Thursday, August 11, 2011

The civilian victims of the CIA's drone war...


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Sadaullah was 15 when the missiles, aimed at a militant leader who was never there, struck a family gathering, killing his wheelchair-bound uncle and two cousins. When he woke up in hospital, he was missing both legs and an eye. "The injured who survive with their severed limbs, they often tell me, 'you cannot really call me lucky'," says his lawyer Mirza Shahzad Akbar. "This is not London or Islamabad. There are no facilities for the disabled in Waziristan; such people can have zero opportunities ahead of them in life."

The primary question the CIA should answer is how it comes to be conducting an undeclared and illegal war in Pakistan, which is nominally a US ally. But beyond this, every time we read news of the latest drone strike in Pakistan, we need an honest assessment of the civilian casualties – and of whether we feel comfortable with an unaccountable spy agency carrying out killings on a military scale (the CIA's strikes now outweigh the firepower used in the opening round of the Kosovo war). Full story...

Don't miss:
  1. "Deadly drones a video game for CIA officers" 
  2. Victims of US drone attacks in Pakistan are mostly civilians...
  3. Remote control murder: drones operated from Nevada and Virginia... 
  4. Another massacre in Pakistan as US drones kill 45 people... 
  5. Twelve children killed in another US massacre in Afghanistan... 
  6. Massive protest in Pakistan against US drone attacks... 
  7. U.S. doesn't count civilians killed by drones...
  8. Drone porn: why killing "criminals" with drones is a war crime...

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