Posted on 04/16/2013 7:55:17 PM PDT by RC one
The U.N. Special Rapporteur on drones, British lawyer Ben Emmerson, recently visited Pakistan and told me: "The consequence of drone strikes has been to radicalize an entirely new generation."
The New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan, drones have killed between 1,953 and 3,279 people since 2004 -- and that between 18% and 23% of them were not militants. The nonmilitant casualty rate was down to about 10% in 2012, the group says.
A study by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that since 2004, Pakistan has had 365 drone strikes that have killed between 2,536 and 3,577 people -- including 411 to 884 civilians.
U.S. President Barack Obama has maintained the strikes are necessary for defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban, but others including Emmerson have their doubts.
He said: "Through the use of drones you may win the immediate battle you are waging against this particular faction or that particular faction ... but you are losing the war in the longer term."
Emmerson's legal insights will form the basis of his report to the U.N., expected later this year. For the United States, at least, it could make for a damning read.
Emmerson says the drone strikes are illegal under international law as they violate Pakistan's sovereignty and fly in the face of Pakistani government calls for them to desist -- and that they also legalize al Qaeda's fight against America.
He said: "If it is lawful for the U.S. to drone al Qaeda associates whereever they find them, then it is also lawful for al Qaeda to target U.S. military or infrastructure where ever (militants) find them."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Is the Swat Valley ruled by the Sultan of Swat?
Hell, the next REAL president will just nuke all those SOB`s into Camel dust.
Emerson is full of crap. “Lawful” is what countries decide. Terrorists are stateless actors, like pirates. What he is describing may be termed some sort of moral justification, but “moral” and “lawful” are not the same thing.
in all their talk aobut Boston, has anyone in the media asked whether it was done as revenge for one of Obama’s drone attacks?
Maybe someone’s son or wife was killed in one of them.
Instead of wondering if it was some tea party or rightwing guy maybe it might actually be a direct result of something Obama did.
I won’t be holding my breath,
Let a cook break that down.
Being a cook, I'm going to round some numbers. Call it 4000 dead. and at 10 people and one of my brother's in law (the .9) for nice round 11 toasties per strike.
If you take the worst case of 884 civies, and divide that by the number of drone strikes. That's 2 and half 'civilians' per strike.
So we are at 8 and a half bad guys killed per stike, assuming (and I don't) that 'civilians' are good guys.
Not bad numbers. Continue as you were.
/johnny
perhaps, but that’s also a lot of family members and people who could be out for revenge.
they take honor and blood feuds and revenge very seriously over there.
just something to think about
Those folks have been “radicals” since time immemorial.
sure he will.
But how many Afghans have come here to blow us up. And then compare that to the number of Saudis.
We are using drones in the wrong place.
Don't want no trouble, don't start none.
Or we'll finish it.
As I said, maintain course and heading.
I don't buy that wishy-washy crap. Sell it to someone else.
/johnny
We take murdering our citizens who were not doing anything to those cretins very seriously too. That is why we try to kill as many as we can to keep them from doing it again.
If they are angry because we don’t just let them kill us at will, well they will just have to be angry. Maybe before too long they will die angry.
If we didn’t nuke anyone after 9/11, what makes you think they would do it now?
If there was an army in your country, you would take up arms against them. Just like they are.
We went into Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda. We accomplished that years ago.
We are nation building in a place that will never adopt our way of doing things. And if the only reason we are in their country is because they are shooting at us....that’s a dumb reason to be there.
.
/johnny
drone strikes are ineffective at destroying the enemy or his resolve to fight. They create more enemies and they increase his resolve to fight. How would you feel if someone blew up your child or your nephew or your brother or sister and then called it acceptable collateral damage? Would you want to stop fighting or would an insatiable demonic blood rage well up inside of you? In WW2, we took the lives of women and children but we also took the enemies means of fighting and his will to fight and compelled him to surrender. obama is doing the opposite afaic.
By 2018 the Taliban will have stolen a couple of the Pakistani nukes.
Muzzies are always radicalized. It’s the way of Allah.
And how are these retards going to use them?
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