The infographic visualizes every single strike carried out in Pakistan, counting the reported deaths and categorizing them by civilian, children, high profile and "other." These refer to victims of a special type of attacks called "signature strikes," which target people that fit a certain profile based on evidence of suspicious behavior, even though the administration doesn't know their true identities and, according to critics, can't really tell if they're enemy combatants.
The infographic was designed by Wesley Grubbs, Nicholas Yahnke, and Mladen Balog of Pitch Interactive, a data visualization company. The company has been doing data visualization for around six years, but once a year it takes time off from regular work (their creations have been featured on Esquire and Wired's websites, among others) to do something the members feel is important, explained Grubbs in a phone interview with Mashable.
Grubbs said that having lived in Croatia after the Balkan conflict and at the same time as the Serbia-Kosovo war, as well as knowing people that have lived through wars, "it always touches me to see a civilian population suffering from strikes."
"These are people that we're dropping bombs on, and if you really think about putting yourself in their shoes, there's invisible flying robots over their heads, that they can't see, that are dropping missiles around them, that changes their entire society," Grubbs said.
He also wanted the American public to face the reality of the drone strikes — a reasoning that echoes that of NYU student who decided to start tweeting every U.S. drone strike, one by one.
"It's important that people ask themselves that question," he said. "Seeing this data, do you still support drone attacks?"
Take a look at the infographic below, or at Pitch Interactive's ad-hoc website.
Source: mashable.com
Author: Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
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