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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStriking Back at Drone Attacks
Why has there been so little organized resistance to drone warfare?
At an October 2011 meeting between Pakistani elders and human rights lawyers, 16-year-old Tariq Aziz stood up to volunteer for a dangerous assignment. The meeting, held in Islamabad by U.K. legal charity Reprieve, sought to expose the impact of drone strikes in the North Waziristan region, and Aziz hoped that by learning to photograph the strikes he could help protect his community.
Three days later, Aziz, along with his 12-year-old cousin, were themselves killed in a drone strike while on their way to pick up their aunt.
Aziz's determination to document the devastation caused by drones belies one of the most disturbing aspects of their use: U.S. drone strikes are carried out in secret in at least six countries, with no judicial or Congressional oversight of the targets chosen by administration officials. Though a 2011 report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that up to 3,000 peopleas many as 781 of them civilianshave been killed in drone attacks since 2004, noncombatant deaths in drone attacks were denied outright by U.S. officials until April of this year, when White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said that they were exceedingly rare.
U.S. and Pakistani activists have pushed for more information about why Aziz was selected as a target. But while victims' names are often unknown by the public, the occurence of drone strikes has for years been an open secret, raising another question: Why, as the Obama administration has granted authority to the CIA and Pentagon to carry out strikes based only on the patterns of their victims' behavior, has there been so little organized resistance to drone warfare?
Read more: http://inthesetimes.com/article/13363/striking_back_at_drone_attacks
KoKo
(84,711 posts)I don't think most people really have time to think about it...since it's not reported by MSM in US.
I think the Bush Administration bled the morality out of our thinking about right and wrong,and whether endless wars in other countries are what our nation was founded to promote.
Maybe it's fatigue from the last 30 years of endless political warfare...
Peace Movement get's little support these days.
sad sally
(2,627 posts)Americans accept the President's right to have kill lists and launch drone strikes in non-war zones against these "suspected militants" there will be little attention paid to protests against these drone strikes.
Perhaps the US will forever avoid drone strikes against the homeland, but in the event one of our enemies does launch drone attacks against us, I do believe there may be shift in their support. Barring that scenario, those of us who find this method of war wrong - well, for me, it's any method of war that's wrong - we're placed on the side of being unsupportive of the President's wars.