I know that there are people who think I am completely unrealistic when it comes to war. These are people who believe that wars are necessary evils, that you do what you have to do when it comes to protecting the nation--even waging wars of aggression and/or revenge, and that in wars people die, including civilians.
However that may be, I have been utterly distressed by our illegal and immoral war of aggression in Iraq and our subsequent occuption of that country. I have been distressed, too, by our war in Afghanistian that is spilling over into Pakistan. Many people have been sacrificed for our need (greed?) for hegemony and resources.
I am also distressed by our remote use of attack drones, especially in Pakistan. These drones are being used also in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These low-flying pilotless aircraft played like videogames with a joystick by mostly 19-year old soldiers are sent from Creech Air Force Base in the desert outside of Las Vegas. War is dehumanizing enough as it is. Aerial bombing has always been remote and dehumanizing and now here we are using robotics, including the Predator and Reaper drones, controlled from a greater distance, dehumanizing further. This, to me, is chilling.
Kathy Kelley of Voices of Creative Nonviolence made a trip to Pakistan and published a piece on Common Dreams concerning drones on June 25 entitled, Now We See You, Now We Don’t.
She wrote:
A villager who survived a drone attack in North Waziristan explained that even the children, at play, were acutely conscious of drones flying overhead. After a drone attack, survivors trying to bring injured victims to a hospital were dumbfounded when a driver stopped, learned of their plight and then sped away. Then it dawned on them that the driver was afraid the drone would still be prowling overhead and that he might be targeted for associating with victims of the attack.
The U.S. drone aircraft can see Pakistan - their pilots in air-conditioned Nevada trailers see the terrain even though they are physically thousands of miles away.
...
On Tuesday, June 23rd, U.S. drones launched an attack on a compound in South Waziristan. Locals rushed to the scene to rescue survivors. The U.S. drone then launched more missiles at them, leaving a total of 13 dead. The next day, local people were involved in a funeral procession when the U.S. struck again. Reuters reported that 70 of the mourners were killed.
Kelley concluded her article by saying:
If we want to counter Al-Qaeda, if we want to be safe from further terrorist attacks, we'd do well to remember that even when we don’t recognize the humanity of people bearing the brunt of our wars, these very people have eyes to see and ears to hear. They must be asking themselves, who are the terrorists?
As part of a series of interviews with women from war-torn countries, CODEPINK: Women for Peace interviewed Fawzia Afzal-Khan, a Pakistani-American and English professor at Montclair State University in N.J. about the escalating crisis in Pakistan. The interview was published as their PINKtank blog entry of July 8, 2009. Here is an excerpt:
Many have criticized the Obama administration for its efforts in Pakistan from the perspective of shifting attention from Afghanistan, or for being too supportive of the Pakistan government or not enough. How would you describe the relationship between U.S. efforts in Afghanistan versus those in Pakistan? Do you feel the situation in both countries are unreasonably or faultily linked?
Faultily linked — the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and to broaden it with its drone attacks on the Pakistani side of the Durand line border is to inflame passions against U.S. involvement further amongst the Pakhtoons in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to further strengthen Pakistani citizens anger against U.S. interference and killings of ordinary people and thus also strengthen impression of Pakistani Taliban as freedom fighters standing up against U.S. imperialism.
…
Many argue drone attacks are the only way to kill Taliban or Al Qaeda members, others argue they must be abolished as they are not worth the number of civilians that may be killed. Based on your understanding, do you believe most Pakistani people support the use of drones?
I do not think most Pakistanis support the use of drones–but many do. Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, an eminent Pakistani physicist and social activist, has written extensively on this issue and he actually believes drone attacks may be the lesser of the two evils (the other being Taliban insurgency). However, he too in recent writings says that the drone attacks create bad publicity for the us which is already regarded unfavorably by the majority of the population. And if you think about it, how many Taliban have really been gotten rid of as a result of these attacks? I think the solution has to be political and economic, not military–or certainly not only or even predominantly a military one.
