"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
CIA drone strikes have led to far more deaths in Pakistan than previously understood, according to extensive new research published by the Bureau. Some 175 children are among at least 2,347 people reported killed in US attacks since 2004. There are credible reports of at least 392 civilians among the dead. In a surprise move, a counter-terrorism official has also released US government estimates of the numbers killed. These state that an estimated 2,050 people have been killed in drone strikes to mid-August of whom all but an estimated 50 are combatants. Reassessment
The Bureau's fundamental reassessment of the covert US campaign involved a complete re-examination of all that is known about each US drone strike. The Obama administration must explain the legal basis for drone strikes in Pakistan to avoid the perception that it acts with impunity. The Pakistan government must also ensure accountability for indiscriminate killing, in violation of international law, that occurs inside Pakistan,' Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International
The study is based on close analysis of credible materials: some 2,000 media reports; witness testimonies; field reports of NGOs and lawyers; secret US government cables; leaked intelligence documents, and relevant accounts by journalists, politicians and former intelligence officers. The Bureau's findings are published in a 22,000-word database which covers each individual strike in Pakistan in detail. A powerful search engine, an extensive timeline and searchable maps accompany the data. The result is the clearest public understanding so far of the CIA's covert drone war against the militants. Yet US intelligence officials are understood to be briefing against the Bureau's work, claiming significant problems with its numbers and methodologies.' Iain Overton, the Bureau's editor said: It comes as no surprise that the US intelligence services would attack our findings in this way. But to claim our methodology is problematic before we had even published reveals how they really operate. A revelation that is reinforced by the fact that they cannot bring themselves to refer to non-combatants as what they really are: civilians and, all too often, children'. Many more strikes
The Bureau's data reveals many more CIA attacks on alleged militant targets than previously reported. At least 305 US drone strikes are now known to have taken place since 2004. The intended targets militants in the tribal areas appear to make up the majority of those killed. There are almost 150 named militants among the dead since 2004, though hundreds are unknown, low-ranking fighters. But as many as 175 children have also been reported killed among at least 392 civilians. More than 1,150 people are also revealed to have been injured in the US drone attacks the first time this number has been collated. In the wake of the Bureau's findings Amnesty International has called for more CIA transparency. The Obama administration must explain the legal basis for drone strikes in Pakistan to avoid the perception that it acts with impunity. The Pakistan government must also ensure accountability for indiscriminate killing, in violation of international law, that occurs inside Pakistan,' said Amnesty's Director of Asia Pacific Sam Zarifi. The Bureau's key findings
305 CIA attacks have taken place in Pakistan 8% more than previously reported. Under President Obama alone there have been 253 strikes one every four days.
Between 2,347 and 2,956 people are reported to have died in the attacks most of them militants
The minimum number of reported deaths is far higher than previously believed with 40% more recorded casualties. Most of those killed are likely to be low-ranking militants.
Up to 150 named militants have so far been killed.
The Bureau has collated credible news reports of 392-781 civilians being killed in the attacks.
The Bureau has identified credible reports of 175 children killed in the drone strikes. Under President Bush, one in three of all attacks is reported to have killed a child.
For the first time the Bureau has compiled accurate details of recorded injuries in drone strikes, revealing that at least 1,158 people have been wounded.
Civilian deaths With the US military unable to operate overtly inside Pakistan, the Obama administration has come to rely heavily on CIA drone strikes to attack alleged militants in the country's western tribal areas. To date, at least 253 drone attacks have been ordered in Obama's name, the Bureau's research shows. At least 1,897 people have been reported killed in the Obama strikes, most of them militants. Recently, Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan stated that the president has insisted' that Pakistan drone strikes do not put… innocent men, women and children in danger'. Yet at least 225 of those killed in drone attacks in Obama's time in office may have been civilians. More than 175 children are among at least 2,347 people reported killed in US attacks since 2004. There are credible reports of at least 392 civilians among the dead.
