Stop Pakistani civilian drone deaths

By Alyssa Figueroa, on AlterNet in the USA:

November 14, 2012

On Drone Warfare, Pakistani Man: “We Are The People Who Do Not Matter”

(L-R) Samina Sundas, Medea Benjamin, Dianne Budd and Toby Blome discuss CODEPINK‘s recent delegation to Pakistan.

“We are the people who do not matter; our voices cannot be heard over here,” one Pakistani man told Dianne Budd. “We are lucky for you to be here, and we want everyone to come fearlessly here.”

Budd is a member of CODEPINK, an anti-war organization that recently led a delegation of 34 activists on a trip to Pakistan in October. Last night, the organization hosted a report back in San Francisco to discuss their experiences in a country devastated by U.S. killer drones and our continued military intervention.

“People there feel so unseen and unheard,” Budd said.

This is perhaps because people haven’t made a real effort to see or hear them. According to CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin, tribal areas in Pakistan have been off limits to foreigners for ten years. And so when CODEPINK’s delegation arrived, despite threats to their lives, hundreds of people had surrounded them, staring — “almost as if we were animals in a zoo,” Benjamin said. “They were so amazed to see Americans who had come there, especially Americans who had come there to denounce the drones. And everyone wanted to touch us, take their picture with us, just interact with us.”

Members of CODEPINK’s delegation spoke continuously about the hospitality they received, and how they were greeted so warmly by the Pakistanis they visited. Benjamin recalled that when the delegation got on stage at a rally, people immediately chanted: “Welcome! Welcome! We want peace! We want peace!”

Benjamin said, “It was so beautiful just to look out there and feel that people are so open to a loving and compassionate message, they want to hear that from Americans. They want really desperately to know that there are Americans who care about their lives.”

Which may not seem like the case as our drones continue to wreak havoc on their lives. As Benjamin said, our drones hover above their skies. Families are scared to go out as well as stay home. They are afraid of sending their children to school, to go to weddings and funerals, which are often drone targets. There is also fear of holding community meetings to talk about these issues because one of their community meetings was once attacked by a drone — killing 42 of the most respected leaders in the community. The drones have also increased depression and suicide throughout the country.

“What is happening in Pakistan is totally unlike the Pakistan I grew up in,” said Samina Sundas, founder and Executive Director of the American Muslim Voice Foundation.

Meanwhile, secrecy continues to surround the drone program and its effectiveness in killing militants. There is an estimate of about 2,600 – 3,400 people killed via drone in Pakistan — only two percent of which were on the U.S. government’s high-value target list. Most of the rest go unnamed and unacknowledged by the U.S. government.

The media, however, reports drones are constantly killing militants, mainly because Obama re-defined the term “militant” to mean every man of military age. In addition, CODEPINK activist Toby Blome said that while in Pakistan, she learned that some militants’ names are used multiple times in news reports to justify drone use. One Pakistani told her a militant’s name was used three times in the media, and exclaimed, “How many times can one man die?”

Still, as Benjamin noted, whether or not drones are “effective” in their mission looks past the fact that our military interventions do not create peace or stability. Pakistani people are living a life of fear under our drones as well as under the Taliban and its rising numbers. Benjamin added, “We see most people join the Taliban not out of ideology but out of despair and revenge.”

Related articles

• CODEPINK Anti-Drone Delegation Brings Message of Solidarity to Tribal Areas in Pakistan Off-Limits to Foreigners for a Decade (codepinkalert.org)
• CODEPINK Peace Delegation now in Pakistan, Meeting with Victims of Obama (codepinkalert.org)
• U.S. Peace Activists, in Pakistan, Decry Drone Strikes (rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Anti-Drone Protesters Set off on Historical March in Pakistan, Despite Threats (commondreams.org)
• CODEPINK Joins Pakistani March to Waziristan to Protest US Drones (codepinkalert.org)
• Anti-Drone Rally Held Despite Military Blockade (commondreams.org)
• Anti-Drone Activists Gain Momentum in Pakistan ahead of March (commondreams.org)
• CODEPINK Peace Delegation now in Pakistan, Meeting with Victims of Obama’s Drone Strikes (bsnorrell.blogspot.com)
• Medea Benjamin: Pushing Obama’s Arc Toward Peace (huffingtonpost.com)

NATO drone kills three Afghan children

This video is called CIA demands drones despite 80% civilian death rate.

