Bombing - ours and theirs


"While we mourn the horrific events in Boston, we must remember that our government perpetrates a Boston bombing weekly in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan," writes Sean A. McElwee in the antiwar.com.

He writes, “Yet, in Pakistan the unconstitutional drone war continues to kill innocents. On April 14, between 4 and 6 Pakistanis died in drone strike and numerous civilians were injured. Another strike three days later killed 5 more and injured several. Yet there are no protests in America to capture the responsible party, nor will there ever be justice. The people of Waziristan live in constant fear, and face bombings like that of Boston almost weekly.”

For the full copy of the article, click here.

In his recent article, reporter Spencer Ackerman has covered the subject of U.S. drone in Yemen.

He writes:
Recently, the U.S. Senate heard from Farea al-Muslimi, who lives in a village in Yemen where U.S. drone strikes are believed to have killed civilians. A “psychological fear and terror” has now taken ahold of his old neighbors, al-Muslimi said. “The drone strikes are the face of America to many.”

The hearing was apparently the first ever in the Senate to openly question the Obama administration’s targeted killing programs, especially as it applied to drone strikes. It built on Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY.) recent 13-hour filibuster to protest the administration’s broad claims of executive authority over counterterrorism operations, including inside the United States. But while Paul’s effort largely concerned what might happen to American citizens accused of terrorism, al-Muslimi attempted to turn the debate toward the vastly larger cohort of non-Americans killed in drone strikes, missile strikes and commando raids far from declared battlefields globally. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently said he believed some 4,700 people have been killed by drones.

“The drones have made more mistakes than AQAP has ever done,” al-Muslimi said, using the acronym for al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate. Parents in Yemen now tell their children to hurry off to bed by saying they’ll call in a drone strike if they don’t. As human-rights groups have documented, the buzzing overhead of a Predator or Reaper engine as the flying robot hovers has a chilling psychological effect.

To read the full article by Spencer Ackerman, click here.

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