The value of human life in America is periodically assessed by various US government departments and agencies as part of the effort to justify the cost of safety regulations. For example, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) has used values of around $6 million per death to justify recent decisions to impose regulations that require stronger roofs on cars.
The values range from $7.9 million per victim at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to $ 9.1 million at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a report in NY Times.
The American government's concern for human life in America is quite laudable. But it raises another question: How do American policies and actions abroad value human lives in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine and Yemen? Why are they focusing their energies on optimizing the methods and costs of killing people more efficiently in these places and not valuing innocent lives? Why the double standard? And why are the mainstream American media, like Newsweek which justifies these killings, complicit in this ongoing murder of the innocents?
Let's take the case of innocent victims who are dying in "targeted" assassinations by the American CIA Reaper and Predator drones in Pakistan.
Research by New America Foundation found that civilians made up 32 percent of deaths from drone strikes in Pakistan. This count is appears to be low, as its data is taken from major U.S. and English-language Pakistani news outlet reports and accepts their characterizations of "civilians" and "militants."
The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) conducted an on-the ground investigation of American drone strikes (from 2009 and early 2010), and concluded that the nine attacks they surveyed produced a total of 30 civilian deaths (10/10). The CIVIC report points out that Pakistani media outlets, based on government figures, put the civilian death rate from drones at about 90 percent.
The increasing deaths of innocent civilians from American CIA drones are not helping enhance the security of the Americans or Pakistanis. On the contrary, such illegal and immoral tactics are fueling more revenge attacks by suicide bombers in Pakistan.
It is time for the US to cease such strikes and adequately compensate those innocent individuals and families who have suffered from the brutal attacks from the sky.
Here's a video clip of CIVIC report on innocent civilian victims of US drone hits:
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Valuing Life in Afghanistan and Pakistan
$50 Million Per Dead Taliban
Obama's High-Tech Warfare
Newsweek Defends Drone Hits
Campaign For Innocent Victims in Conflict
