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Stanford-NYU Report: Drone Attacks Illegal, Counterproductive
trbdavies writes "In 'Living Under Drones,' investigators from Stanford and NYU Law Schools report on interviews with 130 people in Pakistan about U.S.-led drone attacks there, including 69 survivors and family members of victims. The report affirms Bureau of Investigative Journalism numbers that count '474 to 884 civilian deaths since 2004, including 176 children' while 'only about 2% of drone casualties are top militant leaders.' It also argues that the attacks violate international law and are counterproductive, stating: 'Evidence suggests that US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks One major study shows that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the U.S. an enemy.'"
Without the baseline information the summary is clearly propaganda.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If they don't want to get slaughtered they shouldn't live in Pakistan.
Or at the very least, they shouldn't invite militant leaders into their homes.
They ask terrorists (the "victims" of the drone attacks) how they feel about drones and you get the expected response. The number of "civilian" casualties cannot be confirmed or even reliably estimated since the terrorists dress like civilians. This piece of alleged journalism comes from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism which is a highly euphemistically named organization that is about as fair and balanced as Fox News.
And it would help to stop being brown and start worshipping Jesus.
Jesus was brown.
Bah!
If the US was interested in following the spirit (if not the letter) of the law, then you wouldn't have things like "Special Rendition". That the US use drone attacks in a country where it doesn't even have a "police action" going on is not surprising. This is just an example of the "Same ol' same ol' ..Ends justifies the means" that has been used for decades (if not since the beginning of the 20th century).
.. I know .. anti-american foreigner and all that. Been there, heard the criticism and got the free T-shirt. But if you won't listen when your friends say "Woooo dude .. that's way out of line there", then pretty soon you aren't going to have any friends left.
And yes
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On the other hand the Pakistan Military allowed the US to use Pakistani airbases for the drone strikes until 8 months ago, requested increased use of drone attacks in 2008, still offer tacit support for the drone attacks, and have themselves said most of those killed in drone strikes were terrorists, despite the political inconvenience of admitting this (by contrast, Pakistan always denied their connection to terrorists working against India in Kashmir, even when the connection was obvious).
The souring of relations with Pakistan centers on the raid on bin Laden, and just the natural friction between the US and a nation with a record of selling nuclear secrets on the black market, supporting the Taliban, and supporting terrorist actions against India.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
If you are fighting a war against terrorists, and you play by the rules, and they don't, you are going to lose.
Maintaining the network would be impossible. The Taliban (or whoever) just kills the family of whoever is supposed to do the tech work to keep the network up.
paintball
If the Pakistanis Muslims respect the Christians, why do they persecute the Christian minorities in their country?
'Cause you know, Muslims would never be persecuted in our country.
(Or Sikhs that the hate-mongers are too stupid to realize aren't Muslims.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Dissatisfaction with the current incompetent administration != hatred of the USA
Is the Pakistani government an enemy of the US and often works against US interests?
Yes.
Is the Pakistani government an ally of the US that shares intelligence with the US and often allows US military to operate on Pakistani soil?
Yes.
Isn't that schizophrenic?
Yep.
Like the US, Pakistan has an elected government. Unlike the US, it has governmental organs that aren't fully under the control of civilian elected officials. The Pakistani military and intelligence services are independent national institutions (Egypt is this way as well) and within those institutions you have various fiefdoms and power centers. The Egyptian military is this way as well, almost forming a distinct society within the society with its own economic and social welfare programs.
Imagine you have a country governed by warlords. There might be some order of precedence or honor which theoretically unifies the country, but still some of the those warlords might be your "friends" and others your enemies. There's nothing mystifying about that. Now imagine those petty rulers aren't warlords who control territory, but bureaucrats that control various state functions. It's not that different.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The report says "current US targeted killings and drone strike practices undermine respect for the rule of law and international legal protections and may set dangerous precedents." Killing people the government deems inconvenient, with no oversight, legal process or warning, and collateral damage to boot, might not be strictly illegal but it's certainly against the spirit of both US and international law and custom,and sets a dangerous precedent.
I guess I don't understand your point. Let's say you are completely correct; so what? Aren't we, as Americans, supposed to hold ourselves to higher standards of behavior, particularly in terms of tolerance of different races and belief systems? Saying that a militant theocracy acts in a certain horrific way doesn't mean we get to act that way, too;. it means that it's a good thing we're not a militant theocracy. Additionally, criticizing another nation for not adhering to our standards of behavior seems pointless to me, while criticizing ourselves for the same reason seems like a good idea.
What am I missing?
