Drone attacks

drone atatcks

One of the problems with drones is that they are easy to use. Another is that they are proving to be counterproductive.

These are in essence one and the same argument. Easy to use, compared with say sending in the SAS who may take casualties.

Easy to use in that we seem to have no comeback. The same of could could be said of firing rockets, except as the Palestinians find, lob a few rockets over into Israel and all hell breaks out.

Soldiers in Afghanistan are seen as legitimate targets, as we see from what seems to be a daily toll of killings.

When we use drones, one of the problems is that we are not taking out the right people, this leads to more terrorists not less. The drones are launched from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, which is then seen as a legitimate target.

On the Moral Maze this evening, a dire programme at the best of times, Melanie Phillips tried to claim only one or two civilian casualties (just one example of the garbage she came out with). Maybe she would like to explain why Imran Khan led a demonstration against drones, why he was questioned by US Immigration Official as he tried to enter the US from Canada?

One of the questions that hangs over the is of drones, is the lack of democratic accountability. We see the civilian deaths in Pakistan, but what we are not seeing is any discussion on their use.

Another is that of legitimacy. Their use may be illegal under International Law.

Anyone who wonders what it is like to be on the receiving end, talk to those who were in London when the Germans used V-bombs

Unlike a missile, drones are relatively low technology, easy to build, easy to acquire, easy to use. Soon everyone will have them, then we will find out what it is like to be on the receiving end.

Since June 2008, UK forces have carried out around 300 airstrikes in Afghanistan using armed unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly known as drones), controlled from thousands of miles away. Although there is some public information about US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, there is almost no public information about drone strikes carried out by the UK in Afghanistan.

There are serious ethical, moral and legal questions about the growing use of armed drones which need to be properly debated. However, it is impossible to have such a debate while information is being kept secret. At the very least, it seems that public discussion is being controlled.

Drones have enabled a huge increase in targeted killing is also causing deep disquiet amongst legal experts and scholars.

However, perhaps the greatest concern relates to what is seen as one of the key capabilities of drones – their ability to loiter over an area for hours or even days. Evidence is beginning to emerge that the persistent presence of drone sitting over remote villages and towns, simply looking for ‘targets of opportunity’, leads to an increase in civilian casualties.

Despite growing public concern, the UK is to double the number of armed Reaper drones in operation by 2013 and is also pressing ahead with plans to develop new armed drones over the next decade, all without public debate or parliamentary scrutiny.

There are serious questions about the use of drones:

• Does the geographic and psychological distance between the operator and target make attacks more likely?
• Does using unmanned systems mean attacks will happen more often?
• Does the supposed accuracy of drone sensors and cameras mean that commanders are more willing to undertake ‘riskier’ strikes (in terms of possible civilian casualties) than they would previously have undertaken?

All of these questions, and many more, need to be debated openly and honestly, requiring careful analysis and judgement based on evidence. Unfortunately, that evidence is being kept under wraps. While it may be necessary to keep some information secret, we do not believe it is appropriate or legitimate to refuse to disclose any and all information about the circumstances in which Reapers have been used over the past four years. There is, at the very least, a sense that public discussion is being stifled.

With the use of armed drones set to increase, we need a serious, public – and fully informed – debate on all these issues.

A petition has been drawn up to David Cameron asking for an open debate on the use of drones.

• 5 Things They Don’t Tell You About Drone Strikes

More information on drones and their use can be obtained from the Drone Campaign Network.

What is incredible is that the video feed is not encrypted. The targets on the ground can see what the drone can see.

• Most U.S. Drones Openly Broadcast Secret Video Feeds

In the last decade, nearly 3,000 people have been killed by drones.

• Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists

Women’s Rights are Non-Negotiable in Afghanistan

More than ten years after the overthrow of the Taliban, modest advances have been made for girls and women in Afghanistan, but much remains to be done. Peace talks between the Taliban, Afghan government and the U.S. jeopardize even these modest gains as the U.S. searches for a quick exit.

Amnesty International urges the U.S. government to adopt an action plan for Afghan women to ensure that their rights are not traded away in the transition. The U.S. should make clear that human rights are non-negotiable and ensure mechanisms are in place to uphold those rights after any agreement is reached.

Meryl Streep, Sting, Joan Baez, Cynthia Nixon, Yoko Ono and Sir Patrick Stewart signed their names to an Amnesty International open letter released Sunday to President Obama and President Karzai, calling on them to give women a voice in the conversation about Afghanistan’s future. The letter was released by Amnesty International as it staged a “Shadow Summit for Afghan Women” hours before the NATO Summit got underway in Chicago.

Joining the artists as signatories were authors, including Stephen King, Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner) and playwright Lynn Nottage (Ruined, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark).

