‘US drone strikes illegal, disregard innocent lives’

[The Northerner]

The US unmanned aerial vehicles spread terrorism, and show America’s disregard for human life as mostly innocent people are killed in the attacks, an analyst says.

Contrary to US claims that assassination drone attacks kill only “a few innocent” people, the US unmanned aerial vehicles have taken the lives of over 2800 innocent people, spreading a climate of terror with disregard for human life, British historian, journalist and researcher, Deepak Tripathi told Press TV in an interview on Monday.

“I would say one innocent person killed is one too many, but it shows the callous disregard in Washington for the deaths of innocent people,” Tripathi said.

This comes as US terror drones and attack helicopters have killed 31 people in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan over the course of 72 hours since Wednesday.

Washington claims that its airstrikes target militants, but local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the attacks.

Read more: http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/05/29/243712/us-drone-strikes-illegal-disregard-innocent-lives/

[FSogol]

1. Unrec. More anti-American propaganda from the Iranian Government.

Why is press tv a suitable link here on DU?

[redgreenandblue]

2. Are you disputing the numbers?

Care to provide more accurate figures?

[FSogol]

3. Yeah, I'm sure the most accurate numbers come from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

[redgreenandblue]

4. Then what are the correct numbers?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. Personally, I think it's nice of him to take time out of his busy schedule of

denying the Holocaust and assisting the Assad regime suppress the rebellion to speak about his deeper commitments to humanity.

[demosincebirth]

11. I agree with you. Some here would believe anything as long as Obama didn't say it

[Luminous Animal]

23. Actually, the number comes from Pakistani human rights lawyer, Shahzad Akbar,

from the Foundation for Fundamental Rights.
http://rightsadvocacy.org/

The person being interviewed on Press TV is British historian & journalist Deepak Tripathi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Tripathi

[Zalatix]

24. Unacceptable. The source is not from the Exceptional United States of America.

Do I even NEED to put a sarcasm smiley here?

[Dragonfli]

27. Only Whitehouse.Gov is an acceptable source, all othr journalists are known terrorists or RW

Someone should hide this OP and Tombstone the anti Whitehouse.Gov message.
It is election time and as such you can only trust the campaign, need I introduce you to the scooby gamg and tell them they have a clean-up on aisle GD?

be safe by being warned,
This is your official warning.

[Life Long Dem]

8. Nope

I can't prove the 2800 civilians were not terrorist.

[David__77]

7. Why is it not "suitable?"

It is a state-funded publicity organ, yes. There are many state-funded organs, BBC, RT, Voice of America, Xinhua, etc. There are also Moonie and crypto-rightist news organs. Which to ban, and which not to ban here on DU?

We are all adults and can critically accept/reject such things. Some might have also wanted to ban TASS or Pravda back in the Soviet days, but why would we ignore items that reflect the strategic perspective even of one's opponents?

[Dragonfli]

28. To even read a source from the enemy is to become the enemy, I trust only Whitehouse.Gov "Comrad" /n

[gratuitous]

6. Well, who are you gonna believe, anyway?

Our faultless wehrmacht or a bunch of local sources unlucky enough to be under our missiles? If they weren't terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, they mostly wouldn't have anything to worry about. Why don't they love Droney?

[whatchamacallit]

9. I don't know how accurate presstv is, but

the denialists will dis the NYT if it puts the administration in a bad light.

[2on2u]

10. Militants?? I thought this was the neverending WOT. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

12. Aren't "militants" also "innocent until proven guilty"?

Who is judge and jury?

What is a "militant"? Who says so? How is he or she deemed guilty and subject to execution by the United States?

Many people don't seem to realize that the U.S. has crossed the line into outlaw nation by targeting and murdering ANYBODY on earth whom anonymous persons in the U.S. decide should be killed.

This is WILDLY outside the Constitution and all international law. It doesn't even do a fake NOD toward the Constitution, as with the "Iraq War Resolution." It is utterly LAWLESS.

So, sorry, I don't recognize this distinction in the article between "militants" and "civilians." All are human beings. All have human rights. All are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Where is the court? Where is the law?

---

"Washington claims that its airstrikes target militants, but local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the attacks." --from the OP
---

It doesn't matter what "Washington" says. I oppose the execution of "militants" without trial as much as I oppose the "collateral damage" of "civilian" deaths. And tomorrow, these designators of the killable can decide that you and I are "militants" rather than human beings, and execute us without benefit of trial. What is to stop them? Absolutely nothing!

When the "powers that be" can kill anybody that their anonymous operatives designate as "militants," we ourselves have lost our right to life (let alone our right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness). This is yet more serious than losing the right to know what the hell our government is doing with our tax dollars--though, of course, it is related--and yet more serious than losing our right to help determine what our government is doing--to have a SAY in what OUR military does and what the many secret agencies of our government do. We are beyond that. We have no right to know. We have no say. Next is our own right to be considered human until proven otherwise.

It was bad enough when Congress lay supine for the slaughter of one hundred thousand human beings in the first weeks of bombing alone, in Baghdad, with the "powers" openly declaring their intention to do so and lying through their teeth as to why. That, too, was a lawless and heinous act for which no one has been held accountable. That horror was based on the thinnest of legal threads. It was legalistic the way the Nazis were legalistic. This--U.S. drone killings of anonymously targeted people in Yemen, in Syria, in Libya, if the truth were known in Colombia, and God knows where else (I've lost track)--goes one fatal step further as to our own right to life. It is as bad as the Inquisition. It is Medieval. It is something out of the Dark Ages. It's as if the American Revolution never happened. No right to be faced with your accusers. No right to a public trial. No right to a defense at all. Bang, bang, you're dead--because SOMEBODY decided that YOU are a "militant."

