We’ve become so inured to the never-ending war in Afghanistan that most of us have stopped paying attention. Most of us have no idea that, of all the drone strikes conducted by the American military in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2004, only 1.5% have been against “high-value” targets. Now there’s an interactive website that collates every drone strike since 2004. The picture it paints is of a military and a country surprisingly indifferent to (non-American) life.
It’s helpful (and quite distressing) to note that 22.8% of all victims of American drone strikes are children or civilians. It’s almost enough to make one think about the propriety of considering those children and civilians as “collateral damage”…if we actually ever thought about the war in Afghanistan. (Yes, Virginia; we’re still at war in Afghanistan.)
Then again, if you’re not the one burying a child or a loved one, “collateral damage” is an antiseptic and dispassionate way of excusing the inexcusable.