According to a poll released this week, more than 80 percent of Pakistanis view the Taliban and Al Qaeda as a critical threat to the country, and U.S. officials believe this will help efforts to fight both groups. Do you have a sense of what efforts Pakistanis feel the government should undertake to fight Taliban and Al Qaeda, and what the U.S. role in this should be?
Yes, Pakistani have finally woken up to the serious threat posed to the nation state by these Islamist extremist groups and want them to be eliminated–but not at the cost of their sovereignty. So I think most Pakistanis want to see real change in government policies which address the root causes of inequities in the country which have led to the rise and support for extremism and madrassa culture. What the U.S. and Pak govt must do is build educational and economic infrastructure of the country and help the people help themselves in their own ways…not impose solutions from the outside. The U.S. should also stop supporting corrupt regimes and leaders like Asif Ali Zardari and look to local, organic leaders and grassroots movements and support them.
A July 9 article in the D.C. publication called The Hill had this:
The poll of more than 2,500 Pakistanis, conducted across rural and urban areas at the end of July by Gallup Pakistan for Al-Jazeera, found that 41 percent favored their government's military operation against the Taliban, while 22 percent claimed neutrality and 24 percent opposed.
But only 9 percent approved of U.S. strikes by unmanned drones against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets. National Security Adviser James Jones said Sunday that the U.S. is 90 percent confident that Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban, was killed when a drone fired at the house of Mehsud's father-in-law on Wednesday.
"Mehsud was a very bad individual, a real thug," Jones said.
Pakistanis, though, fingered the U.S. as the enemy in the poll.
A whopping 59 percent -- a figure that cut fairly evenly across party lines, gender, language and age -- said that the U.S. is the greatest threat to Pakistan. Only 11 percent named the Taliban, and 18 percent said India was the greatest threat. Twelve percent responded "don't know."
In a July 6 article in TheTelegraph of the UK, a British judge spoke of the possibility of an international ban on the drones:
Lord Bingham, who retired last year as a senior law lord, said the aircraft could follow other weapons considered "so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance" in being consigned to the history books.
He likened drones, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza, to cluster bombs and landmines.
Lord Bingham made the comments to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in an interview which addressed the issue of the state being bound by the rule of law.
"Are there, for example, and this goes to conflict, not post-conflict situations, weapons that ought to be outlawed?" he said.
"From time to time in the history of international law various weapons have been thought to be so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance. I think cluster bombs and landmines are the most recent examples.
"It may be - I'm not expressing a view - that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used."
Just a few days ago, on Friday, August 21, Al-Jazeera English published an article about a drone raid in Pakistan that included this:
At least 10 people have been killed after a suspected US drone fired missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan region, Pakistani intelligence agency officials have said.
The raid on Friday on Darpa Kheil village was the third such attack this month in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal areas by what are believed to be CIA-operated pilotless aircraft.
"The attack caused a huge explosion," said a Reuters reporter in Miranshah, about 2km from the scene of the raid.
Drones were seen flying over the area after the blast, he said.
Darpa Kheil village is home to a large madrassa, or religious school, set up by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former veteran Afghan fighter commander who is also a senior Taliban leader.
US drone aircraft attacked the complex in September last year, killing 23 people, most of them members of Haqqani's family.
On Monday, July 13, CODEPINK and others rallied at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada against the use of the drones. You can read the press release with the explanation here. In the PINKtank blog it was then reported:
In trying to engage in civil disobedience by trying to block traffic into the base, three people were arrested — Father Louis Vitale, Nobel Prize-nominee Kathy Kelly, and Lisa (not sure of last name) from Bellingham, WA. Several more people were injured. Seeing all of it, and men with their M16s, really gives you a taste of what it must feel like living under the horrors of occupation.
CODEPINK plans to return to the site September 25 through 30 for further demonstrations against those drones.
On Saturday, August 22, Kavita Ramdas the President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, wrote in an article published on Common Dreams:
Ordinary people are the victims, caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and the West's precision drones that leave villages in towns with countless orphaned and maimed children and widows.