His point is that drawing equivalency between persecutions of Muslims in the US vs. Christians in Pakistan is ridiculous. Calling drone actions by the gov't as persecution of Muslims when civilians are hit is illogical as well, as Christians can just as easily be "collateral damage"
*gets asbestos suit on, affixes thermally resistant aluminum tape hat*
By that reasoning, it could be stated "I don't feel sorry for 'civilians' working for the financial entities behind the abuses in our country"
Just thought I should point that out. The twin tower destruction plan was a strategic one, as well as a terrorist attack. Bin Laden may have been an assfuck, but he wasn't a completely stupid one. He chose the trade center because it was a symbol of american led international business activity; something he directly associated with the continuing problems he saw in his part of the world.
The (suspected) muslims in this thead are right: the problem is the US's insatiable desire to control foriegn markets to hold up a faulted domestic business model. That model? "Cheap energy and heavy consumerism are A-OK, and need to continue forever, no matter what the price."
Want to see the hate in the middle east dry up? Multilateral withdrawl of all financial and military interests in the middle east by *all* western powers.
They will exhaust their resources, and poof... dry up and blow away.
The US won't get as many terrorists, we won't have to keep killing brown people, and things will be way better politically.
Oh, but then it would cost you 10$/gal to fill your hummer?
What a shame.
Eh, the thing is, Pakistani christians are just as pakistani as anyone else. Just as native. A family may have been Christian since before Mohammed. It's not right to imply they should leave, particularly when many may have no practical option to leave, but even if they all did - would you leave your homeland like that? That line of thought is all wrong.
Now that said, I dont think it is the duty or the legitimate business in any way of the US to go around trying to dictate how other countries work. If I were in the government I would be very careful with my words as a result. But as a private citizen I dont need to do that and I do find religious discrimination anywhere, against anyone, unacceptable, and thus I find your defense a bit offensive.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Nah, you are using your brain and not drinking the kool-aid.
Taco Cowboy often takes stories which show how brutally we are treating Muslims and tries to justify this violence by claiming Christians have it 'worse'. As if a drone attack against a Pakistani Muslim somehow balances out the bad karma of a Christian being harassed by Muslims.
Taco's stance doesn't make sense, it has a clear pro-Christian bias, and it is just plain ignorant. It doesn't matter what your faith is, normal people know killing is wrong. Taco wants to find an exception for that, showing he isn't much of a good Christian at all!
He's a Republican, which is why he's fearful of the media, believes in world-wide conspiracies, and supports the idea of killing Pakistani Muslims with drones. Just what you'd expect from the party of "fear and ignorance". Which is precisely why his views on morality and religion as as flawed as they are.
The twin tower destruction plan was a strategic one, as well as a terrorist attack.
Or because it was vulnerable to a plane impact? Or because it contained a high concentration of Jews? You assume too sophisticated tought of these goatherders. Now American economic pressure can be a problem, but especially the Middle East is very good at resisting it (at least until they are offered a sufficient price). The OPEC is quite independent from the US and had many conflicts with it.
Want to see the hate in the middle east dry up? Multilateral withdrawl of all financial and military interests in the middle east by *all* western powers.
Sure, it worked well for the French to stay out of Iraq...oh wait, it didn't. You are very naive if you rely on the terrorists to stop of their own goodwill. Terrorists don't want to end the war because that's the reason of all the influence they have. Why don't you think Gaza wants peace with Israel? Because the terrorists will stay in power for only as long as there is a war.
They will exhaust their resources, and poof... dry up and blow away.
You think the West is their only costumer? Russia and China will happily maintain relations with them and supply them with more then enough guns. They will continue to emigrate to the West and try to kill our civilians because we don't let them eradicate Israel or because of some made-up reason like this film now.
I think his point is that the vast majority of Muslims living in America are not actually harassed for their religion. Unlike Christians in Pakistan, who are harassed daily, to the point of being kidnapped, raped, and murdered.
I don't know if he is right, but I believe that is his point.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I don't think they hate Christians so much as they hate pretty much anything to do with white people, and if they are white they probably hate themselves. Its classic liberal white guilt, where you appease any group you can claim were "wronged", no matter how far back you go, try going to HuffPo and show those links and see how quickly they bring up the crusades. Yeah that was what? 600 years ago?
I'm not right or left, I actually lean towards socialist, but the path of appeasement is a path of death and failure. Nobody has EVER gotten anywhere with appeasement, its a failed policy and no matter whether you dress it up with terms like white guilt or political correctness or tolerance its still the same thing, classic appeasement policy.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Refraining from deploying flying death robots and killing/rendering/torturing anyone who looks at you funny is not "appeasement".