Dr. Cornel West on foreign policy: what the evidence says · JRE #1325
SUBJECT: FOREIGN POLICY
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
what was the last time we checked it was in the 90 percent right of people that are that are killed by drones are actually innocent it's some insane number
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
West asserted that about 90 percent of people killed in U.S. drone strikes are innocent civilians. Documented reviews of drone strike casualty data place civilian casualty rates far below that figure. A Combating Terrorism Center at West Point analysis cites New America Foundation and Long War Journal studies estimating civilians made up roughly 5 to 6 percent of those killed in Pakistan drone strikes between 2004 and 2011, based on tallies of press accounts. A Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic review of the same trackers' 2011 Pakistan data found that the Long War Journal and New America Foundation likely undercounted civilian deaths, with its own recount of 72 to 155 civilians running as much as 2,300 percent higher than the New America Foundation's minimum tally and 140 percent higher than the Long War Journal's for that year, but still nowhere near a rate of 90 percent of everyone killed. Researchers across these sources agree that official government tallies understate civilian harm and that all estimates are hampered by limited on-the-ground access and reliance on contested 'militant' labeling from anonymous officials, but no reviewed estimate approaches the 90 percent figure West cited. The claim appears to conflate or exaggerate a narrower, contested statistic into a general figure not supported by available casualty-tracking research.