SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
"This decision will hide from the public the government's own tally of the total number of deaths it causes every year in its lethal force program," Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's national security project. (Photo: U.S. Air Force/Lt Col Leslie Pratt/Public Domain)
'Shameful': Trump Ends Rule Requiring US to Disclose Number of Civilians Killed by Drone Strikes
"Trump has been killing an obscene amount of civilians with drones. Now he's making things more secretive."
Mar 05, 2019
In his latest attack on transparency, President Donald Trump on Wednesday rescinded a rule requiring U.S. intelligence officials to publicly disclose the number of civilians killed by drone strikes.
"This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration's actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims."
--Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA"Shameful, indefensible, dangerous," tweeted Elizabeth Beavers, associate policy director with progressive advocacy group Indivisible. "Time for Congress to step in."
Trump used an executive order to scrap the three-year-old rule, which instructed the Director of National Intelligence to produce an annual report on all civilians killed by U.S. drone strikes outside of official war zones.
As Common Dreams reported at the time, the White House ignored last May's deadline for disclosing civilian deaths from drone strikes and suggested it could rescind the transparency requirement.
Now that the rule has been canceled, critics feared that the Trump administration will be able to continue expanding the use of drone strikes overseas with even less oversight.
"This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration's actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims," Daphne Eviatar, director of security with human rights at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement. "The public deserves to know how many civilians are killed by U.S. actions. This is an unconscionable decision and in complete disregard of fundamental human rights."
\u201cNot only have USG investigations of civilian casualties been minimal, but now they're not going to bother to even try to report the #'s of civilians the US is killing anymore. Another way of hiding consequences of US's illegal & endless global war. @DRovera @WritesRights\u201d— Daphne Eviatar (@Daphne Eviatar) 1551896284
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's national security project, said that while the drone transparency requirement that Trump scrapped was "imperfect," it still provided an "important official record of deaths caused by the military and, critically, the CIA."
"This decision will hide from the public the government's own tally of the total number of deaths it causes every year in its lethal force program," Shamsi said in a statement. "Now, the government is also no longer committed to providing reasons why its total death count is different from independent credible reports by media and rights groups."
The executive order comes as reports show that Trump has escalated the drone wars he inherited from his predecessor Barack Obama, who was widely criticized for expanding the use of drone strikes.
"Since Donald Trump took office, the U.S. military has approximately tripled the number of strikes that it conducts each year in Somalia, according to figures confirmed by the Pentagon," Amanda Sperber, a freelance journalist based in East Africa, reported in The Nation last month.
Trump has similarly ramped up the use of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.
"In 2009 and 2010, Obama launched 186 drone strikes on Yemen, Somalia, and especially Pakistan. Donald Trump's drone strikes during his own first two years on the three pivotal undeclared battlefields, however, eclipse Obama's," according to a Daily Beast analysis published last November. "In 2017 and 2018 to date, Trump has launched 238 drone strikes there."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
In his latest attack on transparency, President Donald Trump on Wednesday rescinded a rule requiring U.S. intelligence officials to publicly disclose the number of civilians killed by drone strikes.
"This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration's actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims."
--Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA"Shameful, indefensible, dangerous," tweeted Elizabeth Beavers, associate policy director with progressive advocacy group Indivisible. "Time for Congress to step in."
Trump used an executive order to scrap the three-year-old rule, which instructed the Director of National Intelligence to produce an annual report on all civilians killed by U.S. drone strikes outside of official war zones.
As Common Dreams reported at the time, the White House ignored last May's deadline for disclosing civilian deaths from drone strikes and suggested it could rescind the transparency requirement.
Now that the rule has been canceled, critics feared that the Trump administration will be able to continue expanding the use of drone strikes overseas with even less oversight.
"This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration's actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims," Daphne Eviatar, director of security with human rights at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement. "The public deserves to know how many civilians are killed by U.S. actions. This is an unconscionable decision and in complete disregard of fundamental human rights."
