Drones 'Terrorizing' Pakistani civilians | Stanford & NYU study finds.

[Mav3rick]

From the 'west point' of view they believe the drone attacks are working as many high level al qaeda operatives have been killed in these strikes. You make a valid case that drone strikes are actually turning liberals into extremists and creating more terrorist but if drone strikes were to end tomorrow would that not mean more militants will be seeking sanctuary in FATA and plotting as they will know they are safe with no more drones in the sky?

This is a very complicated matter and many people like Gambit and VCheng as well as other senior members have made their views felt on this, my own view is that Pakistan armed forces should go into the NWFP and take these militants out then there is no excuse the American's can't say that Pakistan is not doing enough and why it needs to use drones.

What you have posted is no solution and mark my words, there is no quick solution to decades old problems. It will have to be gradual and it will have to be humane, contrary to the belief in west, we believe that citizens of these areas will shun militants and will hunt down militants on their own as long as they are protected and provided by the state. If the state delivers then so shall the citizens, but if the state fails to protect their families, they will pick up arms and fights against any possible target.......foreign and domestic.

What the international community needs to do is to provide for rehabilitation and restructuring of these war torn and neglected areas, including those of Afghanistan. West needs to ensure that the feeling of desperation, isolation and helplessness is eliminated through well designed and monitored programs that are developed keeping in the mind the culture and civilization of these elements. Every time the west imposes a war on these elements and walks away without restructuring, without giving them a future, the west will suffer................problem is that so will we!

 

[cricketrulez]

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan


COMMENT: Shooting down drones with academic guns? — I—Dr Mohammad Taqi



So the ‘independent’ conclusions the NYU and Stanford arrived at, were facilitated, nay, fed to them by Reprieve and its Pakistan wing, the FFR

