Justice

Which President Has Ordered 8x More Drone Strikes, Bush or Obama?

September 29th 2014

In his latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver explored "the third most annoying thing in the sky" after mosquitoes and plastic bags caught in a breeze: drones. 

During the Obama administration, he stated, we've launched eight times the number of drone strikes than President George Bush, and as Oliver also notes, public sentiment is not necessarily against such strikes either.

In fact, according to Gallup, 65% of Americans support drone attacks on terrorists abroad.

While Oliver notes that drone technology is highly sophisticated, one of the more imprecise elements of their use is whether they are truly targeting "imminent threats" and how many people (including potentially innocent casualties) they have specifically killed.

Unquestionably, drones instill a trepidation among mass-populations of civilians in countries such as Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as this Senate testimony indicates.

There are also many loopholes and vague justifications under which drones are regularly used.

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