US SAYS DRONE STRIKE TARGETTED MOHAMMED EMWAZI IN RAQAA .. UK PM SAID THIS WAS AN ACT OF SELF DEFENCE .. CAMERON HAD HIMSELF APPROVED THE KILLING OF THREE UK JIHADISTS SAYING IT WAS AN ACT OF SELF DEFENCE .. HE STILL HASN’T PRODUCED THE EVIDENCE FOR HIS CLAIMS ..
The drone attacks are carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency and not the US military since Pakistan is not a zone of armed conflict, unlike neighbouring Afghanistan.
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama insisted the strategy was “kept on a very tight leash” and that without the drones, the US would have had to resort to “more intrusive military action”.
The report, by Stanford University and New York University’s School of Law, says top commanders only account for an estimated 2% of drone victims.
The report also details hundreds of civilian casualties and the effects of drone strikes on the local population. It cites data from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimating that between 474 and 881 civilians have been killed in strikes between 2004 and 2012.
“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 US safer by enabling ‘targeted killings’ of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false,” according to the report, Living Under Drones.
“Publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best,” it says, adding that targeted killings and drone attacks undermine respect for international law.
The report says that the US government rarely acknowledges civilian casualties, though there is significant evidence that civilians are being injured and killed.
The report highlights the impact of drone attacks on civilians in Pakistan’s tribal regions. Citing “extensive interviews with the local population”, the authors say:
children are being taken out of school out of fear of a drone-strike or to compensate for income lost from a dead or wounded relative
there is “significant evidence” of the practice of “double-tap” strikes in which rescuers arriving at the scene are targeted in follow-up attacks
drones flying overhead have led to “substantial levels of fear and stress… in the civilian communities”
as well as injury or death, the attacks cause property damage, severe economic hardship and emotional trauma for the injured and their families
people are afraid to attend gatherings such as funerals for fear of attack
Datta Khel drone strike
According to the report, 42 people were killed, mostly civilians, when they gathered at a bus depot on 17 March 2011 for a “jirga” (community meeting) to settle a dispute over a nearby mine.
The Pakistani military commander said the local military post had been alerted 10 days beforehand so those at the meeting were not concerned by drones overhead.
Several missiles were fired. Nearly all those who died were heads of large households.
The jirga had been chaired by Malik Daud Khan, a political liaison between the government, military and other tribal leaders.
Source: Living Under Drones – Stanford Law School and NYU School of Law
If, as appears likely, Mitt Romney will defeat the current incumbent at the White House in November’s Presidential election, one country will look forward to the eviction of Barack Obama – namely that of Pakistan.
From the outset, even before he was elected, Obama spoke of bombing PAKIStan and true to his word, drone strikes, which will surely be remembered in the same way as GITMO was for George Bush, have marked this Presidency – the last one on Wednesday in the so-called tribal belt killing three people.
And then there was the Nato strike which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, for which Isaf has still not apologised, and which even to the most impartial of observers looked like an act of war, a pre-emptive strike.
At Chicago, the President of Pakistan, who is hated within his own country for being an American ‘puppet’ demanded that the US pay ยฃ3, 200 for every Nato lorry that will pass through Pakistan, if she was to reopen a border crossing closed after that fatal incident involving 24 Pakistani soldiers.
And today comes the first confirmation – if not official – that the Americans got their man with the jailing of the doctor who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden.
Shakil Afridi who had charged with treason and for running a fake vaccination programme was jailed for 30 years in Khyber district.
The raid which was celebrated in the US angered the Pakistanis, who claimed that it was a further violation of their nation’s sovereignty.
So if indeed, a Republican is heading for the CEO’s job at Washington, then the people of Pakistan will be the first to be out on the streets to celebrate.