“As the wars wind down,” is a phrase often heard in Washington these days, whether from Time’s Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson or ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller, or Veterans for Common Sense. The suggestion, not unfounded, is that as the United States withdraws from Iraq and plans to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014, the U.S. soldiers will be leaving foreign battlefields.
But don’t expect the worldwide drone war now being waged in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen to wind down. To the contrary, an Air Force announcement posted online this week indicates the Pentagon anticipates more than quadrupling the size of the global drone war over the next four years. If that happens the number of suspected terrorists killed, the “deep resentment” provoked in the targeted countries, and the terrible civilian casualties are likely to grow as well.
All told, the Air Force foresees Predator and Reaper sorties increasing from the current level of 15 a day to 72 per day in 2016. With the vast majority of sorties to be conducted by the weaponized Reaper, it seems reasonable to assume that the increase in sorties will result in increased attacks — and civilian casualties
Thanks Jefferson moley