‘America is our worst enemy’: Pakistani victim of US drone strike speaks

[UmarJustice]

Drone strikes in Pakistan have killed 1,000 civilians, activists say, while the US maintains they only target terrorists. Victims of drone warfare and their families live in constant fear of another strike, and say they are “angry and want revenge.”

A review of classified US intelligence records has revealed that the CIA could not confirm the identity of about one-quarter of those killed by drone strikes in Pakistan during a period spanning 2010 and 2011. In a review of 14 months of classified records, 26 out of 114 attacks designate fatalities as “other militants,” and in four other attacks those killed are described as “foreign fighters.”

The CIA is reluctant to reveal information on its drone program, Chris Woods of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism told RT.

“With so many civilians reported killed, and yet the CIA reporting that it’s killed no more than 50 or 60 civilians I think there is need for an open, not only an open inquiry, but also for the CIA to share the information it has on who it believes it’s killed in places like Pakistan. President Obama’s speech the other week did seem to promise more openness but unfortunately we’re not seeing signs of that just yet,” Woods said.

In his post-election address to parliament, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called for an end to US drone attacks in the country’s northern tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

"This daily routine of drone attacks, this chapter shall now be closed," Sharif said to enthusiastic applause. "We do respect others' sovereignty. It is mandatory on others that they respect our sovereignty."

“Most of the strikes in Pakistan these days are really not related to Al-Qaeda or those terrorist activities but really to the war across the border in Afghanistan. The drone war has changed quite significantly over the ten years or so it’s been running. We see the US talking about using drones in Syria for example; we have had calls from Iraq and Rwanda recently for the US to use drones there. So there’s a concern among some that the US wants now to use these drones as an easy plank in their view of foreign policy,” Woods explained.
Residents of Pakistan say they are living “in constant fear of another strike.” Amin Ullah was on his way to work at a mine near his village when a drone struck the area. He lost his leg in the attack, and three other miners were killed. "The Americans should be able to tell an ordinary person from a Taliban leader. They should know who they're killing. What did we do to deserve this?" Ullah told RT.

“We are simple villagers who are stuck in a war that we didn’t ask for. It’s a hopeless feeling. Death is above our heads all the time,” he added.

Another victim of the drone attack, Nek Bahadar, lost part of his hearing and nearly his foot: “The drone’s shockwave was so intense that it threw us outside far from the place where we were sleeping. After several minutes there was another strike and it killed many more people.”

“Of course this has made me hate the Americans. We are angry and want revenge. They’ve destroyed our lives. My parents, my wife my children – we all see America our worst enemy now,” Bahadar said.

Pakistani human rights lawyer Shahzad Mirza Akbar has sued both the US and Pakistan on behalf of civilian victims in Waziristan, a mountainous region in northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.

“I simply call it a concentration camp, that you've built a wall of military and militants, and behind this wall you are keeping more than 800,000 people who are not allowed to come out and no one from the rest of the country is allowed to go in. And that is kind of laboratory that US is using to use test its drone program,” Akbar told RT’s Lucy Kafanov.

MQ-1B Predator.(Reuters / Christopher Griffin)
MQ-1B Predator.(Reuters / Christopher Griffin)

Evidence of drone strikes is difficult to gather; fragments of the attacks were collected by a local journalist Noor Behram, who spent years documenting the civilian toll of drones, especially on children.

“Whenever my 3-year-old daughter hears the plane she runs inside and won’t sleep that night. The children here have been traumatized by the drones. The sound of a door banging shut is enough to terrify them,” Behram said.

There are fears that the US campaign to eliminate terrorists could end up creating more. “By carrying out drone strikes, killing innocent people who are not part of the conflict, you are just widening the conflict. You are giving the reason to people who were not part of the conflict here to become part of the conflict,” Akbar explained.

Breakthrough advances in unmanned aircraft technology have also sparked concerns at the UN. The UN’s rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, Christof Heyns, is calling for a worldwide ban on "killer robots" that could attack targets autonomously, without a human having to pull the trigger.

According to the report, the US, Japan, South Korea and Israel have developed various types of fully- or semi-autonomous weapons.

“It’s important to say there’s no particular day we’ll be able to say, now we have fully autonomous robots. But there are already very high levels of autonomy available, and full autonomy may be available within a few years. It’s important to emphasize the distinction between drones and lethal autonomous robots (LARs). With drones you have a human in the loop with somebody sitting behind the computer and taking the decision to pull the trigger. With robots there’s no human being in the loop, it’s a computer that takes a decision,” Heyns explained.

