{"id":57345,"date":"2015-05-04T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=57345"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:24:42","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:24:42","slug":"ap-americans-strongly-support-different-imaginary-drone-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/ap-americans-strongly-support-different-imaginary-drone-program\/","title":{"rendered":"AP: Americans Strongly Support Different, Imaginary Drone Program"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Illustration<\/a>

Illustration of Droney by Tom Tomorrow<\/p><\/div>\n

1 May 2015 – <\/em>The headline on the Associated Press story is unambiguous: \u201cAP Poll: Americans approve of drone strikes on terrorists<\/a>.\u201d And that\u2019s true! According to the\u00a0AP\u2019s poll<\/a>, 60 percent of Americans support the use of drones to \u201ctarget and\u00a0kill people belonging to terrorist groups like al-Qaida.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is the U.S. drone\u00a0program\u00a0does much more than kill members of al-Qaida: it also kills a\u00a0significant number of civilians<\/a>,\u00a0and drone operators often\u00a0don\u2019t even know<\/a>\u00a0exactly whom they\u2019re targeting. So the AP\u2019s own poll doesn\u2019t show, as the story claims,\u00a0\u201cbroad support among the U.S. public for a targeted killing program begun under President George W. Bush and expanded dramatically under Obama.\u201d What it does show is broad\u00a0support for a drone program that doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

And strangely enough, if you get all the way to the story\u2019s ninth paragraph, you learn that the AP\u2019s own reporters have a pretty good hunch that the previous eight paragraphs were bullshit:<\/p>\n

The poll did not include questions about foreign civilian casualties or about public confidence in the government\u2019s assertion that the vast majority of those killed in drone strikes are terrorists. Independent groups have estimated that at least hundreds, and possibly thousands, of noncombatants have been killed in the operations, a count the U.S. government disputes.<\/em><\/p>\n

Drone skeptics say most polls on the subject frame the question with the assumption that those targeted are terrorists, when it\u2019s not clear that is always the case.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost everyone, of course, is going to support killing people who are trying to kill us, but that\u2019s not who we are necessarily targeting in each case,\u201d said Sarah Kreps, an associate professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kreps examined poll data and found that if respondents are confronted with evidence of errors and civilian casualties in some drone strikes, support for the strikes drops below a majority.<\/em><\/p>\n

The story was written by Ken Dilanian (@kendilanianap<\/a>) and Emily Swanson (@el_swan<\/a>). Was this their way of saying: Our pollsters are a bunch of propagandists who ask questions to elicit the answers they want? Or are they saying: Some people think we\u2019re not asking the right question, but just we don\u2019t care?<\/p>\n

We invite their response, and will update the post with any we get.<\/p>\n

The poll was conducted for the AP by GfK Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. First drone question is: \u201cDo you favor or oppose the United States using small unmanned aircraft called \u2018drones\u2019 to target and kill people belonging to terrorist groups like al-Qaida overseas?\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019d prefer a question like: \u201cDo you support the U.S. government killing Americans who it claims to be involved in terrorism, without charges, trial or a lawyer?\u201d<\/p>\n

What questions would you propose? Post them in Join the discussion!<\/em><\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

Email the authors: dan.froomkin@theintercept.com<\/a>, jon.schwarz@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 May 2015 – The headline on the Associated Press story is unambiguous: \u201cAP Poll: 60 percent of Americans approve of drone strikes on terrorists.\u201d Strangely enough, if you get to the story\u2019s ninth paragraph, you learn that the AP\u2019s own reporters have a pretty good hunch that the previous eight paragraphs were bullshit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}