Civilian casualties do seem to have declined in the past year. Yet the Bureau still found credible evidence of at least 45 civilians killed in some ten strikes in this time. The US continues to insist that it can't confirm any noncombatant casualties' in the past year. The most recently reported civilian fatalities were on October 31. Tariq Khan, aged 16 and his 12-year old cousin Wahid were killed in a strike on North Waziristan. Internal US figures
The US government's own internal estimate of those killed in the drone strikes was released in August and totalled about 2,050. All but 50 of these were described as militants. No non-combatants' have died in the past year, a US counter-terrorism official claimed. The Bureau's own minimum suggested casualty figure across the campaign is 2,347 to the end of October 2011. Yet a US counter-terrorism official told the Bureau that its numbers were way off the mark'. The Washington-based official said: These actions target militants planning actively to kill Afghans, Pakistanis, Europeans, and Americans among others, and most often the operations occur when they're training or on the move, getting ready to attack. Over 4,000 Pakistani civilians have been killed by terrorists since 2009the threat is clear and real.' Reprieve, the legal action charity which campaigns on human rights issues said: With the Bureau's findings, at last we have a hard and comprehensive look at the facts. It is a great start. From now on, Reprieve hopes people will read official propaganda about drone warfare with a grain of saltand ask themselves whether drones are radicalizing as many young men as Guantánamo did.' http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/201...e-strikes/
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Counting the Bodies in the Pakistani Drone Campaign
16th October 2012
By Alice K Ross
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, October 15, 2012
Funeral in Pakistan GettyImages 630x4003 300x190 Counting the Bodies in the Pakistani Drone CampaignFuneral prayers for the victims of a suspected US drone in North Waziristan (Photo: Getty)
The US government must release its estimates of how many people are being killed in CIA drone strikes, to end an over-reliance on often scanty media reports, a new study on drone casualties says.
The absence of hard facts and information that should be provided by the US government' means that the public debate is dependent on estimates of casualties provided by organisations including the Bureau, academics at Columbia University Law School's Human Rights Clinic said. This risks masking the true impact or humanitarian costs' of the campaign, they added.
The study also found that the two US-based monitoring organisations, the Long War Journal and the New America Foundation have been under-recording credible reports of drone civilian casualties in Pakistan by a huge margin.
When all credible reports of casualties for the year 2011 were examined, only the Bureau was found to properly reflect the number of civilians reported killed.
Columbia gfx1 Counting the Bodies in the Pakistani Drone CampaignReport shows how three monitoring bodies reflected credible reports of civilian deaths for 2011
Counting Drone Strike Deaths is the second report to be released within weeks by Columbia University Law School. Its previous report examined the impact on civilians of US drone campaigns in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
Counting Drone Strike Deaths examined the Bureau's database of drone strikes in Pakistan alongside the work of two other organisations that track drone strikes and their reported casualties, the Long War Journal and the New America Foundation. Each of the three gathers media reports of particular strikes and keeps a running tally of casualties.
The Bureau's data appears to have a more methodologically sound count of civilian casualties'
The work of all three has permeated and significantly impacted debate' in the past year. However the Human Rights Clinic found the Long War Journal and New America Foundation both significantly undercount' civilian deaths.
Such underestimates carry real risk, the report said: they may distort our perceptions and provide false justification to policymakers who want to expand drone strikes to new locations, and against new groups'.
And the report warned media organisations against regularly citing data from either New America Foundation or the Long War Journal: Exclusive or heavy reliance on the casualty counts of these two organisations is not appropriate because of the significant methodological flaws we identify,' it states.
Missing casualties
Researchers examined every drone strike reported in 2011, and compared the datasets of each of the three organisations with the available English-language media reports.
The Human Rights Clinic found that according to the available reporting, between 72 and 155 civilians were credibly reported killed by drone strikes in 2011.
The New America Foundation, which is widely cited by many US media organisations, reported only that between three and nine civilians had been killed in the same period an underestimate of 2,300%, according to the researchers. And the Long War Journal counted 30 civilians killed. By contrast the Bureau's minimum estimate of 68 civilian deaths was significantly closer.
The Bureau's data appears to have a more methodologically sound count of civilian casualties' due to using more sources than other organisations, employing field researchers to corroborate accounts on the ground and updating its data on individual strikes when new information emerges, the report said.
But there are inherent problems with relying predominantly on media reporting that apply to the Bureau's work as much as to the New America Foundation's or the Long War Journal's. The tribal region of Waziristan, where the vast majority of strikes take place, is notoriously difficult for reporters to access: much reporting relies on stringers or conversations with locals.
The New America Foundation, which is widely cited by many US media organisations, found between three and nine civilians had been killed in the same period an underestimate of 2,300%, according to the researchers. And the Long War Journal counted 30 civilians killed. By contrast the Bureau's minimum estimate of 68 civilian deaths was significantly closer.
Only a handful of incidents are reported in any kind of depth usually those where a highly ranked militant leader has been killed or there was a particularly heavy loss of life, the report's authors note. Most strikes are only reported in very basic terms, and it's not uncommon for reports to contradict one another, including in the number of people reported killed. Quotes confirming strikes usually come from anonymous locals or officials who may have their own motivations for describing the dead as militants or civilians.
And the term militant' is dangerously ambiguous, the report's authors add: the US has provided no legal definition, although in May it emerged that the US administration classifies all Waziri men of fighting age as militants. Only the Bureau consistently uses the term alleged militant' in its reporting a policy the study suggests that other organisations adopt.
