The US drone war on innocent Muslims has caused massive deaths. Unfortunately, most Muslim rulers are complicit in these crimes.
Who was behind the kidnapping of Pakistani anti-drone activist Kareem Khan from his house in Islamabad? He told a press conference after his release that 20 men, some wearing police uniforms kidnapped him in the middle of the night. Khan was about to leave for Europe where he was to testify before European parliaments about the massive civilian casualties caused by US drone strikes. He lost a brother and son to such strikes in 2009.
The US continues to murder innocent people in Pakistan under what it describes as targeting “militants.” No proof is ever provided; what the US says, goes. Under mounting public pressure, Pakistan has said it will raise the issue at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Will the Washington warlords listen, or care?
Addicted to killing innocent people with drones, this time the US targeted a wedding party in Yemen. At least 17 guests were murdered yesterday when a drone strike hit a car that was traveling in a wedding convoy. It was the second strike this week in Yemen. Obama calls drone strikes as precision weapons but the number of civilians killed show a callousness that borders on the scandalous.
Droning innocents to death in Pakistan is official US policy. This is implemented by US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel on behalf of Barack Obama who has escalated drone strikes alarmingly since becoming president. Hagel was in Islamabad today to insist the drone attacks would continue while the people of Pakistan are adamantly opposed to them. There have been protests for several weeks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to get such attacks stopped.
People's anger over continued US drone strikes was evident in the massive rally organized by the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) party led by Imran Khan. Tens of thousands blocked the ring road in Peshawar leading to Torkham border with Afghanistan. They demanded an immediate end to drone strikes that have killed thousands of people in Pakistan since they were first launched in 2004.
Obama has escalated drone warfare not only in other countries but drones are now being increasingly used domestically as well. This was feared by many civil rights activists. Their worst nightmares have come true.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, US drone strikes in Pakistan have killed nearly 5,000 people since June 2004.
In choosing the lesser of the two evils by opting for Obama, Muslims forget that he has escalated the drone warfare to new height killing innocent Muslim women and children.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which compiles figures on drone strikes, the US has killed up to 3,378 people in 350 drone strikes in the past eight years in Pakistan.
‘Get the vote out,’ was a common refrain heard by Muslims from the minbar prior to the November 6 elections. Salina Khan asks whether the same Imams would be just as eager to link up with people standing for justice and peace.
America’s drone warfare has caused thousands of innocent deaths in Pakistan. When will this nightmare end?
America’s drone warfare is not only killing innocent people in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the UN is finally taking steps to examine whether these constitute war crimes.
1Drone attacks have killed thousands of innocent people in such places as Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Zainab Cheema reviews a book on Drone warfare by Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt.
A study by American legal experts from Yale Law School and New York University Law School is a stinging rebuke of US Drone warfare. The study focuses on Pakistan and show that while only 2% of those targeted can be considered “militants” the rest are civilians. This, the report concludes, has led to alarming increasing in anti-Americans in Pakistan.
One of the most striking events in post-Revolutionary Iranian history unfolded in early December 2011 when Iranian state TV showed a captured RQ-170 Sentinel, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used by the US for spying. It is one of the most sophisticated planes in the US arsenal and had been kept largely hidden from public eye in order to not risk its top secret spy missions.