These "powers" who decide who is a "militant" and who execute a sentence of death from the sky in foreign lands are out of control. And the danger to our lives and liberty goes way beyond "blowback" from those whom they are inspiring to become "militants." The danger is OUR OWN "militants." The danger is WITHIN. Once anonymous agents of the state taste the power of arbitrary execution THERE, it is only a matter of time before they see its efficacy for accomplishing their purposes HERE.

That's what the American Revolution was all about--the RULE OF LAW. Without it, ANYONE becomes a "target"--an arbitrary target for the purposes of rule by terror, or a specific target for ARBITRARY reasons by UNACCOUNTABLE agents of the state. Fundamental to the rule of law are openness and democracy, and the rights of individuals in the face of the law. ALL people murdered by U.S. drone bombers or by other means have been denied those rights and have been treated as subhumans--not just "2,800 civilians." ALL! These murders are lawless in the extreme. They are wrong. And what is perhaps worse, they represent an abandonment of the rule of law itself.

[bhikkhu]

22. Under Senate Joint Resolution 73, September 14, 2001...

military action was authorized against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and is still going on. So it is a "legal" war, with more constitutional foundation than Vietnam or Korea, among others, and with some provocation. If we were to go to statistics, I think it could be argued that collateral damage has been pretty low in comparison to other wars, though that's not saying much.

That's far from agreeing with how it has been waged, and far from disagreeing with some of your points, but as far as legality and constitutionality, its pretty solid.

[Bolo Boffin]

13. Is this the only way that Obama is worse than Bush? n/t

[RC]

14. For those defending the War On Terror;

Since when are drone attacks on countries we are not at war with, not acts of terror themselves, or acts of war? We do not have the approval of the countries involved, to be doing what we are doing.

Read our own propaganda being fed us, U.S. "Targeting known terrorists" Known to who? The survivors of the last drone attack? Why are they "Terrorists" in the first place?
What we are doing is making new terrorists to "Fight" in our never ending war on terror.

The United States is still doing the same thing that bu$h the lesser did after 9/11. Instead of enlisting the help of the rest of the world in a police action, we are committing our own acts of terror to "Fight Terror". Nobody wins, except the people profiting from The War. Instead of helping people live, we are killing many innocents for each "Terrorist" we say we kill.

For being a Liberal/Progressive/Democratic web sight, there sure a lot of people defending our use of drones to kill people. Isn't promoting war and death a trait of the other side, you know the Conservatives?

[FSogol]

15. That's quite a stretch going from not believing Iranian State Propaganda

to being Pro-War. Maybe people here are just speaking up against the continual bashing of the administration using ultra-conservative sources.

[white_wolf]

16. Would you accept ultra-left sources? Because I can find plenty of those. n/t

[RC]

17. Or maybe people are getting fed up with the lies from our own government.

Our "Liberal" news media is always truthful for ya? If you support the United States in the Middle East, if you support what our troops are doing, then you are Pro-war.
We are the ones meddling in foreign countries. None of those other countries are over here bombing us or over flying our country. Or even ever a threat to us here.
How can some "Terrorist", in there own country, with no real way to even get over here, be a threat to us, U.S.? And on top of that, every "Terrorist" caught in this country seems to turn out to be part of a FBI sting. Some low-life's being led by and supplied by the FBI to blow something up. Something they never had the capacity, let alone the know how to carry out by themselves.

The stretch is in believing our new sources, our government, over any other news source elsewhere in the world.

I would suggest some World History, starting back to at least 1910. What we are doing in the Middle East didn't start with 9/11.

[FSogol]

18. So, Al-Qaeda never flew or bombed in the US?

And you are recommending history to me?

[RC]

19. Do your history

And don't forget the part where the Taliban were invited to Texas.
http://www.mapcruzin.com/news/war111901a.htm

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a120497texasvisit
"July-August 1999: Taliban Leaders Visit US

About a dozen Afghan leaders visit the US. They are militia commanders, mostly Taliban, and some with ties to al-Qaeda. A few are opponents of the Taliban."

Also, the outgoing Clinton Administration gave the incoming bu$h administration a report about the coming attack. The only thing missing was where. Atlanta? New York? Washington DC? The west coast somewhere? The bu$h administration shelved the report, unread. They needed a Pearl Harbor to get their war on.

Several other countries were trying to warn us of the coming attack. The bu$h administration ignored them. The rest of the the world offered to help us in a police investigation after the attacks. There were told no. The bu$h administration wanted war, so they attack Iraq. What did Iraq have to do with anything?
BTY, did you know bin Laden was working for the CIA when Russia was in Afghanistan? Back then, he was our boy, doing our bidding.

Now go do your history to fill in the blanks.

[FSogol]

20. Are you coming out as a 9-11 truther?

[RC]

21. No, but Like facts.

I also like my history to be factual. Apparently you don't care so much?

I am plenty old enough to be paying attention in 2000 and after. The propaganda after 9/11 by the bu$h administration was pretty blatant. 16 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabians and bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan, yet we attack Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. And you are OK with that?
What else is wrong with the official story on 9/11?

[FSogol]

25. Straw man much?

Are we flying drone strikes in Iraq? Why would you think I am ok with Bush's invasion of Iraq? Good luck with your "facts."

[SidDithers]

26. Opresstv...

No thanks.

Sid