All of this means that the counts provided by the Bureau and similar organisations are estimates, not actual body counts'. Yet there is a danger that such estimates are assimilated into fact, they threaten to become what everybody knows about the US drone strikes program', the report says when in fact no such certainty exists. They risk becoming an inadequate' and even dangerous' substitute for official figures.
CIA Drone Strikes in Pakistan 2004 2012
Total US strikes: 349
Obama strikes: 297
Total reported killed: 2,593-3,365
Civilians reported killed: 474-884
Children reported killed: 176
Total reported injured: 1,249-1,389
For the latest Pakistan strike data click here.
One strike, three stories
On October 30 2011, missiles fired by a drone hit a vehicle and, according to some reports, a house in Dattakhel, North Waziristan. While anonymous officials said the dead were all militants, unnamed locals insisted they were civilians, and that four of them were chromite miners, naming one of them as Saeedur Rahman, a chromite dealer. But the Bureau, the New America Foundation and the Long War Journal's accounts of the incident tell three different stories.
The New America Foundation reported that 3-6 unknowns' had died, citing six sources, while the Long War Journal reported that six militants' had died, based on two reports.
But looking at 12 sources, the Bureau reported that 4-6 people had been killed including four civilians. In March 2012 the New York Times published an investigation into the strike naming three more of the dead and repeating the claim that they were chromite miners; the Bureau incorporated the names into its data.
The report's authors agreed with the Bureau's assessment that 4-6 died including four civilians, and said the identification of the remaining two was weak' as it was only confirmed by anonymous officials. Meanwhile, multiple sources suggested four of the dead were miners.
US officials have been keen to hold up the drone programme as a great success, the report's authors note, while claiming that to release estimates of the numbers killed would jeopardise US security. But it has previously released similar information for Afghanistan without issue.
Chris Woods, who leads the Bureau's drones investigation team, welcomed the Columbia findings. US monitoring groups have been significantly under-reporting credible counts of civilian deaths for some time, he said, which had been distorting public understanding of the impact of the US bombing campaign in Pakistan.
While the Bureau's drones data is clearly shown to be the most accurate reflection of what's publicly known about the drone strikes, both by the Columbia study and the recent Stanford/ NYU report, there is an urgent need for the US to publish its own estimates of who it is killing in Pakistan and elsewhere.'
Related: Obama risks handing loaded gun' drone programme to Romney
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
Will not be holding my breath waiting for that to happen but surprised it is even mentioned.
Quote:
CIA chiefs face arrest over horrific evidence of bloody 'video-game' sorties by drone pilots
By DAVID ROSE PUBLISHED: 23:30 GMT, 20 October 2012 | UPDATED: 09:57 GMT, 21 October 2012
The Mail on Sunday today reveals shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan.
A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into the strikes' targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones' dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes. The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan's Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve. Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes. They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency's Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA's former chief lawyer. Mr Akbar and his staff have already gathered further testimony which has yet to be filed. How the attacks unfolded... We have statements from a further 82 victims' families relating to more than 30 drone strikes,' he said. This is their only hope of justice.' In the first case, which has already been heard by a court in Islamabad, judgment is expected imminently. If the judge grants Mr Akbar's petition, an international arrest warrant will be issued via Interpol against the two Americans.
