Poll Reveals Widespread Support for US Drone Program 'That Doesn't Exist'

[Ichingcarpenter]

Even more troubling, close to half of all respondents said they would back drone strikes where law-abiding Americans were possible collateral damage


Despite President Barack Obama's recent admission that drones had inadvertently killed two innocent hostages during strikes on suspected militants in Pakistan, a new poll released Friday reveals that nearly 75 percent of Americans say it's acceptable to use such drones to kill an American citizen abroad if that person is said to have "joined a terror organization."

The poll, conducted by the Associated Press and the GfK Group between April 23-27, also found that a majority—6 in 10—supports the use of drones to target "terrorists" in general. Only 13 percent oppose the use of drones altogether, the poll said, and another 24 percent don't feel strongly either way.


However, as Dan Froomkin and Jon Schwarz point out at The Intercept on Friday, the poll responses belie a lack of understanding among average Americans of the true nature of the U.S. drone program:

The problem is the U.S. drone program does much more than kill members of al-Qaida: it also kills a significant number of civilians, and drone operators often don’t even know exactly whom they're targeting. So the AP's own poll doesn’t show, as the story claims, "broad support among the U.S. public for a targeted killing program begun under President George W. Bush and expanded dramatically under Obama." What it does show is broad support for a drone program that doesn’t exist.

Froomkin and Schwarz highlight this passage from the AP's own reporting: "The poll did not include questions about foreign civilian casualties or about public confidence in the government's assertion that the vast majority of those killed in drone strikes are terrorists."



http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/05/01/poll-reveals-widespread-support-us-drone-program-doesnt-exist

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people. Albert Camus

[delrem]

2. It's troubling that support for the open ended "War On Terror" seems to be increasing

and increasing across the board, in the USA. After 14 years of steady escalation, steady expansion.

I see it on DU, too -- a closing of minds. As in "no boots on the ground, no American blood, then bomb them, bomb them and have a pizza and beer, then bomb them some more, because we're the good guys (belch) and they're... terrorists."

[Blue_Tires]

3. This makes no sense whatsoever:

"The problem is the U.S. drone program does much more than kill members of al-Qaida: it also kills a significant number of civilians, and drone operators often don’t even know exactly whom they're targeting."

The exact same can be said of pilots dropping bombs from jets, which is actually much, much more indiscriminate...