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Posted by Dr. Salman in CURRENT EVENTS, Pakistan Air Force, Thunder in the World JF-17 on January 3rd, 2018
Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman also recalled a historic breach of trust incident over a batch of US-made F-16’s which Pakistan paid for, but never received. The jabs against America, a key ally, came Thursday in a speech Aman delivered at a ceremony of aviation students gathered in Islamabad. The top military official praised Pakistan’s air prowess, saying their forces are prepared to defend the sovereignty of the country.
“We committed a mistake in Osama bin Laden’s case but now the country’s sovereignty will be protected at all costs,” he told an audience at the AirTech 17 expo at the Air University. Aman was referring to the CIA-led US commando raid in May 2011, which involved a cross-border flight of Black Hawk helicopters from Jalalabad, Afghanistan to Abbottabad, Pakistan. The Pakistanis were not informed about the planned assassination beforehand, which sparked outrage in the country.
“We will not allow anyone to violate our airspace,” Aman said as cited by The Times of India, adding, that he has ordered the PAF “to shoot down drones, including those of the US, if they enter our airspace, violating the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The US flies drone missions over Pakistan and conducts airstrikes on suspected militants in the turbulent tribal area on the border with Afghanistan. The practice has prompted outrage amongst Pakistanis because of the high death toll it effects on civilians.
“In the past, the drones have been attacking targets in Pakistan. Earlier it was perhaps with the detested approval of the government of Pakistan. But in the last couple of years, the government of Pakistan has not provided any such approval,” Talat Masood, a retired three-star general in the Pakistani army told RT.
Masood explained that Pakistan is forced to protect its sovereignty in order to avert an Arab Spring scenario witnessed throughout the years across the wider Middle East.
“In fact, at the moment there are some scribes in the New York press or in the Washington press who are predicting that if Pakistan does not draw the line of the United States of America, a Syria-like situation maybe created over here. This has raised the hackles in Pakistan, because Pakistan cannot allow its territory to be used by others to engineer in the name of democracy, any farcical moves which can destabilize the country,” he said.
Aman praised Pakistan’s aviation engineers and scientists, saying their expertise and brilliance means the country need not depend on foreign suppliers for military aircraft. He recalled the issue of the cancelled delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets, for which Pakistan already paid a multi-million dollar down payment.
The episode illustrates the bumpy history of relations between Islamabad and Washington. In the ‘80s, the US needed Pakistani assistance to undermine Soviet troops in Afghanistan, pouring billions of dollars in cash and military aid into an “anti-Soviet jihad.”
This, however, conflicted with US non-proliferation goals, since Pakistan was actively working on producing a nuclear weapon to counter arch-rival India’s newly acquired nuclear capability. US law prohibits providing any aid to a potential nuclear proliferator, so in order to keep Pakistan on its good side, a stop-gap solution was introduced – the 1985 Pressler Amendment.
Named after US Senator Larry Pressler, the legislation enabled a US president to certify to Congress that Pakistan was not developing nuclear weapons, and thus qualified for aid. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did so for five years, despite intelligence to the contrary.
But in 1990, USSR troops were no longer in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s value diminished in Washington. The non-proliferation sanctions then kicked into force, putting a stop to the ongoing deal to deliver 28 F-16’s to the PAF. Pakistan was not only denied the planes, for which it paid Lockheed Martin over $650 million, but also audaciously slapped with a $50,000 per month storage fee. Ironically, the annual payments to the US defense contractor for the withheld jets continued until 1993, as Pentagon officials were telling the Pakistanis that the warplanes would eventually be delivered.
The F-16’s eventually went to New Zealand while Pakistan and the US settled the dispute under Bill Clinton’s presidency, albeit via a partial compensation. In Pakistan, the story is perceived by many as a national humiliation, and an example as to why the Americans cannot be trusted. Denied the American fighter jets, Islamabad relied on China to develop a replacement, the CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder, which has been produced in both countries since the mid-2000s.
Chief Marshal Aman praised the JF-17 corroboration as testament to Pakistan’s technological capabilities, saying the aircraft is superior to the F-16 “in all regards”. He added that the PAF will soon produce a 5th generation warplane under Project Azm, and announced developments in a national space program and potential joint space exploration with China.