Two new studies recently came out in
the US criticising the use of weaponised unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones by the US against the terrorist targets in Pakistan and elsewhere. The debate over the drones is as old as the perhaps first known use of the Hellfire missile by the US, killing the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist leader Nek Muhammad Wazir in 2004. But the anti-US sentiment purported in these reports to be on the rise due to the continued drone attacks in FATA predates drone strikes by decades. The 1979 and 1989 attacks on the US embassy and the American Centre, respectively, in Islamabad had nothing to do with UAVs. There actually were no UAVs back then and the Pakistan and the US were allies against the big bad Soviet Union. The perpetrators in both instances were religious zealots egged on by the Pakistani state machinery.
Similarly, the anti-war and anti-US sentiment, predominantly of the European leftists and a few in the western academic circles, also antedates the use of drones and indeed the War on Terror (WoT). In opposing drones, the Muslim street and some leftists have made common cause against the US. The two reports appear to be an attempt by the anti-American Islamist-leftist coalition to trot out academic big guns to shoot down the drones, and by proxy US ‘imperialism’.
The first study, Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan, conducted jointly by the Stanford Law School and New York University’s School of Law, calls for a re-evaluation of drone use. It claims that the ‘high-level’ terrorist targets killed by drones, as a percentage of total casualties, is extremely low and the cost to civilians, especially in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA), in terms of physical and psychological trauma is immense, making the exercise futile and indeed counterproductive.
For an academic cross-sectional study conducted over nine months, the principal authors, Professors James Cavallaro and Sarah Knuckey and the Clinical Lecturer Stephan Sonnenberg, leave much to be desired. For starters, the study was commissioned not by any independent agency but the UK-based group Reprieve of Clive Stafford Smith, which is not only an interested party in the campaign against drones but virtually an ally of the Pakistani political party Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) of Imran Khan that has anti-Americanism as a cornerstone of its politics. The study notes: “In December 2011, Reprieve, a charity based in the United Kingdom, contacted the Stanford Clinic to ask whether it would be interested in conducting independent investigations into whether, and to what extent, drone strikes in Pakistan conformed to international law and caused harm and/or injury to civilians.” Similarities to the large pharmaceutical companies commissioning academics to produce favourable trials for their next big drug are eerie.
The Stanford Clinic then “agreed to undertake independent fact-finding and analysis on these questions, as well as others related to drone strikes and targeted killings in Pakistan” and started the project and “later, the NYU Clinic agreed to join the research”. To achieve ‘independent’ results, the two universities adopted a novel approach: “The Stanford and NYU Clinics have exchanged information and logistical support with Reprieve and its partner organisation in Pakistan, the Foundation for Fundamental Rights (FFR). The latter organisation assisted in contacting many of the potential interviewees, particularly those who reside in North Waziristan, and in the difficult work of arranging interviews. The Stanford and NYU Clinics designed the research project, analysed information, and drafted and edited the report independently from Reprieve and FFR.”
The report states, “The majority of the experiential victims interviewed were arranged with the assistance of the FFR, a legal nonprofit based in Islamabad that has become the most prominent legal advocate for drone victims in Pakistan...Nine of the 69 experiential victims are clients of the FFR.” Considering the minuscule sample size — 69 out of a NWA population of some 450,5000 — of the ‘experiential’ victims, there is a monumental selection bias and tremendous conflict of interest that renders this tainted for all practical purposes. But that is not it. The authors have clearly noted, “Some interviews also included a researcher from either Reprieve or the Foundation for Fundamental Rights.” Also of note is that this is effectively a descriptive, cross-sectional study in which no attempt was made to have any comparison with any sort of control population from within the drone-affected areas. So the ‘independent’ conclusions the NYU and Stanford arrived at, were facilitated, nay, fed to them by Reprieve and its Pakistan wing, the FFR.
The psychological trauma, anxiety and specifically the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among the civilian population gets a lot of mention in the report. However, the authors have relied solely on the information provided to them by the Pakistani mental health professionals. It is not clear if Reprieve also lined up these psychiatrists. It does not appear that the authors themselves used any of the easily available PTSD screening tools in the interviews or to verify the psychiatrists’ reports.
Also, while the focus of the study is the impact of drones, its complete silence over the psychological effects of terrorist attacks on the general population all over Pakistan is rather baffling. For example, compared to a total of roughly 350 drone attacks since 2004, there were well over 600 terrorist bombings and more than a 1,000 fatalities across Pakistan. In addition, over 35 targeted attacks on the Shia and other minorities took place in 2011, causing over 500 deaths. But apparently the idea of the study was to highlight only the alleged atrocities by the US, while glossing over the rein of terror unleashed over Pakistanis at large by those holed up in FATA and their handlers in and cohorts in ‘mainland’ Pakistan.
Life under drones is a catchy title, but the irony is that the authors did not venture beyond Peshawar and Islamabad, let alone actually studying life in the NWA or the other tribal Agencies. The study’s partisan findings are likely to lead to further bickering over the use of drones rather than help find answers for the tribal civilian population held hostage by perfidious terrorist groups that remain the primary target of the drones. In a blatant disregard for academic standards, NYU and Stanford have produced a shoddy, biased and politically motivated research that is tremendously skewed in favour of those who commissioned the study.

 

[Solomon2]

Did a drone attack Malala?

[Critique of the Stanford & NYU Report]

By Anas Abbas | DAWN.COM | 1 day ago

In his book ‘Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban’, slain journalist Syed Saleem Shehzad who spent considerable part of his research with al Qaeda militants, described comprehensively the formation of the new al Qaeda players and their strategic objectives in the lawless FATA region of Pakistan after the crippling defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda in 2001.

He magnificently illustrates this al Qaeda strategy in well-crafted 3 points:

• The re-grouping of its militant structure and development of a battle strategy against the Pakistan Army and Nato Forces in Afghanistan

• Conduct peace deals with the Pakistan Army and used the breathing space to strengthen its struggle against the United States

• Extending the war into Pakistan, and from there strategising and launching the war from central Asian Republics to India for the sole purpose of defeating the Nato forces in Afghanistan.

