Drone War Exposed: Jeremy Scahill on U.S. Kill Program's Secrets & the Whistleblower Who Leaked Them

 

One of the most secretive military campaigns in U.S. history is under the microscope like never before. In a major exposébased on leaked government documents, The Intercept has published the most in-depth look at the U.S. drone assassination program to date. "The Drone Papers" exposed the inner workings of how the drone war is waged, from how targets are identified to who decides to kill. They reveal a number of flaws, including that strikes have resulted in large part from electronic communications data, or "signals intelligence," that officials acknowledge is unreliable. The documents also undermine government claims that the drone strikes have been precise. During one five-month period of an operation in Afghanistan, nine out of 10 casualties were not the intended target. And among other revelations, the documents also corroborate previous reports that all foreign males in a target zone have been treated as militants—unless they are proven innocent after death.

Sean Naylor, who’s a great investigative journalist with deep ties in the military, in his new book that he wrote, he details this story of how they struck a target because he was taller than the other people around him, and they thought that he—that that meant that he was sort of an Arab or a foreign fighter. And it turned out that he was of average size and that the people around him were children.

And they killed them all, with the exception of, I think, one survivor.

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Drone War Exposed: Jeremy Scahill on U.S. Kill Program's Secrets & the Whistleblower Who Leaked Them | Democracy Now!