US drone strikes 'raise questions' -UN's Navi Pillay
Source: BBC
US military drone attacks in Pakistan raise serious legal questions, the UN's human rights chief has said.
Navi Pillay was speaking at the end of a fact-finding visit to Pakistan.
Drone attacks have become a central part of US counter-terror operations but Ms Pillay said they were legally problematic.
US officials defended the policy after al-Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi was reportedly killed in a drone strike earlier this week.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18363003
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)By that logic, we could just start randomly nuking population centers around the globe.
We'd never know what terrorists we killed, but we could be pretty sure that someone who didn't like us was among the victims.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Did not know that.
2on2u
(1,843 posts)Imagine a drone equipped with a mic and speaker. Drone pulls up to a park bench where an indigent middle eastern man is sleeping on a park bench, another ME gentleman walks by and says "Bum"..... man flying drone says, "You said bomb", ME gent says "no I said bum!!" Drone pilot looks at man on bench and seeing him as a threat lets one loose. Problem solved, no bum, no bomb. It only makes sense.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)who is a goody-two-shoes, polyannish and self-righteous self.
The drones are legal as a self-defense because the taliban and AQ are attacking the US troops in Afghanistan who are serving with authority from a democratically elected government of Afghanistan.
Let the drone attacks continue and break the back of AQ, Taliban and Pakistani ISI (they are all the same btw.)
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)And that was a good one about the "democratically elected government of Afghanistan."
You know how to avoid attacks on US troops in Afghanistan? Get out of Afghanistan!
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)1. The Afghan government will be overrun by the ISI/Pakistan funded Taliban
2. Democracy will cease and some ISI General like Mullah Omar will rule the people
3. In order to brutalize the natives, women will be oppressed, raped, maimed and killed.
4. It will be 24/7 fundamentalist Islam
5. All the military hardware left behind will embolden Pakistan even more
6. Pakistan will again use Afghanistan as a launch-pad for 9/11 style attacks on the US and India.
The ONLY way out of Afghanistan that makes sense is to severely weaken Pakistan's military, ISI and hyperbolic military ambitions. Otherwise, 2,000 of us died for nothing.
I wish everything was as simple as some DUers seem to think. "Just get out and all will be well."
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Don't they realize that when you're the last SuperPower© standing you get to make your own rules!?!?! For peace and democracy. And freedums. Geeze, if you can't take advantage of the perks what's the point of even being a SuperPower©?
I mean we shock, and then we awe them. We maim 'em and murder 'em. Young and old, rich and poor (actually they're all poor, but we occasionally get a rich one by mistake). And yes, we do rape a couple of 'em every now and then, but its tough work. Not for the squeamish, see? And we do this all over the world. And so I ask you, what thanks do we get? Huh??? Huh???
- Ingrates......
may3rd
(593 posts)One drone does more than 5,000 boots on the ground can do.
Yes, 2,500 US troops in the 'frontier' would really upset pak credibility . Unless of course, people want to see a 'Cambodia' expansion comparison of the war at this point ?
I don't
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)How about NO WAR? No?
I know that's impossible, right? We have to go on killing. It's the one thing we know how to do well.
Destroy.
- I suppose we might as well go on killing in the name of peace and freedom then.....
may3rd
(593 posts)What does that do to foresight ?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014139763
Canuckistanian
(42,290 posts)Did that ever occur to you?
may3rd
(593 posts)before women protest foreign intervention.
...
officials say the suicide bomber in Saturday's attack approached a French Nato convoy wearing a burka.
...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18377761
oh wait,
we are not in Syria.....
Just thought I'd get a jump on the other problems "the world" faces that oui shouldn't concern ourselves with.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)How about Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia (oh, nevermind, we're already there), and all the other spots on the planet where there are horrible things going on?
joelz
(185 posts)said the biggest purveyor on violence in the world was the U.S.A. not much has changed since 1967.
Pakistan on Tuesday summoned a senior US diplomat and lodged a protest over "unlawful" drone attacks on northwestern tribal areas, the foreign ministry said.
Richard Hoagland, the US charge d'affaires, was called to the foreign ministry and was "officially conveyed the government's serious concern regarding drone strikes in Pakistani territory", the ministry said in a statement.
Hoagland was informed that the drone strikes were "unlawful, against international law and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty," the statement said.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/pakistan-summons-us-diplomat-over-illegal-drones
Robb
(39,665 posts)may3rd
(593 posts)They have always coexisted with their neighbors since being declared a nation.
/sarc