In order to achieve this strategy, al Qaeda annihilated the centuries-old Pakistani tribal structure and traditions by killing thousands of tribal elders as well as clerics and launched a new generation of militants. However during this time Al Qaeda’s objectives were constantly under assault because mostly whenever a new leader was nominated and trained, he was eradicated by the formidable drone. This notorious drone is known to have successfully struck down not only the key al Qaeda and Taliban operatives but also fugitives responsible for hijacking of Pan American World Airways Flight 73 and 1998 United States Embassy Bombings.

According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, since the outset, there have been a total of 349 drone strikes in Pakistan to date, killing approximately 3300 people of which 500-800 are estimated to be civilians and this estimation has also been credited by the Stanford/NYU Clinics in ‘Living Under Drones’, a recent report heavily critical of the drones which was commissioned by London-based charity Reprieve that represents Guantanamo Bay prisoners .

In the following article I will critically analyze:

• This report and in doing so uncover the lecturer at Islamic International University Islamabad (IIU) who has played a crucial role towards its findings.
• The criticisms of drone strikes and its effectiveness in diminishing terrorist activities in Pakistan.

‘Living Under Drones’, the report prepared by researchers from Stanford and New York University law schools created mass hysteria in Pakistan after it revealed that drones terrorise civilians and are counter-productive. The print and electronic media along with cacophonic talk shows exploited this further to fuel the already mounting anti-Americanism and became an important tool in precipitating the hype surrounding the “Peace March” against drones organised by Imran Khan. However the report has various fundamental flaws which have been largely overlooked and which can raise grave concerns regarding its credibility.

Firstly this report cannot be considered impartial as claimed by Stanford/ NYU since their researchers were unable to directly access FATA to meet the affected victims due to the heavily guarded checkpoints established for security. Instead, they substantially relied on an Islamabad based Foundation for Fundamental Rights (FFR) for arranging interviews with drone strike victims. This created a conflict of interest between the FFR and the researchers, since FFR is a known legal advocate for drone victims in Pakistan. It would only be logical to presume that they would be inclined against the drones and would present evidence only to support their perspective and not of those residents who are in favor of it.

In addition to this, another issue which arises is what mechanism was adopted to ensure that the victims were really victims of drone strikes since there is a strong possibility that these victims were injured by other blasts such as those from F-16 and JF-17 used during Operation Rah-e-Nijat, which was launched by the Pakistan military in South Waziristan.

How do the victims ascertain that the strike they experienced or witnessed was actually from a drone rather than a PAF’s fighter air craft?

Moreover, the report mentions it faced a challenge in assessing the true opinions of the affectees who were reluctant speaking to foreigners about issues raised in this report from fear of vengeance from all quarters such as the Pakistani military, intelligence services, and the non-state armed groups.

Bearing this is mind, was there any process whereby the researchers ensured that the interviewees were not impacted by this same fear?

Secondly, FFR which facilitated this report is headed by Advocate Mirza Shahzad Akhbar, a practicing lawyer and lecturer at IIU who is known for his support of the Taliban. “Shahzad is a patriot and holds the United States entirely responsible for the menace in Pakistan” revealed an inside source from Shahzad’s employer, Farooq Law Associates, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity “He holds the Taliban as a legitimate resistance against the American imperialism.”

Most important of all, Shahzad is the same person who blew the cover of the CIA station chief, Jonathan Banks, in Pakistan in a press conference two years ago; it seems almost effortless the ease with which a mere practicing lawyer in Pakistan knows the identity of CIA’s station chief which is always a highly confidential information in any country. It is likely that elements within Pakistan’s security establishment were feeding Shahzad this information as he was working on an agenda provided by them.

If Shahzad’s concerns for the drone strike victims were truly so genuine he could have advised his clientele to sue the government of Pakistan and Armed Forces instead, since that is where the blame lies as they were facilitating these attacks in broad daylight by allowing Americans to use the Shamsi airbase until April 2011 to launch drone operations.

As it turns out this whole report boils down to the fact that it was prepared based on the information provided by the FFR and the only part played by the Stanford/NYU was more or less confined to designing and drafting of the report.

The timing of the release of this report cannot be dismissed either since Shahzad who helped assemble the data for the report also played a crucial role in managing Codepink activists who helped score a lot of attention internationally at the Peace March.