The anti-American tinted speech by Pakistan’s senior military commander comes amid a period of tense relations between Islamabad and Washington. President Donald Trump harshly criticized Pakistan in August as he was announcing his administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan. The accusations fueled Pakistani sentiment that Washington cannot be relied upon.
Posted by admin in Drone Attacks, Pakistan's Hall of Shame on February 2nd, 2013
Lahore.
It’s been a decade when the US invaded Afghanistan with the world’s most modern and well-trained military force including troops of more than 40 countries equipped with latest weaponry. After spending a large span of ten years and billions of dollars, the US and its allies are not in a position to claim that they have completely taken over the control of Afghanistan. The recent attacks of Taliban on the US, British, German and Japanese embassies and the NATO headquarters in Kabul are evident that the foreign forces led by the US are unable to protect themselves and they are so vulnerable even in their stronghold that happens to be the capital of Afghanistan as well. The incident is not the only one of its kind but it is one of the incidents that occur almost every month in Kabul or in other cities of the war-hit country.
It’s a fact that the US and its allies cannot stay in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s support. Had Pakistan not provided its soil to the US-led NATO forces to invade Afghanistan, the history would have been written in a very different manner. From day one, Pakistan is working as a frontline ally of the US in the war on terror and they also have a history of healthy mutual relations. But now their relationship has come to a point where both of the allies are revisiting their terms of engagement with each other. Opinion makers and parliamentarians in Pakistan feel that the drone attacks inside Pakistani territory are fuelling hatred against America. This has also been conveyed to the US administration many times that these attacks are affecting the public opinion in Pakistan negatively.
The statistics show that civilian casualties during the drone attacks are more than double as compared to the number of militants that were killed by this unmanned weapon. Even many innocent children have lost their lives due to these attacks. The civilian killings are really condemnable and they are totally unacceptable, no matter you call it collateral damage or what. Even the US administration knows that the attacks are against the international law as they are killing the innocents more in number. Besides hatred against the US, these attacks have become a source for the promotion of militant ideology in the areas where they have killed women and innocent children. Instead of chasing the militants with drones, if the US had spent even half of the amount, that it had invested into the drone technology for the Afghan-bordering areas of Pakistan, to promote education, the scenario would have been very different today.
The recent drone attack on a girls’ high school in North Waziristan’s Miranshah area is first of its kind as it has hit an educational institution. Had it been a working day the damage could be far more than expectation. This incident could become another bone of contention between the two countries as Pakistan’s Foreign Office has condemned the attacked and has termed it as the violation of country’s sovereignty. The FO also summoned Political Counsellor of the US Embassy in Islamabad Jonathon Pratt and registered its protest with him. This kind of attacks and violations of the international law and Pakistan’s sovereignty might become a big trouble for the US and the NATO forces in the days to come.
An important summit of all the stake holders in Afghanistan is going to be held on 20 and 21 of this month to discuss the withdrawal of NATO troops from the war-torn country starting in the start of 2014. If the US administration did not realise that the drone attacks are not helpful for them and if such strikes continued, it might not be possible for Pakistan to participate in the NATO conference. In the recent months, Pakistan has already boycotted a very important meeting regarding the fate of Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany, after an airstrike by the NATO helicopters on a check post killing 28 Pakistani soldiers. Moreover, the future drone strikes could also halt the possibilities of reopening of the NATO supply line in Pakistan.
Atif K. Butt is a Lahore-based journalist and can be accessed atatifk.butt@gmail.com.
WHO SPEAKS FOR SYED WALI SHAH AGE 7 KILLED IN DRONE STRIKE ON 21-08-2009 ?
