8 ms·

>Though he has yet to start a new war, he had drastically increased bombing and drone strikes leading to far more civilian deaths than Obama. Got some source d

>Though he has yet to start a new war, he had drastically increased bombing and drone strikes leading to far more civilian deaths than Obama. Got some source data that backs up this claim?

boomboomsubban 6y ago
Sure. Finding easy to read statistics is fairly difficult though, particularly with Trump ending some of the previous US reports on the subjects. https://theintercept.com/2019/10/02/trump-impeachment-civilian-casualties-war/ https://theintercept.com/2019/10/02/trump-impeachment-civili... https://www.mintpressnews.com/trumps-drone-kill-rate-80-times-greater-than-under-bush/237075/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/trumps-drone-kill-rate-80-time... https://airwars.org/news-and-investigations/airwars-annual-report-2019/ https://airwars.org/news-and-investigations/airwars-annual-r...
- somesortofsystm 6y ago
  Obama was the one who changed the rules about reporting civilian casualties. And none of these articles include any detail about Obama's track record. They seem to be ignoring his stats in an effort to pitch their story against Trump.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    >Obama was the one who changed the rules about reporting civilian casualties. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-signs-executive-order-canceling-public-reports-on-civilian-drone-strike-deaths/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-signs-executive-order-can... >And none of these articles include any detail about Obama's track record. The first one is a bit lacking on Obama. The second compares the two numbers, and the third is an annual report. Some of the reports data goes back for years, others are in previous reports.
nksprzak 6y ago
I found this to be the source of data for articles that make that claim. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/drone-wars-the-full-data https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/dro...
- somesortofsystm 6y ago
  Strangely omits Obama's first 4 years. I wonder why that is.
  - nksprzak 6y ago
    https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/explainers/our-methodology https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/explainers/our-methodo... The US government started publishing its own estimates of how many people it has killed in counter-terrorism strikes “outside areas of active hostilities”. This phrase was presumed to refer to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya (not including the NATO bombing campaign in 2011 and the US strikes against ISIS around Sirte in 2016) though no US government official would confirm specifically where was outside active hostilities. The US data release was part of an executive order that included a commitment that the US would continue to publish such figures annually. However it remains to be seen if this executive order will survive into the Trump administration. Unfortunately the first data release, on July 1 2016 comprised of the total number US counter-terrorism strikes in all countries outside of areas of active hostilities for all years between January 2009 and December 2015, as well as the minimum and maximum estimates for the total number of combatants and non-combatants killed." Here's their article on Obama's presidency which includes data on the first 4 years. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-07-01/obama-drone-casualty-numbers-a-fraction-of-those-recorded-by-the-bureau https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-07-01/oba...
    - jerome-jh 6y ago
      A quick look at TBIJ raw data (https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/drone-wars-the-full-data https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/dro...), under Trump, air strikes: - went on in Afghanistan on +/- the same pace - scaled down in Pakistan and Yemen to almost zero - scaled up in Somalia, although they were already intensive in 2016 So it is a bit of a mixed answer although overall it appeared to go down compared to Obama presidency. Now of course there is the question whether a war can be won from the sky, and whether the CIA is pursuing its own goal or Trump administration's goals. My opinion is that air strikes alone do more bad than good in the long term, because basically there is no way it could put an end a conflict.

>Though he has yet to start a new war, he had drastically increased bombing and drone strikes leading to far more civilian deaths than Obama. Got some source data that backs up this claim?

boomboomsubban 6y ago

Sure. Finding easy to read statistics is fairly difficult though, particularly with Trump ending some of the previous US reports on the subjects. https://theintercept.com/2019/10/02/trump-impeachment-civilian-casualties-war/ https://theintercept.com/2019/10/02/trump-impeachment-civili... https://www.mintpressnews.com/trumps-drone-kill-rate-80-times-greater-than-under-bush/237075/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/trumps-drone-kill-rate-80-time... https://airwars.org/news-and-investigations/airwars-annual-report-2019/ https://airwars.org/news-and-investigations/airwars-annual-r...

somesortofsystm 6y ago
Obama was the one who changed the rules about reporting civilian casualties. And none of these articles include any detail about Obama's track record. They seem to be ignoring his stats in an effort to pitch their story against Trump.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  >Obama was the one who changed the rules about reporting civilian casualties. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-signs-executive-order-canceling-public-reports-on-civilian-drone-strike-deaths/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-signs-executive-order-can... >And none of these articles include any detail about Obama's track record. The first one is a bit lacking on Obama. The second compares the two numbers, and the third is an annual report. Some of the reports data goes back for years, others are in previous reports.

nksprzak 6y ago

I found this to be the source of data for articles that make that claim. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/drone-wars-the-full-data https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/dro...

somesortofsystm 6y ago
Strangely omits Obama's first 4 years. I wonder why that is.
- nksprzak 6y ago
  https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/explainers/our-methodology https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/explainers/our-methodo... The US government started publishing its own estimates of how many people it has killed in counter-terrorism strikes “outside areas of active hostilities”. This phrase was presumed to refer to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya (not including the NATO bombing campaign in 2011 and the US strikes against ISIS around Sirte in 2016) though no US government official would confirm specifically where was outside active hostilities. The US data release was part of an executive order that included a commitment that the US would continue to publish such figures annually. However it remains to be seen if this executive order will survive into the Trump administration. Unfortunately the first data release, on July 1 2016 comprised of the total number US counter-terrorism strikes in all countries outside of areas of active hostilities for all years between January 2009 and December 2015, as well as the minimum and maximum estimates for the total number of combatants and non-combatants killed." Here's their article on Obama's presidency which includes data on the first 4 years. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-07-01/obama-drone-casualty-numbers-a-fraction-of-those-recorded-by-the-bureau https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-07-01/oba...
  - jerome-jh 6y ago
    A quick look at TBIJ raw data (https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/drone-wars-the-full-data https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/dro...), under Trump, air strikes: - went on in Afghanistan on +/- the same pace - scaled down in Pakistan and Yemen to almost zero - scaled up in Somalia, although they were already intensive in 2016 So it is a bit of a mixed answer although overall it appeared to go down compared to Obama presidency. Now of course there is the question whether a war can be won from the sky, and whether the CIA is pursuing its own goal or Trump administration's goals. My opinion is that air strikes alone do more bad than good in the long term, because basically there is no way it could put an end a conflict.