Coming to the second part of my analysis, the graphs below may be examined to assess the effectiveness and productivity of drone strikes:

The above graph illustrates the casualty breakdown of civilians and terrorists in drone strikes. The key point to note here is the outstanding decrease in civilian casualties in the last three years. The strikes increased dramatically after Barak Obama took office in 2009 but due to the adoption of remarkable precision levels and effective ground intelligence, the civilian casualty rate dropped to a mere 3 per cent by 2012.

Although even 3 per cent of civilian casualties are highly condemnable, this should not be seen in isolation, one must see the bigger picture and recognise the substantial impact of these strikes in reducing terror attacks in Pakistan which has inflicted thousands of casualties.

Here is some graphical data to support this viewpoint:

There are some key features that these two graphs represent.

Firstly, there is no evidence to support the popular mantra in Pakistan that drones fuel terrorist attacks. Contrary to popular beliefs, drone strikes have proved to be a crucial tool in reducing terrorism as can be seen from the graphs above. The year 2009 witnessed 54 drone strikes killing 570 terrorists and 150 civilians, versus 2010, where 122 strikes resulted in 900 terrorist and 74 civilian casualties. Nevertheless, 2009 was the deadliest year for Pakistan where 1,700 civilians died due to suicide attacks alone, along with other 1,600 casualties who were victims of ethnic violence, sectarian killings, accidental blasts and target killings. Furthermore, 2011 – 2012 experienced roughly the same levels of drone strikes as those of 2009 however, the difference is evident in the significant decrease in casualties from terrorist attacks of about 36 per cent to 55 per cent respectively. This correlation between drone strikes and terrorist casualties becomes more compelling when it comes to major cities in Pakistan where terrorist casualties have fallen by a marked 86 per cent by this year since 2009 despite the greater number of drone strikes in consequent years.

Looking at additional evidence, there are some ground realities which simply cannot be ignored and which strongly support drones as extremely effective against Pakistani suicide attacks. Between 2009 -2012, these strikes have caused severe damage to TTP and other Al Qaeda operatives who were assigned to destabilise Pakistan. Some top strategists, operational commanders, ideological mentors and recruiters were eliminated in these strikes.

These include:

Baitullah Mehsud: Top TTP leader who commanded up to 5,000 fighters and was responsible for killing thousands of Pakistanis in suicide attacks.

Tohir Yuldashev: Uzbek leader and ideological mentor of Baitullah Mehsud and Abdullah Mehsud who recruited up to 2,500 fighters in FATA and taught them brutal terror tactics to fight Pakistan army and Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Qari Hussain: Top TTP commander and organizer deadly suicide bombing squads which greatly facilitated Baitullah and Hakeemullah Mehsud. He played an instrumental role in executing TTP’s operational strategy.

Saeed al-Masri: Financial chief of Al Qaeda.

Qari Zafar: Leader of LeJ who carried out attacks on FIA offices in Lahore.

Ilyas Kashmiri: Al Qaeda’s top strategist and leader of 313 Brigade who not only planned to assassinate Pakistani General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani but also presented the idea of Mumbai attacks to al Qaeda in order to divert Pakistani forces from its western borders. The plan was later executed by former SSG Pakistan Army commando, Major Haroon Ashiq with operational support from Hafiz Saeed.

Full list of total top militant commanders killed in drone strikes can be found here.

The fierce drone campaign against TTP and other fighters have greatly benefited Pakistan as it has caused leadership and strategic crisis among terrorists, depriving them of strategists, plotters, and fighters that eventually resulted in massive overall reduction of suicide attacks in Pakistan.

Although there has been a recent rise in sectarian killings of Shias particularly the Hazara community in Pakistan, this sectarian cleansing campaign has different dynamics and contexts which are explained in my recent article Hazara Holocaust and the Deafening Pakistani Silence.

In the end, it turns out that drones do not fuel terrorism in Pakistan as promoted by the local media, Imran Khan and other political leaders who thrive on anti-Americanism and spread lies by showing sham and bogus pictures of drone victims. The criticism against drone strikes by Stanford/NYU report is totally baseless since it was not a fact finding commission but instead a fall semester university project that relied for key information on partisan characters like Mirza Shahzad Akbar.