Only Allah Knows
| الرقيب | The Watchful One | Ar-Raqib |
and When Allah’s Revenge Comes. It will come without any warning to perpetrators. So Zardari and Pakistan Army Officers, who collaborated in drone strikes, you will face the Ultimate Judge (Al-Adl) for this War Crime.
| المنتقم | The Avenger | Al-Muntaqim is a name of Allah. He avenges crimes against humanity. A genocidal act cannot escape punishment from the Creator, both in this life and for eternity. But, those who commit such acts, have blinders on. They cannot connect the dots, when Allah’s punishment comes. It comes without warning and is absolute. So nations and people have to act responsibly, otherwise, they will be held accountable by Al-Adl, the Ultimate Judge. |
Asif Zardari can be brought in front of International Court of Justice at Hague for committing crimes against humanity. He has no sovereign immunity against such crimes. He stands guilty and can be tried by a future Pakistani government. Pakistanis will never forget that this butcher sacrificed his own people to keep his hold on to power and ill-gotten wealth. Zardari has committed crimes against humanity and broken International Law. PAKISTAN ARMY officers who have directed drone strikes, have been part of planning, execution, or implementation of drone strikes are culpable under International Law, also. Pakistani Army Officers who were involved in the drone attacks are vulnerable to indictment under International Law. “I was only following orders,” does not absolve any Pakistan Army Officer, who had any thing to do with this genocide.
[Updated 9:56 a.m.] An official with the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not authorized to speak on the record, condemned today’s attack. Previously, the ministry has said it lodged a complaint with the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad about drone strikes in Pakistani territory on October 10 and 11. The ministry called those “a clear violation of international law and Pakistan’s sovereignty.”
[Posted 8:03 a.m.] Missiles blew up part of a compound Wednesday in northwest Pakistan, killing three people – including one woman – a government official said.
The latest suspected U.S. drone strike also injured two children, military officers said.
Militants lived in the compound, but so did civilians, the officers said.
There’s growing fury over the U.S. pounding of areas known to be home to al Qaeda operatives, mainly in tribal zones along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. A recent independent study said hundreds of civilians, including 176 children, have been killed in the attacks over the last eight years.
U.S. President Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney seem to largely see eye-to-eye on the issue. CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen notes that most Americans “are comfortable with the muscular use of CIA drones against al Qaeda in Pakistan.”
The United States rarely comments on the strikes.
The New America Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy group, used Google Maps to pinpoint many of the drone attacks.
Only in recent history has international law evolved to define and punish mass violence against civilians. Now well-established as the legal foundation for civilian protection against mass atrocities, two categories of international law that seek to criminalize genocide and crimes against humanity were developed in response to World War II and the Holocaust.
Below you will find a series of approachable articles and resources, including podcasts and eyewitness testimonies, that describe the evolving international framework for preventing and punishing genocide and crimes against humanity.
Background
At the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg (1945-1946), legal teams from Allied nations prosecuted Nazi German leaders for attacks on civilians under the rubric of crimes against humanity, a formerly undefined general principle that became codified into enforceable law for the very first time. The IMT limited it in scope, however, to crimes committed in the context of international armed conflict.
Due in large parts to the efforts of Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin, the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was unanimously adopted on December 9, 1948. The Convention established genocide as an international crime in times of both war and peace. The Convention’s definition ofgenocide is, however, strictly limited by the perpetrator’s “intent to destroy in whole or in part;” the characterization of the victim group; and the acts committed.
Although mass atrocities occurred in the decades following ratification, the Genocide Convention went unused and therefore untested. Not until the 1990s did the obligations of the Convention gain potency, spurred on by several international developments: the growth of professional human rights organizations with experience utilizing international legal tools to combat human rights abuses; the end of the Cold War, which enabled greater consensus in UN Security Council; and the persistence of extreme violence targeted against entire civilian groups, most notably in the cases of Bosnia-Herzegovinaand Rwanda.
In response, new mechanisms were created to hold individuals criminally responsible for violations of international laws of war, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The United Nations created the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993 and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1994. On July 17, 1998, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was permanently established through treaty, which no longer limited crimes against humanity to the context of armed conflict. And, for the first time, an established forum for disputes between states, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), addressed countries’ obligations to prevent genocide.
Law grows through the setting of precedents. In other words, how judges apply the law helps determine what the law means. Through the judgments of these tribunals and courts, international law on genocide and crimes against humanity evolves, deepening our understanding of the crimes and our capacity to respond.
In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to create the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. But how has the definition of genocide — crafted through diplomatic negotiation — become meaningful against real threats to civilian groups?