The second case is being heard in the city of Peshawar. In it, Mr Akbar and the families of drone victims who are civilians are seeking a ruling that further strikes in Pakistani airspace should be viewed as acts of war'. They argue that means the Pakistan Air Force should try to shoot down the drones and that the government should sever diplomatic relations with the US and launch murder inquiries against those responsible. According to a report last month by academics at Stanford and New York universities, between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since the strikes in Pakistan began in 2004. The report said of those, up to 881 were civilians, including 176 children. Only 41 people who had died had been confirmed as high-value' terrorist targets. Getting at the truth is difficult because the tribal regions along the frontier are closed to journalists. US security officials continue to claim that almost all those killed are militants who use bases in Pakistan to launch attacks on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan. In his only acknowledgement that the US has ever launched such attacks at all, President Barack Obama said in January: This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists, who are trying to go in and harm Americans.' But behind the dry legal papers seen by The Mail on Sunday lies the most detailed investigation into individual strikes that has yet been carried out. It suggests that the US President was mistaken. Missile attacks in in Pakistan have had devastating affects, the dossier revealed
The plaintiff in the Islamabad case is Karim Khan, 45, a journalist and translator with two masters' degrees, whose family comes from the village of Machi Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan. His eldest son, Zahinullah, 18, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, 35, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone that struck the family's guest dining room at about 9.30pm on New Year's Eve, 2009. Asif had changed his surname because he loved to recite Iqbal, Pakistan's national poet, and Mr Khan said: We are an educated family. My uncle is a hospital doctor in Islamabad, and we all work in professions such as teaching. We have never had anything to do with militants or terrorists, and for that reason I always assumed we would be safe.' Mr Khan said: Zahinullah, who had been studying in Islamabad, had returned to the village to work his way through college, taking a part-time job as a school caretaker. He was a quiet boy and studious always in the top group of his class.' Zahinullah also liked football, cricket and hunting partridges. Asif, he added, was an English teacher and had spent several years taking further courses to improve his qualifications while already in work. Mr Khan said: He was my kid brother. We used to have a laugh, tell jokes.' His first child was less than a year old when Asif was killed. Included in the legal dossier are documents that corroborate Asif and Zahinulla's educational and employment records, as well as their death certificates. Killed alongside them was Khaliq Dad, a stonemason who was staying with the family while he worked on a local mosque. Mr Khan, who had been working for a TV station in Islamabad, said he was given the news of their deaths in a 2am phone call from a cousin. Drones have caused untold damage, and the dossier reveals just how devastating they have been for families
I called a friend who had a car and we started driving through the night to get back to the village,' he said. It was a terrible journey. I was shocked, grieving, angry, like anyone who had lost their loved ones.' He got home soon after dawn and describes his return like entering a village of the dead it was so quiet. There was a crowd gathered outside the compound but nowhere for them to sit because the guest rooms had been destroyed'. Zahinullah, Mr Khan discovered, had been killed instantly, but despite his horrific injuries, Asif had survived long enough to be taken to a nearby hospital. However, he died during the night. We always bury people quickly in our culture. The funeral was at three o'clock that afternoon, and more than 1,000 people came,' Mr Khan said. Zahinullah had a wound on the side of his face and his body was crushed and charred. I am told the people who push the buttons to fire the missiles call these strikes "bug-splats". It is beyond my imagination how they can lack all mercy and compassion, and carry on doing this for years. They are not human beings.' Mr Khan found Mr Akbar through a friend who had attended lectures he gave at an Islamabad university. In 2010, he filed a criminal complaint known as a first information report to police naming Mr Banks. However, they took no action, therefore triggering the lawsuit a judicial review of that failure to act. If the judge finds in favour of Mr Khan, his decision cannot be appealed, thus making the full criminal inquiry and Interpol warrants inevitable. According to the legal claim, someone from the Pakistan CIA network led by Mr Banks who left Pakistan in 2010 targeted the Khan family and guided the Hellfire missile by throwing a GPS homing device into their compound. A senior CIA officer said: We do not discuss active operations or allegations against specific individuals.' Mr Rizzo is named because of an interview he gave to a US reporter after he retired as CIA General Counsel last year. In it, he boasted that he had personally authorised every drone strike in which America's enemies were hunted down and blown to bits'. He added: It's basically a hit-list .  .  . The Predator is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head.' Last night a senior Pakistani security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Pakistan's own intelligence agency, the ISI, has always been excluded by the CIA from choosing drone targets. They insist on using their own networks, paying their own informants. Dollars can be very persuasive,' said the official. He claimed the intelligence behind drone strikes was often seriously flawed. As a result, they are causing the loss of innocent lives'. But even this, he added, was not as objectionable as the so-called signature strikes' when a drone operator, sitting at a computer screen thousands of miles away in Nevada, selects a target because he thinks the drone camera has spotted something suspicious. He said: It could be a vehicle containing armed men heading towards the border, and the operator thinks, "Let's get them before they get there," without any idea of who they are. It could also just be people sitting together. In the frontier region, every male is armed but it doesn't mean they are militants.' One such signature strike killed more than 40 people in Datta Khel in North Waziristan on March 17 last year. The victims, Mr Akbar's dossier makes clear, had gathered for a jirga a tribal