The US Is Now Attacking Rescuers That Come To The Aid Of Drone Strike Victims {long read}

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-is-now-attacking-rescuers-that-come-to-the-aid-of-drone-strike-victims-2012-8




***SNIP

He added that "A 'positively identified' combatant who provides medical aid to someone amid fighting does not automatically lose his status as a combatant, and may still be legally killed," but – as is true for drone attacks – there is, manifestly, no way to know who is showing up at the scene of the initial attack, certainly not with "positive identification" (by official policy, the US targets people in Pakistan and elsewhere for death even without knowing who they are). Even commentators who defended the initial round of shooting by the Apache helicopter by claiming there was evidence that one of the targets was armed typically noted, "the shooting of the rescuers, however, is highly disturbing."

But attacking rescuers (and arguably worse, bombing funerals of America's drone victims) is now a tactic routinely used by the US in Pakistan. In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that "the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals." Specifically: "at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims." That initial TBIJ report detailed numerous civilians killed by such follow-up strikes on rescuers, and established precisely the terror effect which the US government has long warned are sown by such attacks:
"Yusufzai, who reported on the attack, says those killed in the follow-up strike 'were trying to pull out the bodies, to help clear the rubble, and take people to hospital.' The impact of drone attacks on rescuers has been to scare people off, he says: 'They've learnt that something will happen. No one wants to go close to these damaged building anymore.'"

Since that first bureau report, there have been numerous other documented cases of the use by the US of this tactic: "On [4 June], US drones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On 28 May, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali." Moreover, "between May 2009 and June 2011, at least 15 attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, ABC News and Al Jazeera."


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-is-now-attacking-rescuers-that-come-to-the-aid-of-drone-strike-victims-2012-8#ixzz24BIOMrYh

[woo me with science]

1. DU Rec. nt

[redwitch]

2. Appalled here.

This is evil.

[KoKo]

3. It's sickening...

and to think it should have come to this....that most of us can't even speak out about it because it's our own party that's now complicit.

[xchrom]

4. +1

[frylock]

5. that's a tactic that is used by the insurgency..

looking good, america. looking good.

[Robb]

6. It's a tactic as old as warfare. And correspondingly ugly.

Hospital ships were routinely attacked in both world wars. All countries produced legal justifications when they did it.

Again, it ain't drones that are ugly. It's war.

[Zalatix]

8. And we call THEM savages...?

[woo me with science]

7. Kick.

Wake the hell up, America.

[Comrade Grumpy]

9. Meanwhile, threads about circumcision and GOP idiots get hundreds of replies.

Don't we care that our government is committing war crimes?

[cpwm17]

10. The US is and has always been the 'bad guy' in most conflicts

That's an undeniable fact. Somebody has to play that role.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. This is a trick already used by suicide bombers ...

now copied by the Pentagon.