What fuels terrorism in Pakistan is its dubious policy against Taliban and the peace deals that it signed with the terrorists post 9/11. These peace deals ended up giving much needed breathing space to terrorists who have been exploiting these to their advantage to launch attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The peace agreements have been so ill-conceived that they did not even provide basic provisions against cross border infiltration of militants or the compulsory surrender of weapons.

Despite this aggressive supporters of these agreements such as Imran Khan continue to deceive the public by calling it the solution against terrorism and by linking it to the Northern Ireland peace process (Belfast Agreement). What these people fail to tell the public is that this peace process was only made possible after the successful process of “Decommissioning” where an Independent International Commission was formed in order to supervise the surrender of weapons by Irish Republican Army. One can never expect Taliban and al Qaeda to adopt “Decommissioning” since their ideology and struggle is religiously motivated unlike the IRA conflict.

Since the agenda of Taliban/al Qaeda is to forcefully implement their puritanical sharia and exploit peace deals to regain strategic strength, Pakistan has no option other than to declare an all-out war against them. However the drone technology is only viable as a short term solution because the war in Pakistan is an ideological one and winning it in the long run means ensuring against the rise of future terrorists by creating and promoting a counter ideology. Until then it seems, the drones are here to stay.

It’s about time Pakistan wakes up to the strategic advantages of drone strikes and identify its role in curtailing terrorism instead of choosing to selectively criticize them whenever “Good Taliban” are targeted- who continue to send fighters in Afghanistan to fight Nato troops such as Hafiz Gul Bahadur, Maulvi Nazir and Haqqani Network.

Pakistan, being a vital non-Nato ally, must treat all Taliban as one, while allowing these strikes unabated, and stop decrying sovereignty issues because sovereignty, if Pakistan still has one, is foremost being violated by Taliban and Al Qaeda.

As a banner during a protest aptly portrays ‘Drones kill, so Malala can live’. This should be Pakistan’s philosophy in order to avoid future incidents which aim at crushing the very spirit of Pakistan by targeting a 14-year-old beacon of light, Malala Yousufzai.

References:
Syed Saleem Shahzad 2011, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11
Pakistan Datasheet - List
Pakistan drone statistics visualised: TBIJ
Obama 2012 Pakistan strikes: TBIJ
http://livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Stanford_NYU_LIVING_UNDER_DRONES.pdf
Reprieve
Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11: Amazon.co.uk: Syed Saleem Shahzad: Books
CODEPINK*:*Pakistan Peace Delegation - FAQs

*Note: The graph “Blast Casualties in Major Cities vs Drone Strikes” has taken Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Peshawar into consideration.

The writer is an investigative Counter Terrorism Analyst. He blogs at aacounterterror.wordpress.com and tweets at @Anas_Abbas1.

 

[airmarshal]

Drones are very good for Pakistan. Pakistan must not be ungrateful for the death coming from the skies.

If you read Express Tribune for a week, you will have the same sentiment.

Anything Pakistan does against drones, even a statement is considered an ungrateful deed of the worst kind.

The parallel is that we if can mange to kill our very own a few hundred every month in Karachi, why cant the superpower kill a few more up in the north?

Ask the failed political combine of PML-PPP-MQM-ANP who never utter a word against drones but one or two of the parties of this corrupt mafia are hell bent upon starting an operation to please their god.

The shameful mess we are in is because of the cowards who lead our nation. They have no conviction and only policy is to stay in power without taking any responsibility.

 

[Solomon2]

The shameful mess we are in is because of the cowards who lead our nation. They have no conviction and only policy is to stay in power without taking any responsibility.

We both agree on this one. Yet I do not understand why people think that a populist like Imran Khan would be an improvement: he, also, does not want to take responsibility for making tough decisions, only saying that he will endorse perfect results.