meeting in order to discuss a dispute between two clans over the division of royalties from a chromite mine. Some of the most horrifying testimony comes from Khalil Khan, the son of Malik Haji Babat, a tribal leader and police officer. My father was not a terrorist. He was not an enemy of the United States,' Khalil's legal statement says. He was a hard-working and upstanding citizen, the type of person others looked up to and aspired to be like.' Khalil, 32, last saw his father three hours before his death, when he left for a business meeting in a nearby town. Informed his father had been killed, Khalil hurried to the scene. What I saw when I got off the bus at Datta Khel was horrible,' he said. I immediately saw flames and women and children were saying there had been a drone strike. The fires spread after the strike. I went to the location where the jirga had been held. The situation was really very bad. There were still people lying around injured. The tribal elders who had been killed could not be identified because there were body parts strewn about. The smell was awful. I just collected the pieces that I believed belonged to my father and placed them in a small coffin.' Khalil said that as a police officer, his father had earned a good salary, on which he supported his family. Khalil has considered returning to the Gulf, where he worked for 14 years, but because of the frequency of drones I am concerned to leave my family'. He added that schools in the area were empty because parents are afraid their children will be hit by a missile'. In another statement one of 13 taken by Mr Akbar concerning the Datta Khel strike driver Ahmed Jan, 52, describes the moment the missile hit: We were in the middle of our discussion and I was thrown about 24ft from where I was sitting. I was knocked unconscious. When I awoke, I saw many individuals who were injured or dead. I have lost the use of one of my feet and have a rod inserted because of the injuries. It is so painful for me to walk. There are scars on my face because I had to have an operation on my nose when it would not stop bleeding.' Mr Jan says he has spent £3,600 on medical treatment but I have never been offered compensation of any kind .  .  . I do not know why this jirga was targeted. I am a malik [elder] of my tribe and therefore a government servant. We were not doing anything wrong or illegal.' Another survivor was Mohammed Noor, 27, a stonemason, who attended the jirga with his uncle and his cousin, both of whom were killed. The parts of their bodies had to be collected first. These parts were all we had of them,' he said. Mr Akbar said that fighting back through the courts was the only way to solve the larger problem' of the ongoing terrorist conflict. It is the only way to break the cycle of violence,' he said. If we want to change the people of Waziristan, we first have to show them that we respect the rule of law.' A senior CIA officer said: We do not discuss active operations or allegations against specific individuals.' A White House source last night declined to comment.
Terrifying Techno-Fascist Quote of the Day
24th October 2012
By Thomas L. McDonald
Patheos, October 2, 2012
"It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of." Ronald Arkin, Georgia Institute of Technology
201172711237920580 20 Terrifying Techno Fascist Quote of the DayWhat's the man talking about? Autonomous drones: dumb metal programmed by fallible humans to wage a more merciful war. (There's no such thing. Even Star Trek figured that out.)
There is a fundamentally anti-human belief that we can program an ethical machine that will coldly evaluate a situation and always make the right choice, unlike these icky meat sacks and their faulty programming. Humans, in this evaluation, are just bad code. Remove them from the loop, and all will be well.
Professor, let me introduce you to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, courtesy of Leah Libresco, who declined to annihilate the planet despite overwhelming (and false) evidence that this would have been the proper course of action. The computer would have launched. The humantempered by human judgment and mercydid not.
Obama's drone war is already one of the most horrific, merciless, cold, inhuman war crimes of our time. Automation wouldn't make it any better. Giving drones the power and authority to kill-removing the human from the decision loop (something an officer once told me would never, ever happen)-is madness to the nth degree.
Professor Arkin is an expert on the subject of autonomous lethality in robots. I would suggest that this is nothing for which we need experts. We need to say: "Okay, no. We don't program robots with that capability, whatever short-sighted and spurious reasons you care to cook up to the contrary." We would be better without any robots at all than with even one programmed with the capacity to kill. Robots aren't actually necessary, and humanity can do just fine without them. You don't need to fear a world without robots. You need to fear a world with people who feel robots can be more "ethical" than humans. You need to fear a world where morality has collapsed so completely that an elite feels the need to restore that morality through machines. A machine is incapable of being a moral agent.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of." Ronald Arkin, Georgia Institute of Technology
Sometimes the Enemy says it precisely as it is....
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
Quote:"We can't possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us," a senior administration official said. "It's a necessary part of what we do. . . . We're not going to wind up in 10 years in a world of everybody holding hands and saying, We love America.' "
Quote:The pragmatic inanity of the mentality driving this is self-evident: as I discussed yesterday (and many other times), continuous killing does not eliminate violence aimed at the US but rather guarantees its permanent expansion. As a result, wrote Miller, "officials said no clear end is in sight" when it comes to the war against "terrorists" because, said one official, "we can't possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us" but trying is "a necessary part of what we do". Of course, the more the US kills and kills and kills, the more people there are who "want to harm us". That's the logic that has resulted in a permanent war on terror.
The most relevant literature regarding what happened since September 11, 2001 is George Orwell's "1984".
Imran Khan is considered a threat to Volkland Security for leading 15,000 peace activists into areas of Waziristan where men, women and children are frequently murdered by US drones.
The message is clear: object to war crimes, and Uncle Sam will brand you as a potential terrorist threat, and start by having Volkland Security goons hauling you off international flights.