?America is our worst enemy?: Pakistani victim of US drone strike speaks out ? RT News

 

[uzair ramay]

america is the enemy of the whole world brother....

 

[WrathOfKhan]

Pakistan is Pakistanis worst enemy.

 

[muse]

Enough of these so called Victims of Drones - where is the voice of 50,000 Pakistani civilians and soldiers killed by the Talib?? Of course their families do not have any political pull, they are expected to pull their lives together somehow, not a one among our "patriots" to raise a voice on behalf of the wife left widowed, of children orphaned by the murderous Islamists, instead, barrage after barrage of politicized "victims" of drones - Well, listen up! All Talib dead, if it takes drones to get the job done, then that's what it will take -- lets by all means avoid casualties among those innocents amongs whom the Talib hide and in many cases operate with their full support, but Talib and his fellow travelers, will be brought the "justice" they have earned.

Give a thought to those 50,000 - they are your countrymen, innocent and do their duty, their wives, their children, their lives, their schools, their hopes, their lives destroyed by the Talib and his fellow traveler - if not as a countryman, than as a human being - don't let their lives, their aspirations for their families and their country fade from your mind.

 

[PlanetWarrior]

Enough of these so called Victims of Drones - where is the voice of 50,000 Pakistani civilians and soldiers killed by the Talib?? Of course their families do not have any political pull, they are expected to pull their lives together somehow, not a one among our "patriots" to raise a voice on behalf of the wife left widowed, of children orphaned by the murderous Islamists, instead, barrage after barrage of politicized "victims" of drones - Well, listen up! All Talib dead, if it takes drones to get the job done, then that's what it will take -- lets by all means avoid casualties among those innocents amongs whom the Talib hide and in many cases operate with their full support, but Talib and his fellow travelers, will be brought the "justice" they have earned.

Give a thought to those 50,000 - they are your countrymen, innocent and do their duty, their wives, their children, their lives, their schools, their hopes, their lives destroyed by the Talib and his fellow traveler - if not as a countryman, than as a human being - don't let their lives, their aspirations for their families and their country fade from your mind.

I'm sorry but your argument has one major flaw...you overlook the innocent victims of the drone strikes. If 50 000 soldiers sacrificed their lives to secure their country then so be it. That is their job and their professional duty to secure their nation. But the killing of these civilians whom in many cases have been established to have no link to the terrorists by the drones is unacceptable. Pakistan must secure its sovereignty. I hope that the PM Sharif stands by his promise and calls upon the USA to stop the drone strikes. If Pakistan has to permit this continuation of breach of its sovereignty, it would be a better proposition to permit the USA to send in their troops to take out the Taliban terrorists rather than have these drones strike willy nilly. At least American troops can be held accountable for their actions. Who holds the drones accountable??

 

[muse]

I'm sorry but your argument has one major flaw...you overlook the innocent victims of the drone strikes.

Thank you, my argument is not that there have not been innocents killed in drone attacks, My argument is that our focus, our sympathy, our empathy, our gratitude should be in the favor of those who survive the deaths of their loved ones imposed by the Talib.

I am not suggesting that those innocents who were killed in drone attacks deserved their deaths, they did not, rather they are victims of their elders who live with the Talib in their midst.

 

[PlanetWarrior]

Thank you, my argument is not that there have not been innocents killed in drone attacks, My argument is that our focus, our sympathy, our empathy, our gratitude should be in the favor of those who survive the deaths of their loved ones imposed by the Talib.

I am not suggesting that those innocents who were killed in drone attacks deserved their deaths, they did not, rather they are victims of their elders who live with the Talib in their midst.

An English judge once said "I would rather let 99 killers free than hang one innocent man." The Taliban is not some well supported machine in the midst of these people. The Taliban is most probably a thorn in there side as much as it is a thorn to the establishment's side. But if a nation which has one of the best armed forces in the world cannot take on the Taliban and wipe them out completely, how do you expect these civilians (women and children included) to remove this menace? Then again, are you suggesting that these civilians up their belongings and move to Karachi or Islamabad so as to distance themselves from the Taliban? Pakistan owes the innocent inhabitants of this region stability. Drones certainly aint the solution. It brings more misery to their already difficult existence

 

[Developereo]

I'm sorry but your argument has one major flaw...you overlook the innocent victims of the drone strikes.

Thank you.