From Pajhwok Afghan News:

NATO Drone Strike Kills Three Afghan Children

November 12, 2012

ISAF drone attack kills 3 boys in Logar

By Abdul Maqsud Azizi

PUL-I-ALAM: Three civilians were killed during an ISAF drone strike in the Baraki Barak district of central Logar province on Monday, residents and the provincial council head said.

The airstrike was conducted at around 1.00 pm in the Shati Qala area of the district, killing three boys, provincial council chief Ghulam Yahiya Ahmadzai told Pajhwok Afghan News.

He said the boys, all aged below 16 years, were working on their farm, and village elders later took their bodies to the governor’s office as a mark of protest.

Resident Haji Habibur Rahman said the boys, working on their carrot farm, had no links to insurgents.

…

Meanwhile, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) media office in Kabul said it was unaware of the incident. It would look into the issue, a brief statement from the NATO-led said.

US troops in Afghanistan post 2014? Here.

Related articles

• NATO soldier killed in Afghan ‘insider’ attack: ISAF (dailystar.com.lb)
• “Afghan troop” kills NATO soldier (worldbulletin.net)
• Afghanistan rampage…Reuters original report appears to tell the truth (in.reuters.com)
• NATO kills four children in Afghan East: Karzai (news.terra.com)

CIA boss resignation, really about Libya?

This video from the USA is called CNBC: BENGHAZI IS NOT ABOUT LIBYA. “It’s An NSC Operation Moving Arms & Fighters Into Syria”.

By Barry Grey in the USA:

The Petraeus affair

12 November 2012

According to the official story surrounding the sudden resignation of Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus, the departure of the former commander of US and allied forces first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan was the result of a personal moral lapse, unrelated to political or intelligence issues.

As the Washington Post, quoting a “senior intelligence official,” wrote on Sunday, “This is a very personal matter, not a matter of intelligence.”

On Friday, Petraeus released a statement to CIA staff in which he said President Obama had accepted his request, submitted the previous day, to resign from the agency. The retired four-star general gave as the sole reason for this step his involvement in an extramarital affair. “Such behavior is unacceptable,” he wrote, “both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.”

The claim, generally being promoted by both the media and the political establishment, that Petraeus’ resignation has no political dimension is not credible. From the reporting thus far of the circumstances surrounding his exit, it is impossible to determine with any precision the specific political issues involved. However, given who Petreaus is and the nature of the various institutions affected, his resignation cannot fail to involve significant political questions.

Regarding the circumstances leading up to his resignation, various media reports, in virtually all cases citing unnamed sources, have converged in general terms on the following narrative:

Last spring, a female associate of Petraeus, identified Sunday as 37-year-old Jill Kelley of Tampa, Florida, reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that she had received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, a 40-year-old writer who recently authored a glowing biography of Petreaus.

Kelley is the State Department liaison to the military’s Special Operations Command. Broadwell is a wife and mother, graduate of the US Military Academy, and Army reserve officer. She spent a year in Afghanistan in close contact with the general when he was commanding the occupation forces there.

The FBI, an agency of the Justice Department, launched an investigation several months ago and came across emails between Petraeus and Broadwell making clear they were involved in an extramarital affair. Some press reports speak of unwarranted access by Broadwell to Petreaus’ personal email account as well as unspecified classified documents.

At some point the FBI interviewed both Petraeus and Broadwell. However, the FBI and Justice Department purportedly concluded that there had been no security breach and no laws had been broken.