Mr. Obama, please stop the wars and ground the drones.
However that may be, I have been utterly distressed by our illegal and immoral war of aggression in Iraq and our subsequent occuption of that country. I have been distressed, too, by our war in Afghanistian that is spilling over into Pakistan. Many people have been sacrificed for our need (greed?) for hegemony and resources.
I am also distressed by our remote use of attack drones, especially in Pakistan. These drones are being used also in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These low-flying pilotless aircraft played like videogames with a joystick by mostly 19-year old soldiers are sent from Creech Air Force Base in the desert outside of Las Vegas. War is dehumanizing enough as it is. Aerial bombing has always been remote and dehumanizing and now here we are using robotics, including the Predator and Reaper drones, controlled from a greater distance, dehumanizing further. This, to me, is chilling.
Kathy Kelley of Voices of Creative Nonviolence made a trip to Pakistan and published a piece on Common Dreams concerning drones on June 25 entitled, Now We See You, Now We Don’t.
She wrote:
A villager who survived a drone attack in North Waziristan explained that even the children, at play, were acutely conscious of drones flying overhead. After a drone attack, survivors trying to bring injured victims to a hospital were dumbfounded when a driver stopped, learned of their plight and then sped away. Then it dawned on them that the driver was afraid the drone would still be prowling overhead and that he might be targeted for associating with victims of the attack.
The U.S. drone aircraft can see Pakistan - their pilots in air-conditioned Nevada trailers see the terrain even though they are physically thousands of miles away.
...
On Tuesday, June 23rd, U.S. drones launched an attack on a compound in South Waziristan. Locals rushed to the scene to rescue survivors. The U.S. drone then launched more missiles at them, leaving a total of 13 dead. The next day, local people were involved in a funeral procession when the U.S. struck again. Reuters reported that 70 of the mourners were killed.
Kelley concluded her article by saying:
If we want to counter Al-Qaeda, if we want to be safe from further terrorist attacks, we'd do well to remember that even when we don’t recognize the humanity of people bearing the brunt of our wars, these very people have eyes to see and ears to hear. They must be asking themselves, who are the terrorists?
As part of a series of interviews with women from war-torn countries, CODEPINK: Women for Peace interviewed Fawzia Afzal-Khan, a Pakistani-American and English professor at Montclair State University in N.J. about the escalating crisis in Pakistan. The interview was published as their PINKtank blog entry of July 8, 2009. Here is an excerpt:
Many have criticized the Obama administration for its efforts in Pakistan from the perspective of shifting attention from Afghanistan, or for being too supportive of the Pakistan government or not enough. How would you describe the relationship between U.S. efforts in Afghanistan versus those in Pakistan? Do you feel the situation in both countries are unreasonably or faultily linked?
Faultily linked — the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and to broaden it with its drone attacks on the Pakistani side of the Durand line border is to inflame passions against U.S. involvement further amongst the Pakhtoons in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to further strengthen Pakistani citizens anger against U.S. interference and killings of ordinary people and thus also strengthen impression of Pakistani Taliban as freedom fighters standing up against U.S. imperialism.
…
Many argue drone attacks are the only way to kill Taliban or Al Qaeda members, others argue they must be abolished as they are not worth the number of civilians that may be killed. Based on your understanding, do you believe most Pakistani people support the use of drones?
I do not think most Pakistanis support the use of drones–but many do. Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, an eminent Pakistani physicist and social activist, has written extensively on this issue and he actually believes drone attacks may be the lesser of the two evils (the other being Taliban insurgency). However, he too in recent writings says that the drone attacks create bad publicity for the us which is already regarded unfavorably by the majority of the population. And if you think about it, how many Taliban have really been gotten rid of as a result of these attacks? I think the solution has to be political and economic, not military–or certainly not only or even predominantly a military one.
