Top US Official: Drone Strikes ‘Legal, Ethical and Wise’ in Terror Fight
Speaking at an event in Washington Monday, White House official John Brennan credited what he called the “surgical” and “laser-like precision” of drone strikes in helping to remove the “cancerous tumor” of terrorism without harming the “civilian tissue” around it.
Really? These people may be of a different opinion.
Evidence in British court contradicts CIA drone claims
A major case in the British High Court has revealed fresh evidence of civilian deaths during a notorious CIA drone strike in Pakistan last year.
The american war criminals can thumb their noses on any and all laws and courts, but how will they escape GOD’s Justice? Everybody dies one day and then everyone must stand in the court of GOD. No deed hidden, no act deniable.
Khalil Khan’s late father Hajji Babat was a local policeman who was ‘not an enemy of the United States of America or any other country.’ His son describes in his affidavit how he rushed back to his village to find his father dead, the bus station and surrounding buildings still burning six hours after the drone strike.
And Fateh Khan, who once worked for British Telecom, lost his 25-year old nephew Din Mohammed in the CIA attack. He reports that his nephew’s body had to be buried in pieces, and that ‘he left behind four children, all of whom now live in my house. His eldest child is currently only five years old.’
Previously,
USA deliberately kills innocent civilians in Pakistan
Drone Lunacy
Death toll reaches to 21 in US drone attack
“Three women and five children among 21 people were killed while several others injured in a US drone attack on a compound in North Waziristan, Geo News reported.”
So, if innocents get killed going after the ‘bad guys’, then it’s all right. An acceptable outcome. That’s war. Happens. The brilliant rationale of the humane civilized USA. If civilians are part of the “collateral damage”, well as long as they aren’t americans, then the price is acceptable. Right?
On another note, why do they hate us? Oh that’s right. The barbarians hate us for our freedoms. Our freedoms to massacre, kill and maim with impunity. Just long as we can put the correct spin on the attacks. They were all militants, baddies. No, we do not have any reports of any civilian deaths. Okay, maybe we might have inadvertently killed one or two. Most unfortunate……… Let another one fly at that house, that car. What? You see children on the feed? Nah, must be imagining things. Let her fly. What’s that? That a kid lying dead. Oh well, that’s war. Let’s go grab a beer.
After the despicable and shady release of US CIA/Blackwater operator “Raymond Davis”, USA has sunk to even greater lows. Raymond Davis was involved in espionage (photos of Pakistan’s defence installations on the indian border) and terrorist activities (phone contacts with terrorists in Waziristan) inside Pakistan, as well as responsible for gunning down 2 Pakistanis in broad daylight on a busy road. After Raymond Davis’s ‘release’ against all norms of justice and decency, USA has resorted to deliberate killing of Pakistanis in a show of morbid and callous power.
We keep hearing about drone attacks along with ‘figures’ of dead terrorists/militants. Just hours after Davis’s release, USA Predator drones launched an attack in Waziristan which till the writing of this post had claimed 41 lives. USA as usual claimed all were terrorists, but now the truth has come out. The victims were a jirga (a meeting of tribal elders) and many innocents have been martyred in this murderous attack. USA wanted to vent its anger and show who’s boss to Pakistan Army and ISI after the Davis affair; so as soon as the murdering terrorist was released, USA unleashed a deliberate not accidental attack on Pakistan’s tribesmen.
Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in an unsually strong release has exposed the americans for the killers that they are,
http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&id=1692#pr_link1692
Press Release
No PR65/2011-ISPR Dated: March 17, 2011Rawalpindi – March 17, 2011:
Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, strongly condemns the Predator Strike carried out today in North Waziristan Agency resulting into loss of innocent lives. It is highly regrettable that a jirga of peaceful citizens including elders of the area was carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard to human life. In complete violation of human rights, such acts of violence take us away from our objective of elimination of terrorism. It is imperative to understand that this critical objective can not be sacrificed for temporary tactical gains. Security of people of Pakistan, in any case, stands above all.
Pakistan Army condoles with the families whose dear and near ones have been martyred in this senseless attack. Pakistan Army shares the grief of people of Waziristan. Troops on ground have been ordered to render all possible assistance to bereaved families.