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent judicial body set up to try individuals for the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Watch testimony from some of the individuals who played significant roles in helping to develop international law on genocide and crimes against humanity. Alongside the testimony, view pieces of related evidence from our Museum’s collection and beyond.
Raphael Lemkin: A Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin fled Poland in 1939 and arrived in the U.S. where he introduced the word genocide and worked tirelessly on lobbying for the creation of a convention against genocide at the United Nations.
Senator William Proxmire: Between 1967 and 1986, Senator William Proxmire delivered 3,211 speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate arguing for the U.S. to sign the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Stephen Rapp: Appointed by President Obama in 2009 as the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Stephen Rapp served as prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 2001 to 2006.
Diane Orentlicher, Deputy in the Office of War Crimes Issues in the U.S. Department of State: Orentlicher discusses how the Obama Administration is reengaging with the International Criminal Court.
International law expert William Schabas: Schabas discusses the decision of the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court to request an arrest warrant for President Bashir of Sudan.
Respected historian, author, and politican Michael Ignatieff: Ignatieff describes the history behind Raphael Lemkin’s important work naming the crime of genocide.
What is Genocide? View or download a timeline exploring the concept and law of genocide
The War Criminal Asif Zardari allowed US to boost drone strikes in Pakistan.
The American Viewpoint:
RAWALPINDI: Observing that the CIA does not trust the ISI because it has repeatedly demonstrated its untrustworthiness, The Wall Street Journal in an opinion piece said on Friday that Pakistan needs to be a given an ultimatum of the kind it was given immediately after 9/11.
“In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration famously sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to Islamabad to explain that the US was going to act forcefully to protect itself, and that Pakistan had to choose whose side it was on. It’s time to present Pakistan with the same choice again,” the newspaper said in an opinion piece entitled ‘The Pakistan Ultimatum.’ Importantly, the piece comes within days of a high-profile meeting between the spy chiefs of the United States and Pakistan.
“The government of President Asif Ali Zardari allowed the US to increase the number of drone strikes. Yet it has made a point of complaining about them publicly, playing a particularly cheap form of politics to shore up its waning popularity with a domestic constituency smart enough to see through the hypocrisy,” the paper said.
Noting that relations between Washington and Islamabad have historically never been easy, and seem to have reached something of a watershed now, the Journal said Pakistan’s behaviour has not exactly been exemplary.
“So Pakistan now demands that the United States withdraw hundreds of American intelligence operatives and special-ops trainers from its soil and stop the CIA drone strikes on al-Qaeda, Taliban and affiliated terrorists. Maybe the Obama administration can inform its friends in Islamabad that, when it comes to this particular fight, the US will continue to pursue its enemies wherever they may be, with or without Pakistan’s cooperation,” the daily said.
Keeping track: A still of an interactive map at NewAmerica.net shows drone attacks by location and year. For more details see the link to the interactive map below or go to www.newamerica.net. Source: Peter Bergen / Katherine Tiedemann / New America Foundation
With recent news of ISAF helicopters swooping over the border into Pakistan, and as US drones strikes continue unabated, 2010 is becoming known in north-west Pakistan as ‘The Year of the Drone.’
The New America Foundation has used the moniker for a section on their website detailing with “an analysis of US drone strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2010.” In fact, more than an analysis, it is a very comprehensive database (not customisable, or easily mined, but still very useful) of every drone attack since 2004. It contains maps, charts and tables with estimates of deaths (civilian and militant) and locations of attacks. The sources for information on each attack are listed.
Everyone is well aware of the huge surge in drone attacks in 2009 and 2010 under the Obama administration, but the cold figures show the shocking rise in civilian deaths too.
For the period 2004-2007, according to the website, the high estimate for non-militant deaths from drone strikes is nine out of 109 people killed, around 8%. For 2009, the high-side estimate for non-militant deaths is 304 out of 709, a maddening 43%. The low estimate is 120 out of 413 killed in drone attacks, or 29%. So far in 2010 there have been reports of as many as 59 non-militants killed (59 out of 654, or 9%; while the low estimate shows 26 non-militants killed out of 387 drone-strike deaths, 7%) as of September 27, 2010).
