The case against drone attacks

[The Northerner]

It’s hard to find a greater symbol of cruelty than the Khmer Rouge. A communist outfit led by Saloth Sar, later known as Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge dreamt of transforming Cambodia into an agrarian paradise. After seizing power in 1975, the party became a frenzied killing machine. Entire cities were evacuated and the displaced made to labour in the countryside. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, civil servants, intellectuals and minorities were killed openly; some by pickaxes, to save on bullets.

But there was a Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge. With war raging in neighbouring Vietnam, the US carpet-bombed Cambodia throughout the early 1970s. Then, as now, the target of the bombing campaigns was an insurgency that fed the war next door and fought to overthrow the state. Then, as now, the US had the support of the government in return for aid and self-preservation. And, as several western analysts now admit, there was a strong correlation between villages bombed and the rise in support for the Maoists in those villages. Cambodia would erupt into civil war, and the Khmer Rouge –– its cadres swelling with those driven to desperation by the bombings –– would go on to massacre the ruling classes first.

Pakistan isn’t Cambodia. Nor can external threats dislodge the state (though the state’s own branches may swat at each other). But as drones continue their assault on Fata, the US is going down the same route that led it to misery 40 years ago. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that out of 312 drone strikes, of which an incredible 260 have been under Barack Obama, over 3,000 people have been killed –– 175 being children.

Secretary of Defence, Leon Panetta still calls the drones ‘precise’, and in his casual way, ‘the only game in town’ for disrupting al Qaeda. This settles badly with US Army General David Petraeus’ top advisor David Kilcullen telling Congress: “Since 2006, we’ve killed 14 senior al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area.” Panetta’s ‘precise’, then, means slaughtering 50 Pakistanis for one leader.

Read more: http://tribune.com.pk/story/346369/the-case-against-drone-attacks/

[midnight]

1. "The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that out of 312 drone strikes, of which an

incredible 260 have been under Barack Obama, over 3,000 people have been killed –– 175 being children."



So over half of our drone strikes have killed children. That's a good case not to use them...

[saras]

2. The case against drones in two words: transvaginal ultrasound

In WWI, nearly all casualties were soldiers.
In WWII, 50% were civilian
In Vietnam, 70% civilian
It has consistently gotten worse
Fifty to one is 2%

We've got all that empty desert, we'd be so much better off if we just lined them up in rows like mutual firing squad and let them have at it, like a shin-kicking contest. When World War Two is twenty-five times better than what you're doing, you're pretty fucked up.