Pakistan Army wishes to assure brave people of Waziristan that we shall do our best and utmost to protect their life, honour and dignity at all costs. Pakistan Army is fighting the terrorists and not its brethren in tribal areas.
Pakistan Army has already launched a protest in the strongest possible terms. It has been highlighted clearly that such aggression against people of Pakistan is unjustified and intolerable under any circumstances.
The drone attacks are a sham, the war on terror is a sham, and the US now stands as one of the great terrorists of our times. SHAME ON USA which has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis and Pakistanis on its hands. We should realize the dark evil face of our enemy which has been unsuccessfully sold to the public as an ally, a friend. The USA has deliberately carried out bombings of civilians not only in tribal areas but also in our cities to engulf Pakistan in the US war on terror. Let the US have Raymond Davis as long as we reclaim our homeland PAKISTAN from the evil clutches of the dying ‘superpower’ USA. Let us rid ourselves of the corrupt who serve as the lackeys of USA. They can be bought but we will not surrender Pakistan.
We keep hearing almost daily of how many terrorists have been killed in a drone strike, the number of high/mid/low level leaders that have been eliminated. Just pause for a moment. Give this column The mighty Taliban by Rafia Zakaria a read. Just some food for thought. The next time you hear of these successful drone strikes, just think for a while instead of taking the announcements at their face values.
Excerpt from above article,
…
The list is exhaustive and given the regularity with which Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are apparently being killed, it would be expected that their leadership cadres would have been more or less decimated. If 605 ‘leaders’ of any organisation are killed, that organisation’s capacity to operate ought to be significantly impacted.
…
The losers in the equation are unsurprisingly the Pakistani people, especially those unfortunate enough to be inhabitants of North and South Waziristan. As a recent report produced by CIVIC, an NGO that collects data on civilians in conflict areas, argues, the low civilian casualty figures provided by the United States are likely to be inaccurate. The report cites civilian casualties from drone attacks in 2009-2010 to be somewhere between 788 and 1,344 — far greater than the 20 reported in congressional hearings on drone strikes held this past April.
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Given the information in the CIVIC report, one must wonder about the truth behind every headline that proclaims the death of yet another Al Qaeda or Taliban leader. With a complete absence of on-the-ground investigations following drone attacks, it is virtually impossible to contest the contentions that proudly and mechanically announce the death of this or that leader. And so Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are targeted and killed and then resurrected in an endless cycle before a baffled world tired of counting heads.
Found two items of interest at Popular Science,
Hummers may have toyed with adapting to leaner times as plug-in hybrids, but the end has finally come for the long-time sport-utility brand based on the military workhorse. A General Motors deal to sell off its brand to a Chinese manufacturer collapsed after the companies were still waiting on Chinese government approval, the New York Times reports.
This truly makes 2010 the end of an era for both the civilian and military versions of the Hummer. The U.S. Army announced earlier this month that it would no longer order Humvees, and would instead turn to the armored MRAPs that have proven more resistant to roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Army still plans to keep its existing Humvees in service, according to DOD Buzz.
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The Present and Future of Unmanned Drone Aircraft: An Illustrated Field Guide
…44 countries fly UAVs, according to P.W. Singer, a fellow at the public-policy think tank the Brookings Institution and author of Wired for War. Last year, the U.S. Air Force trained more UAV pilots than fighter and bomber pilots combined. “Every so often in history, there’s a tech that comes along that rewrites the rules of the game,” Singer says. “I describe this as a revolution.”
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You may not have actually seen one yet, but you will (unless, of course, it doesn’t want to be seen). To give you a leg up on identification, here’s your field guide
to the latest UAV discoveries, as well as an overview of the most prevalent systems in use today.
Gallery: The Complete UAV Field Guide
Facts about US military robots
A brief intro to the US military robots in use and in testing. Includes
(Drones) MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper,
(Spy Plane) RQ-4 Global Hawk,
(Small UAV) RQ-11 Raven,
(Ground Vehicles/Robots) Pakbot, Swords, Mule.