For reasons unexplained, neither Congress nor the White House was informed of the FBI investigation of the CIA director until after last Tuesday’s election. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, nominally Petraeus’ superior, was supposedly informed only Tuesday afternoon. The White House was told Wednesday, but Obama himself learned of the affair only Thursday when he met with Petraeus. Obama told the CIA head he wanted 24 hours to consider his request to resign, and on Friday accepted the resignation.

Various members of congressional intelligence committees interviewed on Sunday news programs said they had no advance knowledge at all of either the investigation or the resignation. Some called for a congressional probe into the FBI handling of the case.

This bizarre scenario, very possibly involving violations of laws requiring disclosure to Congress of significant intelligence matters, itself strongly suggests unstated political agendas and conflicts. For one thing, all of this was taking place in the run-up to the presidential election and being concealed from the electorate.

Moreover, Petraeus was scheduled to testify this week in closed session before both the House and the Senate intelligence committees on the role of the CIA in connection with the September 11 assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the death of the US ambassador and three other Americans, including two CIA operatives. Both committees now say he will not appear before them this week, although some committee members have suggested he might be called to testify at a later point.

The events in Benghazi have far-reaching implications, since they involve Washington’s alliance with jihadist forces, including those linked to Al Qaeda, in last year’s war to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. This alliance continues in the current drive for regime-change in Syria.

The fact, as well, that one of the US ruling class’ chief police-intelligence agencies launched a probe resulting in the downfall of the head of a rival agency suggests that questions of policy as well as “turf” and status were involved.

Last month, the Washington Post, in a series of articles on Obama’s expansion and institutionalization of extrajudicial drone assassinations, took note of differences between Petraeus and Obama’s counterterrorism chief, John Brennan. Pointing out that Petraeus was pressing for an expansion of the CIA’s fleet of armed drone aircraft, the Post wrote:

“Brennan is leading efforts to curtail the CIA’s primary responsibility for targeted killings. Over opposition from the agency, he has argued that it should focus on intelligence activities and leave lethal action to its more traditional home in the military, where the law requires greater transparency.”

Regardless of how the crisis engulfing Petraeus arose, the decisions regarding its handling were political. If one accepts the official narrative, the question arises: Why did Obama decide, after being told of the sexual affair by Petraeus on Thursday, to accept his resignation? As some commentators have pointed out, in light of the reported absence of a security breach or violation of law, Obama could very well have treated the entire affair as a merely personal matter that did not warrant Petraeus’ departure.

This brings us to another important aspect of the Petraeus affair: the perverse political environment in which a fairly commonplace event in marital affairs is treated as something akin to a felony, often becoming the pretext for settling political scores.

Petraeus is a deeply reactionary figure, but he has not been brought down because of war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere. Rather, he has been declared unfit because of perhaps the first reported act that indicates he is human.

As military journalist Tom Ricks told CNN: “You put an officer out there on repeated tours and if he doesn’t slip, I’d be surprised. What he have today is shocking proof that Gen. Petraeus is a human being.”

The fall of Petraeus is but the latest example of the extraordinary degree to which sex has become a powerful instrument of political and personal control.

Libya: Failed Nato Mission Exposes U.S. Generals: here.

Related articles

• Woman targeted by Petraeus’ then-lover wants privacy (cbsnews.com)
• Timeline of Petraeus scandal scrutinized as Benghazi hearing looms (guardian.co.uk)
• FBI to brief congress on Petraeus case (news.smh.com.au)
• Eric Cantor knew of Petraeus affair in October, said spokesperson (wtvr.com)

Drones kill Pakistani civilians

This video from the USA says about itself:

Sep 24, 2012 by bravenewfoundation

http://www.warcosts.com

Since 2004, up to 884 innocent civilians, including at least 176 children, have died from US drone strikes in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. A new report from the Stanford and New York University law schools finds drone use has caused widespread post-tramatic stress disorder and an overall breakdown of functional society in North Waziristan. In addition, the report finds the use of a “double tap” procedure, in which a drone strikes once and strikes again not long after, has led to deaths of rescuers and medical professionals. Many interviewees told the researchers they didn’t know what America was before drones. Now what they know of America is drones, death and terror. Follow the conversation @WarCosts #UnderDrones

Robert Naiman, Truthout: A US peace delegation organized by Code Pink delivered a petition from more than 3,000 Americans to Acting US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Hoagland, calling for an end to the CIA drone strike policy in Pakistan: here.