 

[jatt+gutts]

pakistanis should man up and shoot couple of drones and do operations in waziruistan and flush out talibans. unless they do that drones will keep on killing. unless pakistanis behave like nomal peaceloving people and not like khudai khidmatgar fighting for islam all round the world drones will keep coming. hate begets hate. dont expect roses from people whom you wish to kill. kafirs are not people without heart.

 

[Najam Khan]

I really dont think pakistanis care about drone attacks. There is a sizable part of society (including govt) who are okey with drone attacks because it keeps their hands clean.
I also wonder whether pakistan will use drones againts terrorist hideout if it had access to drones. They already used fighter jets.
Its mostly violation of soverignty people are angry about, not human rights ( i mean rest of the people, not those who are victim).

Bhut Meharbani yeh sub btaaney ka. There is nothing to debate here, If in every poll on drone strikes more than 90% Pakistanis are against drone strikes then they should be put to an end.

 

[fatman17]

I would highly recommend that you read at least Chapter 4 of the report, which can be found here:

Legal Analysis | Living Under Drones

always trying to live behind legalities.

 

[Kompromat]

 

[VCheng]

always trying to live behind legalities.

The law is important, inasmuch that rule of law makes sure that even if one does not like the policy, at least it is done properly with due process.

 

[Kompromat]

Sunday, 14 October 2012 21:00

U.S. Drones Kill 16 in Pakistan; Victims Left Unidentified

Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

Despite having declared war on no one — not al-Qaeda, not the Taliban, no one — the United States fired four missiles from a drone Thursday killing 16 “suspected militants.”

Although stories relating the event will not say it, “suspected militant” is a post-9/11 euphemism for someone not charged with any crime, not identified as an enemy combatant, but killed by our government anyway.

According to Pakistani news outlet Dawn.com, the Buland Khel area of the Orakzai agency in Pakistan was the site of the attack on October 11, the 39th drone attack in Pakistan this year.

“The attack was aimed at the compound of Maulana Shakirullah, who is the commander of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),” officials said according to the Dawn.com report.

The author of the Dawn.com article explains the relationship between the group targeted by President Obama and the known coterie of alleged terrorists:

The militant wing run by Shakirullah has been linked with the Haqqani network and Al-Qaeda. The Hafiz Gul Bahadur group has been repeatedly accused by the US for being involved in cross-border attacks into Afghanistan.

This was the second drone attack in Orakzai agency. The first came in 2009 in the Khadezai area of Mamozai in Upper Orakzai agency, in which 11 militants affiliated to TTP’s Hakimullah group were killed.

As has become standard operating procedure for these drone strikes, the unmanned vehicles were reportedly still buzzing over the site of the attack, keeping anyone from approaching the rubble and retrieving the bodies.

Another regular feature of the president’s death-by-drone program is the lack of names associated with the attack — neither the target nor the victims are identified. Logically, it would be very difficult to eliminate "suspected militants" when that term goes undefined by those ordering the attacks. Of course, by not explicitly defining that term, anyone killed in the drone war can be so identified without fear of contradiction.

Just a day earlier, five other “suspected militants” were killed in a U.S. drone strike and none of those victims has been identified, either.

In the narratives of both attacks, however, the failure of the strikes to kill any “senior al Qaeda or allied jihadist commanders from foreign terrorist groups” was mentioned.

Apart from the horrific human toll of the president’s drone war, there is the irrefutable and as yet unaddressed fact that the U.S. Constitution forbids the taking of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law.

President Barack Obama, despite the multiplicity and feigned sincerity of his denials, has set himself up as the judge, jury, and executioner of those he alone deems a threat to national security. And notwithstanding the Constitution, he does not believe he is obliged to provide any explanation to the American people or to the families of those murdered by attacks he ordered.

In fact, according to a recent report on the various aspects of the drone war, the White House and CIA’s targeted killing programs are rattling the already war-ravaged psyches of the civilian population of Pakistan.