Quote:Imran Khan detained and 'interrogated over drone views' by US immigration
Former cricket captain turned politician detained on flight from Canada to New York to be questioned over his views on jihad
Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk, Saturday 27 October 2012 14.12 BST
Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain turned politician, was taken off an international flight from Canada to New York and questioned by US immigration officials over his views on drone strikes and jihad.
Khan, who has been at the forefront of a high-profile campaign as leader of the Pakistan Movement for Justice party (PTI) to end US drone strikes in northern Pakistan, had been in Canada to give a speech and was on his way to a fundraising dinner in the US on Friday.
Khan recently attempted to lead a high-profile march into south Waziristan which included US peace activists from the Code Pink group with some 15,000 of his supporters.
He claims that the drone strikes kill large numbers of innocent civilians a claim denied by the US.
"I was taken off from plane and interrogated by US Immigration in Canada on my views on drones. My stance is known. Drone attacks must stop," Khan tweeted yesterday after his questioning.
He added: "Missed flight and sad to miss the fundraising lunch in NY but nothing will change my stance."
A US state department spokeswoman confirmed Khan's questioning. "We are aware that Imran Khan was briefly delayed in Toronto before boarding the next flight to the United States," she told Pakistani media.
"The issue was resolved. Mr Khan is welcome in the United States."
US immigration authorities refused to comment on Khan's case but a spokeswoman quoted by the Toronto Sun newspaper said: "Our dual mission is to facilitate travel in the United States while we secure our borders, our people, and our visitors from those that would do us harm like terrorists and terrorist weapons, criminals, and contraband," said CBP spokesman Joanne Ferreira.
"Under US immigration law, applicants for admission bear the burden of proof to establish that they are clearly eligible to enter the United States. In order to demonstrate that they are admissible, the applicant must overcome all grounds of inadmissibility."
Some Canadian commentators have speculated that Khan's questioning was because of groups who have been protesting his visit to the US, including a group called the American Islamic Leadership Coalition which reportedly wrote to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton asking her to revoke the US visa granted to Khan.
"The US embassy made a significant error in granting this Islamist leader a visa," the group said in a statement.
"Granting individuals like Khan access to the US to fundraise is against the interest of the people of Pakistan and the national security interests of the US."
Ali Zaidi, an official in Khan's party demanded "a prompt and thorough inquiry into this sordid episode" and "an unconditional apology from the US government".
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
Awlaki's 16-Year-Old Son "Should Have Had a More Responsible Father" If He Wanted Us Not to Kill Him
By John Glaser
Global Research, October 25, 2012
antiwar.com
Robert Gibbs said if US citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki didn't want to be killed he "should have a far more responsible father"
When Robert Gibbs, former White House Press Secretary and a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, was asked why the administration killed the 16-year old son of suspected al-Qaeda member and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki via a drone strike last year, he said it was the boy's fault for having a father like Awlaki.
Awlaki's 16-Year-Old Son "Should Have Had a More Responsible Father" If He Wanted Us Not to Kill Him By John Glaser
Global Research, October 25,
When Robert Gibbs, former White House Press Secretary and a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, was asked why the administration killed the 16-year old son of suspected al-Qaeda member and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki via a drone strike last year, he said it was the boy's fault for having a father like Awlaki. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, 16-year old son of Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed in a US drone strike last year Anwar al-Awlaki was killed last year in a drone strike in Yemen ordered by the Obama administration. The killing made headlines particularly because Awlaki was an American citizen, but his constitutional rights to due process were thrown out the window in favor of simply assassinating him. Awlaki's 16-year old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was also a US citizen and was killed in a separate drone strike in Yemen weeks after his father's death. Abdulrahman had not been accused of being a member of al-Qaeda or of any act against the United States that could conceivably motivate a US strike. When pressed by reporters and independent journalists, Gibbs responded to questions about the Obama administration's killing of the American boy by dismissing his life as virtually worthless and blaming his father, Anwar, for his son's death by presidential decree. "I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children," Gibbs said. "I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business." Gibbs dodged any further questioning on the issue, but in his answer defended the killing of a 16-year old American boy "not by arguing that the kid was a threat," writes The Atlantics Conor Friedersdorf, "or that killing him was an accident, but by saying that his late father irresponsibly joined al Qaeda terrorists." "Killing an American citizen without due process on that logic ought to be grounds for impeachment," Friedersdorf adds.[/video]
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, 16-year old son of Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed in a US drone strike last year
Anwar al-Awlaki was killed last year in a drone strike in Yemen ordered by the Obama administration. The killing made headlines particularly because Awlaki was an American citizen, but his constitutional rights to due process were thrown out the window in favor of simply assassinating him.
Awlaki's 16-year old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was also a US citizen and was killed in a separate drone strike in Yemen weeks after his father's death. Abdulrahman had not been accused of being a member of al-Qaeda or of any act against the United States that could conceivably motivate a US strike.