A convoy of thousands protesting against illegal US drone assassinations was turned back by Pakistan’s army today as it approached South Waziristan: here.

USA: Catholic Worker Brian Terrell of Maloy, Iowa has been sentenced to serve six months in a federal prison for his witness against the use of drone warfare. Here are his statements to the court during his sentencing.

After a decade of the use of drones as part of its “war on terror” abroad, the US government is preparing the American people for the routine use of drones inside the US: here.

Peace activists will descend on RAF Waddington on Saturday to protest against the opening of the first British operating base for unmanned drones: here.

Foreign Secretary William Hague will be in court tomorrow over Britain’s alleged support for illegal CIA drone attacks in Pakistan: here.

3 killed, kids hurt as fury grows over U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan: here.

Related articles

• PM demands an end to US drone attacks in Pakistan (dawn.com)

Yemeni civilians killed again

This video is called Yemeni Civilians Protest U.S. Drone Attacks (November 2011).

By Niall Green:

US steps up military operations in Yemen

10 September 2012

An aerial attack in Yemen killed eleven civilians, including three women and three children, in the town of Radda last week. The atrocity, one of a growing number of deadly strikes carried out either by US drone aircraft or by the Yemeni armed forces operating under US direction, also injured several other civilians in the area.

According to local news sources, the September 2 attack in Radda occurred when Yemeni military aircraft opened fire on two vehicles traveling through the town, which is located in the impoverished Al Bayda province, about 100 miles south of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a.

Al Bayda province is a frontline in the civil war between the Yemeni government and a tribal-based opposition in southern Yemen. Local media reported that the killings sparked protests in Radda and among tribesmen in surrounding area.

Yemen’s armed forces later took responsibility for the Radda attack, with a military spokesman claiming that the operation was based on “faulty intelligence” that the targets were part of a convoy that included Al Qaeda fighters.

A new analysis finds five ways drone strikes in Yemen are hurting American interests: here.

Yemen women and economic problems: here.

Related articles

• Amnesty slams Yemen military, al Qaeda for rights abuses (news.terra.com)
• ‘Rights abuses’ in Yemen’s Abyan (bbc.co.uk)

More Pakistani civilian drone deaths than reported

This video from the USA says about itself:

Civilian Deaths from US Drone Attacks Much Higher than Reported

Aug 21, 2012 by The Real News

Gareth Porter: New investigative work shows that civilian deaths in Pakistan, including from second wave attacks, [are] higher than [the] Pentagon reports.

On January 3 2010 school teacher Sadiq Noor and his nine-year-old son were blown to pieces in Pakistan by two missiles fired by a US drone into their home: here.

US drone attacks escalate inside Pakistan: here.

Pakistan Drone Study Finds ‘Damaging And Counterproductive’ Consequences From U.S. Policy; here.

Robert Naiman, Truthout: “If people have to confront the actual reality of the Pakistan drone strike policy – the reality in which its impact is mostly about killing and terrorizing civilians and alienating Pakistani public opinion from the United States as opposed to the fairy tale in which it is all about wasting top-level ‘bad guys’ – the political story will fall apart”: here.

Drone industry admits they enable murder

This video says about itself:

America’s use for domestic drones

What are the technological advantages and privacy concerns as drones become cheaper and more accessible?

The Stream talks to journalist and former U.S. Marine, Josh Rushing who has just finished a documentary on U.S. military technology including drones. We also talk with Ryan Calo, director of Privacy and Robotics at Stanford Law School.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Drones kill unlawfully, says leading mag

Thursday 09 August 2012

Drone warfare is “tantamount to extra-judicial killings” – and that’s the verdict of the industry’s trade mag.

