Drone targeting presumed every military-age male a combatant unless proven innocent posthumously.
Evidence
Deep within the Times article, it was revealed that the Obama administration was able to make claims about low civilian casualty counts in drone strikes because it defined as a “combatant” (against whom drone warfare is sanctioned) any military age male who lived in an area being targeted by drone strikes “unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” Such a definition epitomizes racist dehumanization as it exposes tens of millions to vulnerability to premature death, an important dimension of racialization. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 508
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- DEFINE: Specifies the operative definition of ‘combatant’ that enabled the kill list and low-casualty claims.
Related
- The kill-list definition presumed combatant status for military-age men unless posthumously proven innocent (similarity 0.94)
- The US counted all military-age males in strike zones as combatants (similarity 0.83)
- Drone surveillance cannot reliably distinguish combatants from civilians (similarity 0.80)
- Most drone strikes target suspects whose identity is unknown at the moment of killing. (similarity 0.79)
- Drone strikes killed up to 9,000 people including 2,000 civilians and 500 children. (similarity 0.78)