These numbers show an increase in ‘accuracy’ for US drone strikes for 2010, but of course, this is cold comfort for those who have lost family members. Hundreds of Pakistanis not engaged in any fighting have been killed in targeted strikes. And while these raw numbers are revealing, they only scratch the surface. The real numbers that matter are:
You can see all the statistics gathered in Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann’s drones database at the New America Foundation here.
View an interactive map of US drone strikes in Pakistan in a large format.
What if Drone Strikes are War Crimes?
DRONE WARS, PERHAPS FUTILE AND CRIMINAL. Drone strikes never became a US campaign issue.
By William Boardman When it comes to pilotless drones armed with air-to-ground missiles, the United States acknowledges that its counterterrorism strategy includes using terrorist techniques as part of the “war” on terror. Some of these attacks on civilians are widely understood to be war crimes, but the Obama administration refuses to reveal White House lawyers’ memosdefending the legality of executive execution.
Currently and controversially, the United States is the only country in the world known to be actively waging drone warfare — the remote aerial killing of people who may or may not be identified, who may or may not be hostile, and who have no way to appeal for a stay of the execution they don’t even know is coming their way.
Some call the drone war a “moral black box” that reflects badly on American ethics.
Protests against this form of summary execution are happening with increasing frequency not only in Pakistan, where the U.S. has killed hundreds of non-combatants, but in Britain, Australia, Illinois, New York, and now Vermont.
FROM DRONE-PLAGUED PAKISTAN DIRECT TO VERMONT
Already concerned by the increasingmilitarization of their state and country, Vermont activists are calling for their congressional representatives to oppose further drone use on defenseless countries. None of the delegation, not Sen. Patrick Leahy, not Sen. Bernie Sanders, not Rep. Peter Welch, has raised much of a fuss about drone killings, not even when the President chose to kill anAmerican citizen.
Vermonters with Veterans for Peace, the Peace and Justice Center, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom also oppose basing a drone control center in Vermont, a possibility floated by National Guard Major General Michael Dubie as early as 2011.
To heighten consciousness of drone attacks on law and the Constitution, activists have arranged to hear directly from Leah Bolger, one of 30 Americans in the Code Pink delegation who went to Pakistan for the mass protest against drones led by political leader Imran Khan in early October. Ms Bolger, president of Veterans for Peace, came directly from Pakistan to hold a press conference at the National Guard base gate and to speak to a college audience at St. Michael’s College.
U.S. IS EXCEPTIONAL IN DRONE WARFARE
While other countries, certainly Israel and perhaps Iran, may be dabbling in drone warfare, only the U.S. is engaged in remote control killing of citizens in at least five theoretically sovereign nations, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Somalia, as well as suspected strikes in Libya, Iraq, Mali, Colombia, Mexico, and others. Israeli drones havereportedly killed 825 people in Gaza since mid-2006.
The legal problems created by drone warfare are similar to the problems the U.S. created for itself by deciding to torture prisoners without legal restraint. As explained by Richard Falk, international lawyer and retired Princeton professor, “The U.S. reliance on attack drones to engage in targeted killing, especially in third countries (Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan) has raised controversial international law issues of sovereign rights in interaction with lethal acts of war, especially those far removed from the zone of live combat.”
More bluntly, the U.S. is committing acts of war, killing the citizens of other countries in their own countries, without a shred of due process of law, whether international, American, or local, and the acts are not confronted even by international authorities such as the United Nations or the International Criminal Court (which the U.S. refuses to recognize).
SOUTH AFRICAN JURIST QUESTIONS “WAR CRIMES”
In June 2012, Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, issued a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council calling attention to the dubious legality of drone warfare. The South African Jurist said that: “Reference should be made to a study earlier this year by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism” If civilian “rescuers’ are indeed being intentionally targeted, there is no doubt about the law: those strikes are a war crime.”
The impact and effectiveness of drone strikes is intensely debated and the Obama administration does what it can to keep relevant information secret. But Pakistan counts more than 1,000 innocent civilian killed, and other observers, both military and civilian, say the drone strikes create far more angry people bent on revenge than it kills terrorist plotters.