For example, in a subsection of the report entitled “Mental Health Impacts of Drone Strikes and the Presence of Drones,” the authors relate the story of David Rohde. The two-time Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter was kidnapped in November 2008 and held for seven months by the Taliban while covering Afghanistan and Pakistan for the New York Times in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwest Pakistan. Rohde's story is quoted in the drone report: “The drones were terrifying. From the ground, it is impossible to determine who or what they are tracking as they circle overhead. The buzz of a distant propeller is a constant reminder of imminent death.” Describing the experience of living under drones as "hell on earth," Rohde explained that even in the areas where strikes were less frequent, the people living there still feared for their lives.

Many in the United States may discount the importance of such a story, pointing out that such an existence is the price of harboring terrorists and those intent on threatening the national security of the United States.

In light of the foregoing and the president’s haughty reluctance to even officially admit the existence of his kill list and the program to send drones to winnow it down, it would be very naïve to believe the assassination of innocents is an unfortunate miscalculation. When the judicial and executive powers of government are consolidated and restraints on the exercise of power are cast aside, it can be expected — based both on our knowledge of history and on the nature of man — that power will be abused and no one’s rights or life will be safe from elimination by despots.

The presidential presumption of guilt by association followed by an autocratic order of a lethal drone strike rightly worries many friends of liberty in the United States and abroad. With regard to due process, one asks why the alleged terrorists who are the purported targets of these attacks cannot be tried in our federal court system? For decades those accused of terroristic crimes have been formally charged with those crimes, had those charges heard before an impartial federal judge, and been permitted to mount a defense to those crimes.

Perhaps President Obama has created in his mind a place where the burden of killing so many people without due process is lifted by the fact that, as a story reporting on a lawsuit filed against the government of Pakistan for its participation in the targeting of its own citizens, “a soldier carries out the killing from a cubicle using a joystick to operate the predatory drone.”

Regardless of such psychological speculation, the facts are that there are scores of unidentified and uncounted dead as a result of this program and the United States killed them without charge, without trial, and without any official remorse.

President Obama’s ordering of drone-delivered assassinations is an effrontery to over 650 years of our Anglo-American law’s protection from autocratic decrees of death without due process of law. When any president usurps the power to place names on a kill list and then have those people summarily executed without due process, he places our Republic on a trajectory toward tyranny and government-sponsored terrorism.

Of course, it would be another matter if those targeted and executed by the president were armed enemy combatants — they were not. Were these suspected militants enemy soldiers captured during wartime, they would be necessarily afforded certain rights granted to POWs. Those slated for assassination are not allowed any rights — neither the due process rights given to those accused of crimes nor the rights of fair treatment given to enemies captured on the battlefield.

President Barack Obama has assumed — with the collusion of Congress — dictatorial power only dreamed of by the most ruthless Roman ruler, as well as all power over life and death. Like those Roman tyrants, Obama has composed a proscription list populated with the names of suspected militants — a group deprived of rights altogether.

Since 2006, 2,566 people have been killed in Pakistan by missiles fired from American drones.

U.S. Drones Kill 16 in Pakistan; Victims Left Unidentified

 

[Wickerman]

It doesnt matter how many civilians vs terrorists those drones kill. The very fact that civilians are killed is what matters. Whether its 1% or 80% does not matter at all.

The thing is one has to understand terrorism and how people get pulled into such radical movements. If a guy is a poor person in one of those tribal areas where such drone attacks happen, even if he is not terrorist, he will turn into one if he loses a loved one in such an attack. It will be very easy to convince him in that situation to actually become a terrorist and go on a campaign against the US.

Therefore, drone strikes CREATE more terrorists as much as it kills. So there will be no end to terrorism. And more and more civilians will keep dying. When will it end? What is America's long term strategy here? Its totally stupid.

If you want terrorism to end, dont give the terrorists a reason to recruit and dont give the locals a reason to look toward the terrorists for help.

Remember, during the american war of independence even the militia would have been called terrorists if they had lost to Britain. Political standing is what matters here. Qualitatively they are all the same.

 

[Sugarcane]

Pain Continues after War for American Drone Pilot - SPIEGEL ONLINE

With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.

Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif.

Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach.

"Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.

"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.

"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.

Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.

They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?

 

[Hawaii's Finest]

So drones are terrorizing normal citizens? ReallY?