Map of drone attacks in Pakistan

Drone attacks in Pakistan

I found the above map via boingboing. It shows attacks by unmanned robotic drones committed by the US within Pakistan. The analysts who produced it write:

“Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 18 in 2010, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 834 and 1,216 individuals, of whom around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about 2/3 of total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32%.”

Of course, what defines a militant in this kind of situation could be pretty elastic. But what this seems to be showing us is that at least a third of the people we are sending robots to kill are completely innocent Pakistani civilians.