The numbing effect of killing people by remote control is another cost of this kind of war, made vivid in the video of a former British drone operator who found it “too easy to kill” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America’s drone warfare began in earnest in 2004 under President Bush, but President Obamahas increased the rate of drone attacks six-fold since he took office in 2009.
IN THE FUTURE, WILL EVERYONE HAVE DRONES?
Thomas Powers, who has written extensively about the CIA and other secret agencies, describes the problem this way: “Drones are an unreliable and conspicuous way of killing individuals. With drones we have no way to tell who we are killing. It’s abrogating a right to ourselves that no organization should have. It’s arbitrary and driven by politics. What seems inevitable today is going to cause you trouble tomorrow. Ask yourself if the United States would accept the right of another country to decide who among Americans they would kill. There are probably people in Arizona allied with drug cartels. Would we allow Mexican forces to use drones against them? Hell, no.”
In April, the first international Drone Summit held in Washington, D.C., raised issues of legality, constitutionality, efficacy, cost, justice, and security. But Drone warfare had not been a significant issue in any presidential campaign. Meanwhile the international drone market is booming.
Vermonter living in Woodstock: elected to five terms (served 20 years) as side judge (sitting in Superior, Family, and Small Claims Courts); public radio producer, “The Panther Program” —In his second term, it was expected that the U.S. President Barack Obama would reassess America’s controversial foreign policy, especially by ceasing CIA-operated drone attacks on Pakistan. But these aerial strikes continue on Pak tribal areas.
It is worth mentioning that Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam, who visited America in August, 2012, emphatically told the then-CIA Director David Petraeus that predator strikes are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty that must be stopped. He pointed out that these strikes are proving counterproductive, giving a greater incentive to fundamentalist and extremist elements in Pakistan and are increasing anti-U.S. sentiments among the people.
While addressing the UN General Assembly on September 25, President Asif Ali Zardari said, “Drone strikes and civilian casualties on our territory add to the complexity of our battle for hearts and minds through this epic struggle” against terrorism.
Besides, after her meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 21 in Washington, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar stated that they had discussions on drones, saying, “These are illegal and counterproductive.” She explained that when “a U.S. drone carries out a strike, Pakistani officials have to hear remarks that this is a U.S. war.” Khar elaborated that in 352 terrorist attacks in Pakistan, many of those killed were Pakistanis as opposed to foreigners.
While justifying these air strikes by spy planes, the counterterrorism advisor to Obama, John Brennan, and Defense Minister Leon Panetta have defended these attacks on Pakistan’s tribal areas under the pretext of North Waziristan-based Haqqani militants whom they have blamed for several assaults on American and NATO bases in Afghanistan. On the other hand, U.S.-led coalition forces have failed in stopping incursions of heavily-armed insurgents in Pakistan from thye Afghan side who have killed more than 100 personnel of Pakistan’s security forces in the last two years while targeting the infrastructure of the area. In fact, the U.S. seeks to make North Waziristan a scapegoat for NATO’s defeat in Afghanistan by continuing the illegal mass murder of innocent people through Predator strikes.
However, setting aside parliamentary resolutions, rallies and processions of Pakistan’s political and religious parties against drone attacks, and ignoring the new rapprochement between Islamabad and Washington, without bothering about any internal backlash, these strikes keep on going on in the FATA.
In fact, such American duplicity contains a number of covert designs. The fresh wave of strikes by pilotless aircraft has thwarted the offer of militants and the Pakistani government for peace talks. And the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has as a result accelerated subversive activities in the country. Now, the U.S. seeks to incite the Haqqani network as over the past 14 months, as most of these strikes have targeted North Waziristan. So, these aerial attacks are provoking the tribal people against Pakistan’s security forces and increasing the recruitment of insurgents. Another aim of these strikes is to create a rift between Pakistan’s armed forces on one side and the political and religious parties including the general masses on the other. Besides, Pakistan is the only nuclear country in the Islamic world. Hence, the U.S., India and Israel are determined to weaken it. The drone campaign is also part of this game.
The strikes by the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which have continued in Pakistan’s tribal areas since 2004 have intensified during the Obama era. In one of the major drone attacks more than 40 civilians and policemen were killed on March 18, 2011 in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. In the past few months, these unmanned aircraft killed more than 100 people in North Waziristan.
