars. Of course, many civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflicts were killed by our enemies, not by us Americans.

But this is part of the equation. One argument in favor of drones is that when you send troops on the ground, fighting erupts, and the longer the fighting lasts, the greater the number of innocent victims. Drones can be compared with laparoscopic surgery: They minimize the size of incisions and the risk of infection.

Over the past few years, I have often expressed my concerns about drone use: The illusion of a "withdrawal" of U.S. troops, the militarization of the CIA, violations of the law, a lack of control by Congress, the risk of increased missions, and the proliferation of targeted attacks. But the issue of civilian casualties is not a valid argument against drones. On the contrary, this is their main advantage.

William Saletan

By Antoine Bourguilleau