Peace activists were surprised to find the surprisingly frank admission in the latest issue of Unmanned Vehicles magazine, “the world’s leading independent bi-monthly publication for the unmanned systems industry.”

Acting editor Darren Lake bemoaned a “depressing trend” of public hostility to drones both in warfare and as a tool of domestic surveillance.

“Many people would agree that the policy of targeted assassination carried out by the US in Pakistan and elsewhere has been taken too far and is tantamount to extra-judicial killings.

“UAVs do to some extent, enable this policy, but the same could be achieved with a manned system,” he wrote.

At Drone Convention, Zero Tolerance for Peace: here.

Gareth Porter, Truthout: “Detailed information from the families of those killed in drone strikes in Pakistan and from local sources on strikes that have targeted mourners and rescue workers provides credible new evidence that the majority of the deaths in the drone war in Pakistan have been civilian noncombatants – not ‘militants,’ as the Obama administration has claimed”: here.

General Petraeus and the Drone War. Richard Sale, Truthout in the USA: “With no hobbies, no fishing, no hunting, no golf, the five-foot-nine, 155-pound [Gen. David] Petraeus, who wears his brown hair neatly parted, is known as a colossal worker….Today, Petraeus heads a massive, ‘secret’ policy under President Barack Obama that uses drones, cell phone monitoring and night assaults by US troops to eliminate high-value targets in the war on terror”: here.

Cover-up of civilian drone deaths revealed by new evidence: here.

German Defence Minister Thomas de Maizière confirmed earlier this month that the country’s military is planning to purchase and employ armed drones: here.

US drones kill Yemen civilians

This video is called Yemeni Civilians Protest U.S. Drone Attacks (November 2011).

By Will Morrow:

US expands military intervention into Yemen

4 July 2012

Under the guise of the “war on terror,” the Obama administration is expanding US military operations in Yemen through stepped-up drone attacks and special operations forces on the ground.

What is being presented as a US offensive against the local Al Qaeda affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is in reality a direct military intervention to prop up the widely despised regime of President Mansour al-Hadi, which confronts a developing civil war throughout the country. The Yemeni military is fighting armed tribal and Islamist forces, particularly in the south and, reportedly, southern separatist armed groups and protesters.

In its coverage of US military operations, the Western media has, predictably, repeated as good coin US and Yemeni government claims—without any evidence—that those killed by Yemeni forces and US drone strikes are AQAP “militants.”

In the latest display of the US military’s reckless indifference toward civilians, Yemeni officials told Xinhua news agency that a drone pursued a pick-up truck into the southern port city of Aden on June 25, before firing two missiles and killing all three passengers. It is reportedly the first strike inside Aden, which has a civilian population of more than 800,000 people. No evidence has been provided to support claims that the three men were AQAP members. Referring to an article in the Arabic-language Mareb Press, UPI noted: “Residents in Aden worry the drones will bring only destruction to the province.”

The Military Solution: The Lessons Washington Can’t Draw From the Failure of the Military Option. Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: “Americans may feel more distant from war than at any time since World War II began. Certainly, a smaller percentage of us – less than 1% – serves in the military in this all-volunteer era of ours and, on the face of it, Washington’s constant warring in distant lands seems barely to touch the lives of most Americans”: here.

USA: Billions of Tax Dollars for Drones While Kids Starve and Cities Go Broke: here.

Drone strikes are “capital punishment for people accused of a crime without being given a trial” – German legal expert: here.

Tensions between the Obama administration and the Pakistani government remain high amid continuing US drone strikes in Pakistan: here.

CIA drone strikes violate Pakistan’s sovereignty, says senior diplomat: here.

“Whatever Is Left Is Just Pieces of Bodies and Cloth”: New Report Details the Horror of Living Under Drones: here.

