Public opinion about US drone attacks

In February 2013, Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind poll conducted a study to measure U.S. public opinion on the use of drones. The study was conducted nationwide, and it asked registered voters whether they "approve or disapprove of the U.S. Military using drones to carry out attacks abroad on people and other targets deemed a threat to the U.S.?" The results showed that three in every four (75%) of voters approved of the U.S. Military using drones to carry out attacks, while (13%) disapproved.[1]

Another poll in February 2013 conducted by the Huffington Post was more equivocal: 56% of Americans support using drones to kill "high-level terrorists," 13% support using drones to kill "anyone associated with terrorists," 16% thought no one should be killed with drones, and 15% were not sure.[2]

Outside America, support for drones is far lower. A Pew Research study of 20 countries in 2012 found widespread international opposition to US drone killings.[3] One reason for this is that there is a shortage of media coverage for drone strikes and the procedure involved with them. This can cause a sense of unease pertaining to the use of drones.[4] The web aggregator blog 3 Quarks Daily in partnership with the Netherlands based Dialogue Advisory Group hosted a symposium on drone attacks in 2013.[5]

A 2015 poll conducted by Jacquelyn Schneider and Julia Macdonald for Center for New American Security qualified some of this perceived support for drone strikes by giving respondents a chance to choose between drones, manned, neither platform, or both to conduct air strikes. They found that, while the American public was more likely to support unmanned than manned air strikes by approximately 10-15 percentage points, this support for unmanned was much less pronounced than previous polls suggested. In fact, in many cases the U.S. public supported air strikes from both manned and unmanned at similar rates.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind, (February 7, 2013). Public says it's illegal to target Americans abroad as some question CIA drone attacks (press release)
  2. ↑ "Drone Program Poll: The Public Does Not Uncritically Embrace Targeted Killings". The Huffington Post. 15 February 2013. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  3. ↑ "U.S. Use of Drones, Under New Scrutiny, Has Been Widely Opposed Abroad". Pew Research Center. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  4. ↑ Debating Drones, in the Open by David Carr, The New York Times, February 10, 2013
  5. ↑ Opposing Perspectives on the Drone Debate by Bradley Jay Strawser, Palgrave Macmillan [2014], ISBN 9781137432612
  6. ↑ "U.S. Public Support for Drone Strikes: When Do Americans Prefer Unmanned Over Manned Platforms?". Center for a New American Security. 20 September 2016. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
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