Israel has been accused of using missile-firing drones against Palestinians. GettyFrom The Independent:
Unmanned weapons are condemned by Lord Bingham as 'beyond the pale'.
The use of unmanned drones as weapons of war in conflicts around the world has been called into question by one of Britain's most senior judges. Lord Bingham, until last year the senior law lord, said that some weapons were so "cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance".
In an interview with the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Lord Bingham compared drones, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza, with cluster bombs and landmines.
His comments are bound to intensify calls for new international rules to protect civilian populations from arbitrary attacks launched by the pilotless craft.
Read more ....
My Comment: There are some factual errors in this story. The 26 reported deaths in Afghanistan (others say 140) were caused by by a US bomber, not a drone attack. The successor to the Predator is the Reaper ... not the Raptor. And Mohammed Atef was killed in a bombing raid, not a Predator missile strike.
As to the purpose of the story .... I must confess that I can confused. The difference between UAVs and a fighter jet is that one has a pilot, the other does not. Why focus on one, why not focus on the both of them. This judge appears to be focused on UAVs because he believes that they have a technology that jet fighter bombers do not have .... nothing is farther from the truth.
This has the hallmark of a publicity stunt from a judge who is hostile to the war in Afghanistan. If there is a weapon that should be banned as a weapon of mass destruction, it is the AK-47. But (of course) he is not going to pursue it.
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