As Obama has escalated drone strikes abroad to more than 70 this year, our fortunes have predictably plummeted. For each authentic enemy of the United States killed by predator drones, more enemies are born. The colloquy of convicted Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad with United States District Judge Miriam Cederbaum speaks volumes.
She challenged Shahzad's self-description as a Muslim soldier because his contemplated violence targeted civilians, "Did you look around to see who they were?"
"Well, the people select the government," Shahzad retorted. "We consider them all the same. The drones, when they hit ..."
Cedarbaum interrupted: "Including the children?"
Shahzad countered: "Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It's a war, and in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims."
Later, he added: "I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die."
The United States should have anticipated the predator drone blow-back. The 1770 Boston Massacre occasioned but five American deaths, but engendered colonial hatred of the British that cascaded throughout the colonies. Thomas Paine's heralded pamphlet Common Sense, a figurative battering ram for the colonists during the Revolutionary War, scorned reconciliation with Britain after their scorched earth warfare:
The Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offenses of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, 'Come, come, we shall be friends again, for all this.' But examine the passion and feelings of mankind, Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity...But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then you are not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.
Predator drones are killing Afghan and Pakistan civilians in greater numbers than militants. According to a 2009 Brookings Institute study, the ratio in Pakistan is at least 10-1. The civilian deaths are inescapable. Adherents of Taliban or Al Qaeda do not wear uniforms or other distinctive insignia. They do not carry membership cards or pay dues. They blend into civil society and are characteristically targeted there. President Obama has hidden the informant or communications sources he uses to distinguish civilians from militants. But Informants may prevaricate for money or revenge. And intercepted communications can be misinterpreted or misleading. Based on identical sources, the U.S. has erroneously identified most Guantanamo Bay detainees as "enemy combatants" according to the vast majority of federal court rulings.
British abuses of civilian populations during the Revolutionary War awakened implacable American enmity. To expect Afghans or Pakistanis to act any differently in response to United States provocations is absurd. Shakespeare's Shylock in The Merchant of Venice is unanswerable on that score:
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge! If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
Bruce Fein is former associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and author of American Empire Before the Fall.
Last week, Phillips has rejected an attempt by the Attorney General to send Lisker back to jail, saying he had missed the window in which to appeal the decision to release him. Bruce Lisker
http://usspost.com/bruce-lisker-20168/
http://sladeisking.com/2010/10/09/celebrate-october-7th-as-predator-drone-day/
These are Bin Laden's best friends.
--Confucius”
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0714_targeted_killings_byman.aspx?p=1
The "risk of not striking" is an ethereal concern, inadequately valued, and likely inflated to justify a politically satisfying short-term remedy that will cause long-term harm. Moreover, the "risk of not striking" predominantly affects our invasion force in Afghanistan, which must be withdrawn. Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan themselves have resulted in another self-inflicted 9/11 and myriad new enemies, due to the same principles that Fein articulates above. (Brookings may recognize this on some level -- withdrawal may be an alternative among the "few options" that the Institute admits remain open to America.)
The long-term harm caused by excessive civilian casualties (or even apparent insensitivity to civilian casualties) can be demonstrated by applying logic to consistent principles of human nature, recognized as such by many of the greatest thinkers in history. Fein's commentary exemplifies this badly needed form of logical analysis. Introspection is sufficient to validate his argument.
Since drone strikes kill civilians, they should be halted for that reason alone. What Shahzad or Bin Laden thinks is immaterial. To give them any say is to give them undue influence over public policy. "We shouldn't do this, it might anger terrorists."
The US, with Israel, is one of the few countries in the world that fights terrorism by military and not police means. This is where the rot is. This is the reason the cost is so high and the effectiveness so low. (Effectiveness measured not only in terms of number of victims, but also and especially in terms of freedom from fear.) A military approach gives terrorists both warrior status and revenge lust, which a police approach - seeing them as criminals, not combatants - would not.
Of course a police approach is incompatible with opportunist fearmongering, which is obviously - obviously! - the reason why the US persists in militarizing the issue.
Anyone caught anthropomorphizing miltary equipment needs major personal introspection time.. Not to mention compelled to take a basic logic class.ASAP.
A 10 to 1 ratio is completely disgusting. Is it even worth it at 1 to 1?
That sounds like an Act of War, which raises a baker's dozen of relevant questions:
1.- Has Congress Declared War on Pakistan?
2.- Exactly what have these "militants" actually done to warrant summary execution?
3.- What evidence was presented to substantiate that claim?
4.- Who evaluated the evidence and authorized these assassinations?
5.- Does United States Law permit these covert actions? (Was Due Process faithfully followed)?
6.- Does International Law contemplate realizing these kinds of assassinations?
7.- Are persons NOT suspected of being militants killed also?
8.- Are additional Militants / "Insurgents" / Terrorists being created as a result of these actions?
9.- Are our tax dollars being used to carry out these attacks?
10.- Does the attacks constitute a socially and ecologically responsible Foreign Policy? Is it Statesman-like?
11.- Does it matter what you or I think?
12.- Do the answers to any of these questions matter?
13.- If so, What can be done about it?
America's Orwellian World of shock, dismay and indignation over the atrocities committed by American scientists on Guatemalans in the 40's has a strange smelly odor of selective morality and hypocrisy in that Orwellian World which can casually ignore war crimes and human rights abuses committed by our leaders and terrorist organizations like the CIA and SIC during America's history right up to the present.
***********************************************************************************************************
History does repeat itself and proof of this is that Goebbels has returned with a new name: MURDOCH!!!
*********************************************************************************************************
An interesting religious fact is that both Bush and Obama claim the Christian god as their guide and their guide must have been telling them that slaughtering, maiming and torturing human beings is a worthwhile endeavor.
***********************************************************************************************************
FBI raids all over the country against political activists, demonstrators and protestors is a clear indication that America has turned into a police state.
Would you and your buddies like to see American military take their place and get slaughtered?
In fact, just what is your answer to bin Laden and those of your WAR loving buddies? The Republicans.
"As long as it's not our kids" ?????
The random acts of killing must stop.
http://microdrones.com/en_home.php
and here
http://www.parrot.com/usa/