\u201cNot only have USG investigations of civilian casualties been minimal, but now they're not going to bother to even try to report the #'s of civilians the US is killing anymore. Another way of hiding consequences of US's illegal & endless global war. @DRovera @WritesRights\u201d— Daphne Eviatar (@Daphne Eviatar) 1551896284
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's national security project, said that while the drone transparency requirement that Trump scrapped was "imperfect," it still provided an "important official record of deaths caused by the military and, critically, the CIA."
"This decision will hide from the public the government's own tally of the total number of deaths it causes every year in its lethal force program," Shamsi said in a statement. "Now, the government is also no longer committed to providing reasons why its total death count is different from independent credible reports by media and rights groups."
The executive order comes as reports show that Trump has escalated the drone wars he inherited from his predecessor Barack Obama, who was widely criticized for expanding the use of drone strikes.
"Since Donald Trump took office, the U.S. military has approximately tripled the number of strikes that it conducts each year in Somalia, according to figures confirmed by the Pentagon," Amanda Sperber, a freelance journalist based in East Africa, reported in The Nation last month.
Trump has similarly ramped up the use of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.
"In 2009 and 2010, Obama launched 186 drone strikes on Yemen, Somalia, and especially Pakistan. Donald Trump's drone strikes during his own first two years on the three pivotal undeclared battlefields, however, eclipse Obama's," according to a Daily Beast analysis published last November. "In 2017 and 2018 to date, Trump has launched 238 drone strikes there."
In his latest attack on transparency, President Donald Trump on Wednesday rescinded a rule requiring U.S. intelligence officials to publicly disclose the number of civilians killed by drone strikes.
"This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration's actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims."
--Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA"Shameful, indefensible, dangerous," tweeted Elizabeth Beavers, associate policy director with progressive advocacy group Indivisible. "Time for Congress to step in."
Trump used an executive order to scrap the three-year-old rule, which instructed the Director of National Intelligence to produce an annual report on all civilians killed by U.S. drone strikes outside of official war zones.
As Common Dreams reported at the time, the White House ignored last May's deadline for disclosing civilian deaths from drone strikes and suggested it could rescind the transparency requirement.
Now that the rule has been canceled, critics feared that the Trump administration will be able to continue expanding the use of drone strikes overseas with even less oversight.
"This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration's actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims," Daphne Eviatar, director of security with human rights at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement. "The public deserves to know how many civilians are killed by U.S. actions. This is an unconscionable decision and in complete disregard of fundamental human rights."
\u201cNot only have USG investigations of civilian casualties been minimal, but now they're not going to bother to even try to report the #'s of civilians the US is killing anymore. Another way of hiding consequences of US's illegal & endless global war. @DRovera @WritesRights\u201d— Daphne Eviatar (@Daphne Eviatar) 1551896284
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's national security project, said that while the drone transparency requirement that Trump scrapped was "imperfect," it still provided an "important official record of deaths caused by the military and, critically, the CIA."
"This decision will hide from the public the government's own tally of the total number of deaths it causes every year in its lethal force program," Shamsi said in a statement. "Now, the government is also no longer committed to providing reasons why its total death count is different from independent credible reports by media and rights groups."
The executive order comes as reports show that Trump has escalated the drone wars he inherited from his predecessor Barack Obama, who was widely criticized for expanding the use of drone strikes.
"Since Donald Trump took office, the U.S. military has approximately tripled the number of strikes that it conducts each year in Somalia, according to figures confirmed by the Pentagon," Amanda Sperber, a freelance journalist based in East Africa, reported in The Nation last month.
Trump has similarly ramped up the use of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.
"In 2009 and 2010, Obama launched 186 drone strikes on Yemen, Somalia, and especially Pakistan. Donald Trump's drone strikes during his own first two years on the three pivotal undeclared battlefields, however, eclipse Obama's," according to a Daily Beast analysis published last November. "In 2017 and 2018 to date, Trump has launched 238 drone strikes there."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.