On MSNBC's Morning Joe program this morning, which focused on Monday's night presidential debate, the former right-wing Congressman and current host Joe Scarborough voiced an eloquent and impassioned critique of President Obama's ongoing killing of innocent people in the Muslim world using drones. In response, Time Magazine's Joe Klein, a stalwart Obama supporter, offered one of the most nakedly sociopathic defenses yet heard of these killings. This exchange, which begins at roughly the 7:00 minute mark on the video embedded below, is quite revealing in several respects.
Published on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 by the Guardian/UK
MOSQUITO DRONE:
By Rob Crilly, Islamabad
5:37PM BST 11 Aug 2011
In an extensive analysis of open-source documents, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that 2,292 people had been killed by US missiles, including as many as 775 civilians.
The strikes, which began under President George W Bush but have since accelerated during the presidency of Barack Obama, are hated in Pakistan, where families live in fear of the bright specks that appear to hover in the sky overhead.
In just a single attack on a madrassah in 2006 up to 69 children lost their lives.
Chris Woods, who led the research, said the detailed database of deaths would send shockwaves through Pakistan, where political and military leaders repeatedly denounce the strikes in public, while privately allowing the US to continue.
"This is a military campaign run by a secret service which raised problems of accountability, transparency and you have a situation where neither the Pakistanis nor Americans are clear about any agreements in place and where the reporting is difficult," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8695679/168...
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2011/11/7/us_drone_kills_16_year_old" frameborder="0"></iframe>
A group of Pakistanis met in Islamabad late last month to discuss the impact of U.S. drone strikes in their communities. One of the attendees was a 16-year-old boy named Tariq Aziz, who had volunteered to learn photography to begin documenting drone strikes near his home. Within 72 hours of the meeting, Aziz was killed in a U.S. drone strike. His 12-year-old cousin was also killed in the Oct. 31 attack. "People were aware of the threat to them. Yet they volunteered—Tariq, in particular, because he, at his age in that remote community, was familiar with computers, was excited about the idea of being able to document the civilian casualties," says reporter Pratap Chatterjee, who met Aziz days before he was killed. As part of a larger investigation on the CIA-led U.S. covert drone war, Chatterjee and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that drone strikes in Pakistan have killed at least 392 civilians, including 175 children. "I question as to whether the CIA is really attempting to identify people before they kill them," he says. "It would have been so easy for the CIA, the ISI, to come question these kids, to have taken them aside, even put them in jail or interrogated them... But instead they chose to kill them." [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/7/us_drone_kills_16_year_old
[Updated 9:56 a.m.] An official with the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not authorized to speak on the record, condemned today's attack. Previously, the ministry has said it lodged a complaint with the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad about drone strikes in Pakistani territory on October 10 and 11. The ministry called those "a clear violation of international law and Pakistan’s sovereignty."
[Posted 8:03 a.m.] Missiles blew up part of a compound Wednesday in northwest Pakistan, killing three people - including one woman - a government official said.
The latest suspected U.S. drone strike also injured two children, military officers said.
Militants lived in the compound, but so did civilians, the officers said.
There's growing fury over the U.S. pounding of areas known to be home to al Qaeda operatives, mainly in tribal zones along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. A recent independent study said hundreds of civilians, including 176 children, have been killed in the attacks over the last eight years.
U.S. President Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney seem to largely see eye-to-eye on the issue. CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen notes that most Americans "are comfortable with the muscular use of CIA drones against al Qaeda in Pakistan."
The United States rarely comments on the strikes.
The New America Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy group, used Google Maps to pinpoint many of the drone attacks.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/24/3-killed-kids-hurt-as-fury-gro...
Monday, July 16, 2012 (NaturalNews) Today across America, we're witnessing an explosion in the planned deployment of spy drones, military drones and surveillance drones, both for law enforcement use and military use. The FAA has granted permission for tens of thousands of drones to be flown in the skies of America, and companies like Raytheon are working on tiny munitions (missiles) that can be carried by single-shot drones. What follows is my personal analysis of near-future drone capabilities and countermeasures, extrapolated from information found in public articles as well as my personal knowledge of military and law enforcement tactics and mission profiles. Eliminate the humans from the front linesIt has long been the desire of the military to eliminate all humans from the front lines of battle. If machines could do the job of humans, you not only wouldn't have body bags (secretly and quietly) sent back home; you'd also have nobody to question the ethics of, say, opening fire on civilian protesters. Typical drone types• Fixed-wing aircraft: Capable of high-altitude, long-right flight. Able to carry large camera pods for extreme surveillance. May include both visible spectrum and infrared cameras. Relatively large payload capability (several hundred pounds). Long flight and control ranges, such as tens of miles. Top manufacturers are U.S. and Israel. Typical fixed-wind drone is the Predator (http://www.rferl.org/content/drones_who_makes_them_and_who_has_them...) (http://www.uavfactory.com). Drone sensory packagesDrones can be outfitted with numerous sensory packages, including: |
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