When pressed by reporters and independent journalists, Gibbs responded to questions about the Obama administration's killing of the American boy by dismissing his life as virtually worthless and blaming his father, Anwar, for his son's death by presidential decree.
"I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children," Gibbs said. "I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business."
Gibbs dodged any further questioning on the issue, but in his answer defended the killing of a 16-year old American boy "not by arguing that the kid was a threat," writes The Atlantics Conor Friedersdorf, "or that killing him was an accident, but by saying that his late father irresponsibly joined al Qaeda terrorists."
"Killing an American citizen without due process on that logic ought to be grounds for impeachment," Friedersdorf adds.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
The Reality of the "Lesser Evil" Is This Child Dead Enough for You?
by CHRIS FLOYD
To all those now hailing the re-election of Barack Obama as a triumph of decent, humane, liberal values over the oozing-postule perfidy of the Republicans, a simple question:
Is this child dead enough for you?
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This little boy was named Naeemullah. He was in his house maybe playing, maybe sleeping, maybe having a meal when an American drone missile was fired into the residential area where he lived and blew up the house next door.
As we all know, these drone missiles are, like the president who wields them, super-smart, a triumph of technology and technocratic expertise. We know, for the president and his aides have repeatedly told us, that these weapons launched only after careful consultation of the just-war strictures of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas strike nothing but their intended targets and kill no one but "bad guys." Indeed, the president's top aides have testified under oath that not a single innocent person has been among the thousands of Pakistani civilians that is, civilians of a sovereign nation that is not at war with the United States who have been killed by the drone missile campaign of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
Yet somehow, by some miracle, the missile that roared into the residential area where Naeemullah lived did not confine itself neatly to the house it struck. Somehow, inexplicably, the hunk of metal and wire and computer processors failed in this one instance to look into the souls of all the people in the village and ascertain, by magic, which ones were "bad guys" and then kill only them. Somehow perhaps the missile had been infected with Romney cooties? this supercharged hunk of high explosives simply, well, exploded with tremendous destructive power when it struck the residential area, blowing the neighborhood to smithereens.
[URL="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/photos-pakistan-drone-war/?pid=998"]
As Wired reports,[/URL] shrapnel and debris went flying through the walls of Naeemullah's house and ripped through his small body. When the attack was over when the buzzing drone sent with Augustinian wisdom by the Peace Laureate was no longer lurking over the village, shadowing the lives of every defenseless inhabitant with the terrorist threat of imminent death, Naeemullah was taken to the hospital in a nearby town.
This is where the picture of above was taken by Noor Behram, a resident of North Waziristan who has been chronicling the effects of the Peace Laureate's drone war. When the picture was taken, Naeemullah was dying. He died an hour later.
He died.
Is he dead enough for you?
Dead enough not to disturb your victory dance in any way? Dead enough not to trouble the inauguration parties yet to come? Dead enough not to diminish, even a little bit, your exultant glee at the fact that this great man, a figure of integrity, decency, honor and compassion, will be able to continue his noble leadership of the best nation in the history of the world?
Do you have children? Do they sit your house playing happily? Do they sleep sweetly scrunched up in their warm beds at night? Do they chatter and prattle like funny little birds as you eat with them at the family table? Do you love them? Do you treasure them? Do you consider them fully-fledged human beings, beloved souls of infinite worth?
How would you feel if you saw them ripped to shreds by flying shrapnel, in your own house?
How would you feel as you rushed them to the hospital, praying every step of the way that another missile won't hurl down on you from the sky? Your child was innocent, you had done nothing, were simply living your life in your own house and someone thousands of miles away, in a country you had never seen, had no dealings with, had never harmed in any way, pushed a button and sent chunks of burning metal into your child's body. How would you feel as you watched him die, watched all your hopes and dreams for him, all the hours and days and years you would have to love him, fade away into oblivion, lost forever?
What would you think about the one who did this to your child? Would you say: "What a noble man of integrity and decency! I'm sure he is acting for the best."
Would you say: "Well, this is a bit unfortunate, but it's perfectly understandable. The Chinese government (or Iran or al Qaeda or North Korea or Russia, etc. etc.) believed there was someone next door to me who might possibly at some point in time pose some kind of threat in some unspecified way to their people or their political agenda or maybe it was just that my next-door neighbor behaved in a certain arbitrarily chosen way that indicated to people watching him on a computer screen thousands of miles away that he might possibly be the sort of person who might conceivably at some point in time pose some kind of unspecified threat to the Chinese (Iranians/Russians, etc.), even though they had no earthly idea who my neighbour is or what he does or believes or intends. I think the person in charge of such a program is a good, wise, decent man that any person would be proud to support. Why, I think I'll ask him to come speak at my little boy's funeral!"
