This data journalism piece was made in response to a Linked Data challenge
The challenge was posed under the wings of the Platform Linked Data Netherlands (PLDN). To be specific, the challenge was put to make a linked data based application that allows some form of data journalism to be executed on data about drone attacks. The challenge was posed by Pieter van Everdingen. The initial data set was converted and provided by Wouter Beek. The particulars of this data set are below. The team that picked up the challenge consists of Rob Lemmens, Paul Roodenburg, Stanislav Ronzhin, Sam Ubels, and Rein van 't Veer.
Data
The data was procured from the Bureau for Investigative Journalism through an open publication of data on drone attacks. This data was then converted and enriched to Linked Data. Due to the licensing of the original set, the data itself cannot be provided at the moment. For the queries below, the data must be pasted in the box below.
The curated data was committed to the repository this page is served from, see here
Software
Other
Are drone attacks more effective than airstrikes?
Drone strikes have been implemented by the United States government in order to be able to attack its enemies without having to put US army personnel in danger. Furthermore, they have a quicker response time, which allows for more efficient action when a target has been spotted. However, does this come at a cost? Are drone strikes more effective than airstrikes when it comes to the kill count and the collateral damage?
The data suggest that there is little to no difference based on the analysis of drone (217 strikes) and airstrikes (114 strikes) in Yemen and Pakistan between 2006 and 2015. Even though drone strikes have a lower average kill count, they also have a lower average number of civilian casualties. If you compare these numbers both airstrikes and drone strikes have an average of 14.8 percent of civilian casualties among the dead.
Justified Outrage?
The ongoing drone strikes on militant targets by the US has sparked outrage among the public in Pakistan as well as in the US. Even though more precise attacks are promised, using new technology, civilian casualties are still not ruled out. But how justified is this outrage, are there really that many civilian casualties or are matters being exaggerated to create a negative image of the US?
Out of the 675 strikes that are analysed in our data, more than a quarter (177 strikes) are responsible for at least one civilian casualty. Of these 177 strikes, 89 strikes have caused 5 or more civilian casualties and 41 caused 10 or more civilian casualties. The most controversial strike was a strike on an alleged Taliban training camp, which turned out to be a school. 82 civilians died among which 70 children.
Range in reports
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