The Predators: Where is Your Democracy?

http://uruknet.info/?p=m77558&fb=1

By Kathy Kelly
Voices for Creative Nonviolence, May 9, 2011

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World attention has been focused, however briefly, on questions of legality regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden. But, with the increasing use of Predator drones to kill suspected "high value targets" in Pakistan and Afghanistan, extrajudicial killings by U.S. military forces have become the new norm.

Just three days after Osama bin Laden was killed, an attack) employing remote-control aerial drones killed fifteen people in Pakistan and wounded four. CNN reports that their Islamabad bureau has counted four drone strikes over the last month and a half since the March 17 drone attack which killed 44 people in Pakistan's tribal region. This most recent suspected strike was the 21st this year. There were 111 strikes in 2010. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that 957 innocent civilians were killed in 2010.

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"Do Americans know about the drones?" the journalist asked me. I said I thought that awareness was growing on University campuses and among peace groups. "This isn't what I'm asking," he politely insisted. "What I want to know is if average Americans know that their country is attacking Pakistan with drones that carry bombs. Do they know this?"

"Truthfully," I said, "I don't think so..."

Only a handful of U.S. officials have broached the issue of whether or not it is right for the U.S. to use unmanned aerial vehicles to function as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in the decision to assassinate anyone designated as a "high value target" in faraway Pakistan or Afghanistan.

http://uruknet.info/?p=m77558&fb=1">Read the whole excellent piece here...