As regards civilian casualties, on August 11, 2011 a report of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism said, “The Guardian published some of the pictures, we have obtained…as many as 168 children have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan during the past seven years.” While rejecting the CIA’s false claim, the report disclosed, “It is a bleak view: more people killed than previously thought.”
Besides, a report of the New America Foundation revealed that President Obama has “authorised 193 drone strikes in Pakistan, more than four times the number of attacks that President Bush authorised during his two terms.” The report explained, “When the U.S. drones attack Pakistan’s tribal areas, it is not just the 10, or 50, innocent civilians they kill, these killings provide reason to youth for joining terrorist groups waging war against the U.S. and of course Pakistan…while killing 10 militants, the U.S. has murdered more than 1,400 Pakistanis not involved in any terrorist activities. Could it not be inferred that it gave birth to another 1,400 militants?”
The latest report, “Living Under Drones,” prepared by experts from the Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law, disclosed that the U.S. campaign of drone “strikes in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt is terrorising civilians 24 hours a day and breeding bitter anti-American sentiment. [They] have killed thousands of people…even stopping their children going to school for fear of being targeted.” Based on research, the report urged Washington to rethink its drone strategy, arguing it was counterproductive and undermined international law.
Nevertheless, details collected by Pakistani journalists show that civilian casualties through drone strikes are higher as indicated [even] by U.S. officials. In the last four years, more than 800 innocent civilians and only 22 Al-Qaeda commanders have been killed by these aerial attacks.
Particularly during his first presidential campaign, Barack Obama pledged to reverse the excesses of the Bush era in relation to terrorism. He also promised to reformulate a counterterrorism policy in accordance with the legal and moral values of the U.S. Contrary to his assertions, Obama followed Bush’s approach to counterterrorism in its worst form by expanding and accelerating the Predator strikes.
In this respect, The New York Time on May 26, 2011, in an article which was written with the assistance of several counterterrorism advisers of the administration, revealed, “President Obama has become personally involved in the process” and “has normalised extrajudicial killings from the Oval Office, taking advantage of America’s temporary advantage in drone technology. Without the scrutiny of the legislature and the courts, and outside the public eye, Obama is authorising murder on a weekly basis.”
Notably, the American constitution explicitly grants the right to declare war to the Congress so as to restrain the president from chasing enemies around the world, based solely on his authority as commander-in-chief, by waging a secret war.
Instead of capturing militants alive and to avoid giving the right of due process of law to them in a court, President Obama has openly been acting upon a ruthless policy of targeted killings by supervising the CIA-controlled drone warfare.
Notably, President Obama has broken all the records for human rights violations by extrajudicial killings of innocent people through CIA-operated unmanned aircraft, which are part of his so-called counterterrorism operations in Somalia, Yemen, etc. in general and Pakistan in particular, while the U.S. claims to be the protector of human rights not only inside the country but all over the world.
On the one hand, top U.S. officials, particularly Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have repeatedly said that America needs Pakistan’s help not only for the peace process with the militants, but also for stability in Afghanistan in the post-2014 scenario; but on the other, U.S. spy planes in Pakistan’s tribal regions are undermining international efforts for stability both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including a peace dialogue with the Afghan militants.
Meanwhile, Ben Emmerson, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism, said on August 16 of this year that it was time for “the U.S. to open itself up to scrutiny as to the legality of such attacks…each strike is visually recorded and videos could be passed to independent assessors.” Recently, former U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have also opposed Obama’s faulty strategy of drone strikes.
Nonetheless, these strikes are illegal, unethical and a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty as well as the UN Charter. But U.S. warrior President Obama remains intransigent in continuing his secret war through drone attacks.
Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations
Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com
Reference:
- http://www.newslinemagazine.com/2010/09/website-chronicles-drone-strikes-in-pakistan/
- http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=5335&Cat=13
- http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-if-Drone-Strikes-are-by-William-Boardman-121010-52.html
- http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/24/3-killed-kids-hurt-as-fury-grows-over-u-s-drone-strikes-in-pakistan/
- http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/11/more-than-160-children-killed-in-us-strikes/
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