“As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we’re threatened, which is why I’ve prohibited torture and worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained,” said President Barack Obama.

The irony is that President Obama has approved drone strikes that have resulted in the mass deaths of civilians.

Roughly 90 percent of the people that were killed in drone strikes, approved by President Obama, over a five-month period were not the intended targets, according to the the International Business Times. This means President Obama should sit down and stop pretending like he cares about the rights and liberties of others.

Although drone strikes are beneficial in keeping our troops out of danger, the drone strike programs have neglected to collect adequate intelligence to avoid civilian casualties, and have also lacked in accountability.

The Obama administration created the guidelines for when drone strikes should be used, therefore Obama should be excruciatingly criticized from both parties. Furthermore, the president’s cabinet should have known the specific details about the drone operations because it takes his cabinet 58 days to approve the drone strikes.

The U.S launched strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, followed by a coalition of drone strikes in Iraq and Syria. We are killing civilians across several countries.

I bet if commercial media adequately covered this issue most Americans would have argued for drone reform yesterday.

The last bit of icing on the cake of shame is that drone strikes have become so out of control that a former drone operator said that kids were called “fun-sized terrorists,” and when the operator decides to kill a kid it is called “cutting the grass before it grows out of control”.

But that doesn’t matter because we’re still the good guys, right?

Overall, what this means is that there is not enough accountability and intelligence collected on the suspected terrorists to the extent that, if in doubt, we say screw it and shoot—then we make jokes about it.

The question now is what do our political candidates (otherwise known as the people who can fix this mess) have to say about this issue?

President Obama obviously supports drone strikes. Bernie Sanders said he would continue drone strikes, but acknowledges that we should be very selective with our engagement. However, he did not state how we would selectively use drone strikes in the future.

Ted Cruz considers drone strikes to be a beneficial tool, but their use should be evaluated because of possibility to potentially capture and interrogate suspected terrorists.

Hillary Clinton supports the continued use of drone strikes and has argued that it was one of the most effective counter-terrorism strategies during her time at the Obama administration. She is a part of the problem.

Last but not least, the grand wizard himself, Donald Trump, has not outlined any particular strategy relating to drone strikes.

There are a lot of politicians who like to talk about upholding the rights and freedoms of others while combating terrorism, but who will advocate for more intelligence and greater government accountability? I will let you decide that, but what we have to understand is that the civilians who are affected are no different than us.

Is this what we stand for? A country that ruthlessly kills people for no reason? This doesn’t make us look strong, it makes us look scared to the point that we are willing to kill kids because of a possibility that they may become terrorists.

We have to have more intelligence before we strike, and this program has to be held accountable. This isn’t negotiable. We need a leader who will stand for what’s right and protect the dignity and liberties of others, even when we’re threatened.

Follow Zach Moss on Twitter @ZachMoss6