In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the U.S. safer by enabling “targeted killing” of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts.
This narrative is false.
Quote from :
America’s Drone Terrorism By Sheldon Richman Information Clearing house, October 22, 2012
Below pictures of civilians maimed and killed by US drones.
Some may say even publishing such pictures is in bad taste but this part of the problem with those who are all gung ho to go to war and to kill thousands or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people men, women ,children without once considering what they are doing to living breathing human beings . The war on terror is just a matter of the USA getting what they consider to be their righteous pound of flesh . If someone in a foreign country kills an American citizen then they believe they have not just the right but the duty to kill a thousand citizens of that foreign country . Odd that a nation so boisterous about its religiosity behave in the most brutal uncivilized and unChristian manner. They change the creed of their religion to suit their own agendas.Jesus did not say blessed are the warriors and the slaughters of innocent people or even of your enemies .
Obama's Drone Wars under scrutiny in the courts in Pakistan and so far two arrests warrants have been approved of two CIA chiefs for the wanton murder of citizens of Pakistan.
There is now mounting evidence that Obama's Drones have killed far more innocent Pakistani citizens than actual terrorists, Taliban or Al Qaeda operatives.
But this won't stop President Obama or if things go badly President Mitt Romney from blowing up more villages and attacking wedding parties, funerals and other family or community gatherings since they like others in the American government and military view all Pakistanis, All Afghans, all Iraqis. all Syrians, all libyans , all citizens of Bahrain and Iran and those who dare protest in Saudi Arabia against their brutal dictators as America's and the West' enemy who are dedicated to the destruction of the not so civilized Western civilization . Besides they are all after all is said and done not Americans and most are not Christians and so are seen in the US and European media as a little less than human or equal to any true Westerner.
Besides as George W. Bush put it after 9/11 that the Global War on Terror is a Crusade of the good Christians against the Evil Muslims and so is a continuation of the Christian Crusades which were begun in 1095 and which have never really ended. These modern day Christian Crusaders use many of the same anti-Muslim, anti-Islam , Anti-Muhammad and anti-Arab and Anti-Persian racist and bigoted tropes which were used in the eleventh century.
CIA chiefs face arrest over horrific evidence of bloody 'video-game' sorties by drone pilots by David Rose, Daily Mail.co.uk, October 20,2012
The Mail on Sunday today reveals shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan.
A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes.
The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve.
Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes. They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer. Mr Akbar and his staff have already gathered further testimony which has yet to be filed.
‘We have statements from a further 82 victims’ families relating to more than 30 drone strikes,’ he said. ‘This is their only hope of justice.’
In the first case, which has already been heard by a court in Islamabad, judgment is expected imminently. If the judge grants Mr Akbar’s petition, an international arrest warrant will be issued via Interpol against the two Americans.
The plaintiff in the Islamabad case is Karim Khan, 45, a journalist and translator with two masters’ degrees, whose family comes from the village of Machi Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan.
His eldest son, Zahinullah, 18, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, 35, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone that struck the family’s guest dining room at about 9.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 2009.
Asif had changed his surname because he loved to recite Iqbal, Pakistan’s national poet, and Mr Khan said: ‘We are an educated family. My uncle is a hospital doctor in Islamabad, and we all work in professions such as teaching.
‘We have never had anything to do with militants or terrorists, and for that reason I always assumed we would be safe.’
Mr Khan said: ‘Zahinullah, who had been studying in Islamabad, had returned to the village to work his way through college, taking a part-time job as a school caretaker.
...Included in the legal dossier are documents that corroborate Asif and Zahinulla’s educational and employment records, as well as their death certificates. Killed alongside them was Khaliq Dad, a stonemason who was staying with the family while he worked on a local mosque.
It is strange how many people in North America and Europe seem to think that expressing their bigotry against all Muslims is somehow acceptable and they see anyone reacting to such bigotry and condemning it as being against "free speech' or as pro-terrorists since all Muslims they believe are potential terrorists because in their view Islam is an evil , violent anti-Christian and anti-Jewish religion. Once one starts with such misinformed prejudices it is difficult to get these haters of Islam to see the followers of Islam as being people just like themselves except with a different religious belief and a different religious tradition
I am all for Free Speech but not Hate Speech especially when the language used is eliminationists in character ie depriving Muslims of the same rights as everyone else , being under constant surveillance , stereotyping all Muslims as being terrorists and enemies of the West and as barbaric which these days is especially rich given the several million Muslims killed over the last two decades and millions more left in abject poverty and millions displaced by the USA, Canada, Britain, Australia and European countries in their ostensibly war on terror which is really about geopolitical strategic wars to get the natural resources oil, gas etc. out of the Middle East and Northern Africa .
And further more it is ironic that Obama and now the European Union have been given the Nobel Prize for Peace when in fact since 9/11 and Obama's election in 2008 President Obama and the Pentagon and Wall Street thugocracy have only spread and deepened hatred against the West by Muslims ,Arabs, Persians and others in the Middle East and Northern Africa and Afghanistan and Pakistan who have been targeted by the West, the USA and NATO for pacification and occupation and colonization.
Meanwhile inside their own borders President Obama and the British government and other European governments have used unnecessary force on even peaceful demonstrators while the governments attempt to adopt policies based upon mean-spirited pro-elitist American style Neoconservative and Neoliberal, anti-democracy, anti-egalitarian ,anti-economic justice policies and laws undermining the great leaps that the EU especially has made over the last four or more decades for social and economic justice .