Is that what you would say if shrapnel from a missile blew into your comfortable house and killed your own beloved little boy? You would not only accept, understand, forgive, shrug it off, move on you would actively support the person who did it, you would cheer his personal triumphs and sneer at all those who questioned his moral worthiness and good intentions? Is that really what you would do?
Well, that is what you are doing when you shrug off the murder of little Naeemullah. You are saying he is not worth as much as your child. You are saying he is not a fully-fledged human being, a beloved soul of infinite worth. You are saying that you support his death, you are happy about it, and you want to see many more like it. You are saying it doesn't matter if this child or a hundred like him, or a thousand like him, or, as in the Iraqi sanctions of the old liberal lion, Bill Clinton, five hundred thousand children like Naeemullah are killed in your name, by leaders you cheer and support. You are saying that the only thing that matters is that someone from your side is in charge of killing these children. This is the reality of "lesser evilism."
***
Before the election, we heard a lot of talk about this notion of the "lesser evil." From prominent dissidents and opponents of empire like Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky and Robert Parry to innumerable progressive blogs to personal conversations, one heard this basic argument: "Yes, the drone wars, the gutting of civil liberties, the White House death squads and all the rest are bad; but Romney would be worse. Therefore, with great reluctance, holding our noses and shaking our heads sadly, we must choose the lesser evil of Obama and vote accordingly."
I understand that argument, I really do. I don't agree with it, as I made plain here many times before the election. I think the argument is wrong, I think our system is so far gone that even a "lesser evil" is too evil to support in any way, that such support only perpetuates the system's unconscionable evils. But I'm not a purist, not a puritan, not a commissar or dogmatist. I understand that people of good will can come to a different conclusion, and feel that they must reluctantly choose one imperial-militarist-corporate faction over the other, in the belief that this will mean some slight mitigation of the potential evil that the other side commit if it took power. I used to think that way myself, years ago. Again, I now disagree with this, and I think that the good people who believe this have not, for whatever reason or reasons, looked with sufficient clarity at the reality of our situation, of what is actually being done, in their name, by the political faction they support.
But of course, I am not the sole arbiter of reality, nor a judge of others; people see what they see, and they act (or refrain from acting) accordingly. I understand that. But here is what I don't understand: the sense of triumph and exultation and glee on the part of so many progressives and liberals and dissidents' at the victory of this "lesser evil." Where did the reluctance, the nose-holding, the sad head-shaking go? Should they not be mourning the fact that evil has triumphed in America, even if, by their lights, it is a "lesser" evil?
If you really believed that Obama was a lesser evil 2 percent less evil, as I believe Digby once described the Democrats in 2008 if you really did find the drone wars and the White House death squads and Wall Street bailouts and absolution for torturers and all the rest to be shameful and criminal, how can you be happy that all of this will continue? Happy and continuing to scorn anyone who opposed the perpetuation of this system.
The triumph of a lesser evil is still a victory for evil. If your neighborhood is tyrannized by warring mafia factions, you might prefer that the faction which occasionally doles out a few free hams wins out over their more skinflint rivals; but would you be joyful about the fact that your neighborhood is still being tyrannized by murderous criminals? Would you not be sad, cast down, discouraged and disheartened to see the violence and murder and corruption go on?
Would you not mourn the fact that your children will have to grow up in the midst of all this?
So where is the mourning for the fact that we, as a nation, have come to this: a choice between murderers, a choice between plunderers? Even if you believe that you had to participate and make the horrific choice that was being offered to us "Do you want the Democrat to kill these children, or do you want the Republican to kill these children?" shouldn't this post-election period be a time of sorrow, not vaulting triumph and giddy glee and snarky put-downs of the "losers"?
If you really are a "lesser evilist" if this was a genuine moral choice you reluctantly made, and not a rationalization for indulging in unexamined, primitive partisanship then you will know that we are ALL the losers of this election. Even if you believe it could have been worse, it is still very bad. You yourself proclaimed that Obama was evil just a bit "lesser" so than his opponent. (2 percent maybe.) And so the evil that you yourself saw and named and denounced will go on. Again I ask: where is the joy and glory and triumph in this? Even if you believe it was unavoidable, why celebrate it? And ask yourself, bethink yourself: what are you celebrating? This dead child, and a hundred like him? A thousand like him? Five hundred thousand like him? How far will you go? What won't you celebrate?
And so step by step, holding the hand of the "lesser evil," we descend deeper and deeper into the pit.
Chris Floyd is an American writer based in the UK, and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. His blog, "Empire Burlesque," can be found at www.chris-floyd.com.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
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