According to a poll released this week, more than 80 percent of Pakistanis view the Taliban and Al Qaeda as a critical threat to the country, and U.S. officials believe this will help efforts to fight both groups. Do you have a sense of what efforts Pakistanis feel the government should undertake to fight Taliban and Al Qaeda, and what the U.S. role in this should be?
Yes, Pakistani have finally woken up to the serious threat posed to the nation state by these Islamist extremist groups and want them to be eliminated–but not at the cost of their sovereignty. So I think most Pakistanis want to see real change in government policies which address the root causes of inequities in the country which have led to the rise and support for extremism and madrassa culture. What the U.S. and Pak govt must do is build educational and economic infrastructure of the country and help the people help themselves in their own ways…not impose solutions from the outside. The U.S. should also stop supporting corrupt regimes and leaders like Asif Ali Zardari and look to local, organic leaders and grassroots movements and support them.
A July 9 article in the D.C. publication called The Hill had this:
The poll of more than 2,500 Pakistanis, conducted across rural and urban areas at the end of July by Gallup Pakistan for Al-Jazeera, found that 41 percent favored their government's military operation against the Taliban, while 22 percent claimed neutrality and 24 percent opposed.
But only 9 percent approved of U.S. strikes by unmanned drones against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets. National Security Adviser James Jones said Sunday that the U.S. is 90 percent confident that Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban, was killed when a drone fired at the house of Mehsud's father-in-law on Wednesday.
"Mehsud was a very bad individual, a real thug," Jones said.
Pakistanis, though, fingered the U.S. as the enemy in the poll.
A whopping 59 percent -- a figure that cut fairly evenly across party lines, gender, language and age -- said that the U.S. is the greatest threat to Pakistan. Only 11 percent named the Taliban, and 18 percent said India was the greatest threat. Twelve percent responded "don't know."
In a July 6 article in TheTelegraph of the UK, a British judge spoke of the possibility of an international ban on the drones:
Lord Bingham, who retired last year as a senior law lord, said the aircraft could follow other weapons considered "so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance" in being consigned to the history books.
He likened drones, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza, to cluster bombs and landmines.
Lord Bingham made the comments to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in an interview which addressed the issue of the state being bound by the rule of law.
"Are there, for example, and this goes to conflict, not post-conflict situations, weapons that ought to be outlawed?" he said.
"From time to time in the history of international law various weapons have been thought to be so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance. I think cluster bombs and landmines are the most recent examples.
"It may be - I'm not expressing a view - that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used."
Just a few days ago, on Friday, August 21, Al-Jazeera English published an article about a drone raid in Pakistan that included this:
At least 10 people have been killed after a suspected US drone fired missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan region, Pakistani intelligence agency officials have said.
The raid on Friday on Darpa Kheil village was the third such attack this month in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal areas by what are believed to be CIA-operated pilotless aircraft.
"The attack caused a huge explosion," said a Reuters reporter in Miranshah, about 2km from the scene of the raid.
Drones were seen flying over the area after the blast, he said.
Darpa Kheil village is home to a large madrassa, or religious school, set up by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former veteran Afghan fighter commander who is also a senior Taliban leader.
US drone aircraft attacked the complex in September last year, killing 23 people, most of them members of Haqqani's family.
On Monday, July 13, CODEPINK and others rallied at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada against the use of the drones. You can read the press release with the explanation here. In the PINKtank blog it was then reported:
In trying to engage in civil disobedience by trying to block traffic into the base, three people were arrested — Father Louis Vitale, Nobel Prize-nominee Kathy Kelly, and Lisa (not sure of last name) from Bellingham, WA. Several more people were injured. Seeing all of it, and men with their M16s, really gives you a taste of what it must feel like living under the horrors of occupation.
CODEPINK plans to return to the site September 25 through 30 for further demonstrations against those drones.
On Saturday, August 22, Kavita Ramdas the President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, wrote in an article published on Common Dreams:
Ordinary people are the victims, caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and the West's precision drones that leave villages in towns with countless orphaned and maimed children and widows.
Mr. Obama, please stop the wars and ground the drones.
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