The liberal parrots sound exactly the same as the fanatics who dismissed Malala's situation by diverting the topic to drone attacks.

Some people lack the ability to understand that Pakistani civilians deserve the same protections that civilians in other countries enjoy. Nobody is complaining about drones targeting terrorists; the whole issue is America's callous disregard for Pakistani civilian casualties.

It's an old debate, and not worth rehashing.

 

[rockstarIN]

Enough of these so called Victims of Drones - where is the voice of 50,000 Pakistani civilians and soldiers killed by the Talib?? Of course their families do not have any political pull, they are expected to pull their lives together somehow, not a one among our "patriots" to raise a voice on behalf of the wife left widowed, of children orphaned by the murderous Islamists, instead, barrage after barrage of politicized "victims" of drones - Well, listen up! All Talib dead, if it takes drones to get the job done, then that's what it will take -- lets by all means avoid casualties among those innocents amongs whom the Talib hide and in many cases operate with their full support, but Talib and his fellow travelers, will be brought the "justice" they have earned.

Give a thought to those 50,000 - they are your countrymen, innocent and do their duty, their wives, their children, their lives, their schools, their hopes, their lives destroyed by the Talib and his fellow traveler - if not as a countryman, than as a human being - don't let their lives, their aspirations for their families and their country fade from your mind.

If the PA can take on the million strong Indian Army, Can't they clear the area where these guys roam free and USA had to send the drones?

The first responsibility is with the Pakistani state for this mayhem. They say the sovereignty is breached by drones, and they can't even send forces to that so called place.

 

[anilindia]

Very sad for 1000 civilian killed. But any one appreciate for 3000 militants killed in that strike including recent no 2 of TTP. And about 30000 civilian and 4000 soldier died fighting Taliban.

 

[Hawaii's Finest]

I don't get it? How many people die from terrorist attacks though?

 

[Jungibaaz]

I don't get it? How many people die from terrorist attacks though?

More, but what do you ignorant fools think causes the terrorist attacks in the first place?
Where were these people before 2001?

Tough questions, I no you can't answer them.

 

[FaujHistorian]

I'm sorry but your argument has one major flaw...you overlook the innocent victims of the drone strikes. If 50 000 soldiers sacrificed their lives to secure their country then so be it. That is their job and their professional duty to secure their nation. But the killing of these civilians whom in many cases have been established to have no link to the terrorists by the drones is unacceptable. Pakistan must secure its sovereignty. I hope that the PM Sharif stands by his promise and calls upon the USA to stop the drone strikes. If Pakistan has to permit this continuation of breach of its sovereignty, it would be a better proposition to permit the USA to send in their troops to take out the Taliban terrorists rather than have these drones strike willy nilly. At least American troops can be held accountable for their actions. Who holds the drones accountable??

Why an Indian is supporting an Islamist $hit cause. I do not know.



Even middle school kids in Pakistan (who read news) know that 50,000 killed by Talib@stards are mostly civilians. Army losses are in the range of 2,000.


But you will just start arguing based on false info.

That's sad.


Never expected from otherwise intellectual indians to become willing or unwilling supporters of Islamists.

Never expected.

 

[jandk]

Why an Indian is supporting an Islamist $hit cause. I do not know.



Even middle school kids in Pakistan (who read news) know that 50,000 killed by Talib@stards are mostly civilians. Army losses are in the range of 2,000.


But you will just start arguing based on false info.

That's sad.


Never expected from otherwise intellectual indians to become willing or unwilling supporters of Islamists.

Never expected.

Must be an Indian muslim, that's why. Non muslim Indians hate taliban and islamists to death. We are the ones who have suffered the most repeatedly by the actions of these barbarians.

 

[PlanetWarrior]

Why an Indian is supporting an Islamist $hit cause. I do not know.



Even middle school kids in Pakistan (who read news) know that 50,000 killed by Talib@stards are mostly civilians. Army losses are in the range of 2,000.


But you will just start arguing based on false info.

That's sad.


Never expected from otherwise intellectual indians to become willing or unwilling supporters of Islamists.

Never expected.

Nobody is supporting any Islamist cause. The concern I raised was about the civilian losses arising from the drone strikes. My nationality maybe Indian but it still pains me when innocent civilians anywhere in the world including Pakistan are the victims of military or terrorist attacks in their homeland. That the Taliban is a menace which needs to be eradicated is beyond debate.

PS. Jandk, I am Hindu. It doesn't stop me from being human tho'.