The Casualties of the Drone War
Since the War on Terror began, the US military has used aerial bombing campaigns to avoid American combat losses. But they’ve led to a staggering number of civilian deaths.
Photography by Cole Wilson
Azmat Khan is a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and an investigative reporter for the New York Times who covers the human cost of war, including through a multi-award-winning, yearslong investigation into the civilian casualties of US air strikes in the Middle East.
Anand Gopal is a professor at the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University and a journalist who investigates the war on terror. His book about the lives of Afghans caught in the crosshairs of the US war against the Taliban was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize.
Reporting on the ground, Khan and Gopal found that civilian casualties in the Middle East and Afghanistan far outstrip the death count acknowledged by the US military. Together, their investigations of the toll of American wars reveal systematic human rights abuses and a culture of military cover-ups — with damning moral implications.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.