US drone strikes cause worldwide opposition

This video from the USA is called MEDEA BENJAMIN TALK ON DRONE WARFARE.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

US drone strikes prompt global anger

Wednesday 13 June 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

The Obama administration’s escalation of its illegal drone assassination campaign in foreign countries is widely opposed around the world, according to a Pew Research Centre survey released today.

In 17 out of 21 countries surveyed by the US think tank more than half of the people disapproved of US drone attacks targeting people deemed extremist in underdeveloped countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

But in the United States a majority, or 62 per cent, approved the drone campaign including 74 per cent of Republicans and 58 per cent of Democrats.

The polls were nationally representative surveys conducted by telephone or in-person interviews in 21 countries during March and April.

“There remains a widespread perception that the US acts unilaterally and does not consider the interests of other countries,” the study authors said, especially in predominantly Muslim nations where US meddling in the name of anti-terror operations is “still widely unpopular.”

The White House declined to comment on the report titled Global Opinion of Obama Slips, International Policies Faulted.

Speaking in advance of the release Pew Research Centre President Andrew Kohut said: “We continue to see the public thinking Obama has not fulfilled his promise that he would seek international approval for military force and that’s related to displeasure with the drone strikes.”

This is the first year Pew has included a question about the use of drones in its survey on the Obama administration.

“It’s now a global issue,” Mr Kohut observed.

In Pakistan CIA drone strikes have killed about 2,500 civilians since 2004, as well as senior anti-US militants like Abu Yahya al-Libi while US drone controllers have killed an estimated 800 people in Yemen since 2002, with attacks intensifying since Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in February in the face of a popular uprising.

Meanwhile around 170 people are believed to have been killed by US drone strikes in Somalia.

On Monday a former counter-terrorism adviser to Mr Obama accused him of having “routinised and normalised extra judicial killing from the Oval Office.”

Michael Boyle said that Mr Obama “is authorising murder on a weekly basis.”

A column by Jimmy Carter provides extraordinary testimony by an ex-president against the Obama administration for engaging in assassinations and other criminal violations of international law and the US Constitution: here.

Pakistanis against US drones

This video is called Raids, Drones Deteriorate U.S.-Pakistan Relationship.

Thousands of people rallied in cities across Pakistan today to condemn the Obama administration’s drone attacks on the country and to press Islamabad to end its “pro-US policies”: here.

Washington’s increasing use of unmanned drones to kill people in developing countries looks set to remain shrouded in secrecy after a US federal judge dismissed a lawsuit on Friday that aimed to force the Obama administration to divulge official information: here.

Britain: Campaigners have condemned plans by BAE Systems to showcase a new “autonomous” unmanned drone at this week’s London arms fair, citing evidence that the existing Reaper models have killed civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan: here.

Officials: Drone Crashes In Northwestern Pakistan: here.

Pakistan reacted with outrage today after the US’s top military official accused the country’s intelligence agency of involvement in attacks on Nato occupying armies in Afghanistan: here.

The crisis in US-Pakistan relations continues to escalate more than a week after chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency of supporting the Haqqani network: here.

NATO is pissed Pakistan isn’t killing enough of its own people to satisfy the West’s foreign policy goals: here.

The Obama administration is building a network of secret drone bases to expand its illegal campaign of extra-judicial executions deeper into Africa and the Arabian peninsula, the Washington Post reported today: here.

US drones in the Horn of Africa: here.

Security guards shut the National Air and Space Museum in Washington on Saturday after nearly 200 people tried to stage a protest against an exhibit that sanitises the US government’s use of drones to assassinate people abroad: here.

Anti-Drone Movement Grows: here.

“Grim Milestone as 300th CIA Drone Strike Hits Pakistan. Chris Woods, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: “The United States ‘covert’ drone war in Pakistan reached a new milestone today with the 300th attack on alleged militants in the country’s tribal areas, according to research by the Bureau…. The Bureau has now identified 300 drone strikes since June 17 2004. Of these, 248 have occurred during President Obama’s three years in office, rising to a frequency of one strike every four days”: here.

Nick Turse: America’s Secret Empire of Drone Bases: here.