America's Scandalous Drone War Goes Unmentioned in the Campaign -- James Joyner, New Republic
A new study released this week by researchers at Stanford and NYU has found that American drone strikes in Pakistan are killing far more civilians than advertised, taking out few high value targets, and have become the primary recruiting tool for the terrorist groups the policy is aimed at combating. The report, “Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan,” is based on “more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts, and review of thousands of pages of documentation and media reporting” conducted over nine months.
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My Comment: The Afghan/Pak conflict, the involvement of US forces in Yemen, the battle against extremist forces in Africa, and God only knows what other conflicts we are involved in .... there has been no public debate/media coverage/anti-war demonstrations/or pundit commentary on the continuing use (and expansion) of drone warfare in some (if not all) of these conflicts. An unbelievable situation in view of the fact that America's drone war inflicts huge numbers of casualties, has a budget that is in the billions, and is growing at an exponential rate that will soon even eclipse the Air Force's fleet of manned aircraft. I guess the reason why there is no debate is because the Republicans approve of it, the Democrats do not want to alienate a certain part of their base, and the American public are not interested.
1 comment:
One should always be careful, where for example the latest "study" came from - "Living under drones" is pure propaganda. If you look up Cavallero, you find that he has been a "Human Rights Watch" activist, that was often accused for being biased against the US and Israel. Cavallero invited a professor that believes 9/11 was an inside job. Plus this professor shown the US as a dog with a jewish kippa, pissing on "justice" in a "political" caricature. And Cavallero has him teach in front of his students. So how about all these "civilian victims"? Well, the numbers are according to other tribal members in this region ... So not really "independent" - and not really believeable watching pictures of drones hovering for hours and re-assuring if there are no civilians in the area.
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