Signatories included former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, feminist Gloria Steinem, Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi, along with a roster of leading Afghan women’s rights advocates.

“The women of Afghanistan have come too far to see their rights vanish,” said Frank Januzzi, head of Amnesty International USA’s Washington office. “They must be part of the conversation about the future of Afghanistan or that future will look very bleak indeed. No one wants a return to the days when the Taliban banned women and girls from schools and work, and held them as virtual prisoners in their own country. This would be the ultimate catastrophe after a decade of gains for women. We hope the voices of these notable signatories will add to the pressure on Presidents Obama and Karzai to follow through on the promise of human rights for all women in Afghanistan.”

Amnesty International urged Presidents Obama and Karzai to adopt eight key steps to make sure Afghan woman can continue the progress they have made on rights and freedoms after the troops leave in 2014.

• An Open Letter to Presidents Obama and Karzai
• Women’s Rights are Non-Negotiable in Afghanistan
• Artists Including Meryl Streep, Sting, Joan Baez, Cynthia Nixon, Yoko Ono and Patrick Stewart Sign Amnesty International Letter to Presidents Obama and Karzai on Afghan Women’s Rights

Reflections on 9/11 ten years on

Our Grief is not a Cause for War — banner in New York ten years ago

9/11 was a terrible tragedy, nearly 3,000 killed as the Twin Towers were demolished in New York, a plane crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed in a field.

Questions, questions, questions.

Why were fighters not scrambled to intercept the hijacked planes and shoot them down? For the fourth plane it was probably shot down as the crash site was that of a plane that had broken up in the air, the wreckage spread over a large area.

To bring the towers down as they came down would have required a highly skilled demolition crew, careful timing and placed charges.

The fires in the Twin Towers were fuel rich, oxygen poor. Most of the fuel burnt off in a fire ball on impact.

The towers were designed to withstand a plane crash. The steel cage structure would have conducted away the heat. Similar towers with top-to-bottom fires have not collapsed.

Why did WTC7 collapse?

Why was the crime scene not preserved?

At the Pentagon, why fly all the way around and come in on the one wing not occupied due to building work? Had they flown straight into the Pentagon they would have taken out the top brass. Why were people picking up the wreckage? The image on the building before the roof collapsed did not match the plane. Why did no missile defence system take out the plane?

I know where I was when the towers were hit. I was sat on the step of my French Windows. I thought World War III had broken out.

It was an affront. The attack was on US soil.

The attackers were Saudi, not Afghan. Why bomb Afghanistan back into the Stone Age?

The Taliban offered to hand over Osama bin Laden if the US provided eveidence of his involvement.

It was a crime, a heinous crime, but not a call to war.

Pakistan was given a choice: You are with us or against us. If against, we bomb you into the Stone Age.

The day before, a senior Afghan leader was killed. Was it the trigger?

US is in Afghanistan to control pipeline routes for US oil corporations.

Bill Clinton had reached agreement with the Taliban for pipeline routes, even down to the price for using the pipelines. This fell through due to pressure from human rights and women’s rights groups.

There were plans to attack Afghanistan before 9/11. 9/11 gave the pretext.

Iraq was nothing to do with 9/11. It was a distraction. But US wished to control Iraqi oil.

Christian fundamentalists rode into town on the coattails of the US military. Their meddling has led directly to the slaughter of Iraqi Christians.

US and British corporations rode in to share the spoils of war.

All three countries have been destroyed, the region destabilised by the US.

The dust from the collapse of the Twin Towers was toxic. New Yorkers were told it was safe. It is kept in secure containment.

Jimmy Cliff – We Don’t Want Another Vietnam in Afghanistan

Jimmy Cliff at Glastonbury 2011 singing We Don’t Want Another Vietnam in Afghanistan.

Arithmetic on the Frontier

Drummer James Roddick of the 92nd Gordon Highlanders, defending Lieutenant Menzies during hand-to-hand fighting in Kandahar 1880 (1894) - William Skeoch Cumming (1864-1929)

A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe—
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.”

Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in “villanous saltpetre!”
And after—ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our ‘ologies.

A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow
Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—
The odds are on the cheaper man.

One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.

With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troop-ships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The “captives of our bow and spear”
Are cheap—alas! as we are dear.

Arithmetic on the Frontier was Rudyard Kipling’s condemnation of the senseless slaughter of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880). Written 130 years ago and published in Departmental Ditties and Other Verses (1886), it is as appropriate now as it was then.

I heard this read today on Poetry Please on BBC Radio 4.

Karen Woo

Karen Woo

Karen Woo was in Afghanistan to help the poor. She paid with her life.

see

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