From Veteran’s Today …
The Obama administration has repeatedly declared that drone strikes have caused next to zero civilian casualties, but a rigorous and extensive study done by Stanford Law School and New York University’s School of Law showed the opposite. The report meticulously declared that
“from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562 – 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 – 881 were civilians, including 176 children…these strikes also injured an additional 1,228 – 1,362 individuals.”[1]
The report continued, “Before this [the people] were all very happy. But after these drones attacks a lot of people are victims and have lost members of their family. A lot of them, they have mental illnesses.”[2]
Therefore, “real threats to U.S. security and to Pakistani civilians exist in the Pakistani border areas now targeted by drones.”[3] In 2009, drone strikes in al-Majala in Southern Yemen took the lives of 14 women and 21 children.[4]
Just a few days after the Newtown incident, the U.S. military dropped drones in Yemen and killed 11 civilians, including women and children. The Yemenis, of course, were frustrated. One Yemeni responded,
“Our entire village is angry at the government and the Americans. If the Americans are responsible, I would have no choice but to sympathize with al-Qaeda because al-Qaeda is fighting America.”[5]
Another individual who was wounded from the drones declared, “If we are ignored and neglected, I would try to take my revenge. I would even hijack an army pickup, drive it back to my village and hold the soldiers in it hostages. I would fight along al-Qaeda’s side against whoever was behind this attack.”[6]
The U.S. has done the same thing in Pakistan and Afghanistan.[7] Even people like former U.S. General Stanley McChrystal were having second thoughts about drones.[8] And those politicians who brazenly declare that drones work have actually never been in the battlefield to see what is actually taking place.
One U.S. drone pilot, Brandon Bryant, who quit his military career in 2012 because of too many civilian killings, lamented,
“I saw men, women and children die during that time. I never thought I would kill that many people. In fact, I thought I couldn’t kill anyone at all.”[9]
He continued to say, “I felt disconnected from humanity for almost a week.”[10] Heather Linebaugh, who served in the U.S. Air Force and worked on the drone program, writes:
“Whenever I read comments by politicians defending [drones], I wish I could ask them some questions. I’d start with: ‘How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?’ And: ‘How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?’”[11]
A few days ago, the New York Times declared that “In some respects, the drone strike in Yemen last week resembled so many others from recent years: A hail of missiles slammed into a convoy of trucks on a remote desert road, killing at least 12 people. But this time the trucks were part of a wedding procession, making the customary journey from the groom’s house to the house of the bride.”[12]
No coincidence here. In fact, the U.S. has actually bombed at least eight wedding ceremonies since 2011.[13]
But take a microphone and randomly start interviewing people about those incidents. Do you think the vast majority of them will know? Or do you think the media really wants them to know? As journalist Tom Engelhardt argues,
“And were a wedding party to be obliterated on a highway anywhere in America on the way to, say, a rehearsal dinner, whatever the cause, it would be a 24/7 tragedy. Our lives would be filled with news of it. Count on that.”[14]
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Now let us move Engelhardt’s argument to the next level. Let us say that Mr. Obama’s precious children were having some barbecue on their backyard and then an explosive went off (God forbid), which eventually caused severe damages to those precious children.
How would the president and our beloved first lady react? How would America in general feel? Would not the country go into universal mourning? Would not the president pursue further investigation? Would he not do everything in his power to go after the culprits?
We all know what he would do. Right after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Obama delivered a message saying,
“These tragedies must end and to end them we must change. The majority of those who died today were children—beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them—birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers — men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.”[15]
Shortly thereafter, One Yemeni blogger by the name of Noon Arabia declared,
“Our children’s blood is not cheaper than American blood and the pain of losing them is just as devastating. Our children matter too, Mr. President! These tragedies ‘also’ must end and to end them ‘YOU’ must change.”[16]
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