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As Obama Expands Drone War, Activists & Victims’ Advocates Join D.C. Summit on Civilian Toll
Democracy Now / Video Report
Published: Friday 27 April 2012
“Obama argues U.S. drone strikes are focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists and have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties.”
Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who represents families of civilians killed in U.S. drone strikes, was finally granted a visa to enter the U.S. this week after a long effort by the State Department to block his visit. He has just arrived in Washington, D.C., to attend the “Drone Summit: Killing and Spying by Remote Control,” organized by human rights groups to call attention to the lethal rise in the number of drone strikes under the Obama administration. Obama argues U.S. drone strikes are focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists and have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. “Either President Obama is lying to the nation or he is too naive, to believe on the reports which the CIA is presenting to [him],” responds Akbar. The summit comes as the United States pursues a radical expansion of how it carries out drone strikes inside Yemen. The so-called "signature" strike policy went into effect earlier this month allowing the U.S. to strike without knowing identity of the targets.
We’re also joined by Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of CODE PINK and an organizer of this weekend’s summit. “So many people who spoke against George [W.] Bush’s extraordinary rendition and Guantánamo and indefinite detention have been very quiet when it comes to the Obama administration, who is not putting people in those same kind of conditions, instead is just taking them out and killing them,” Benjamin says. “So we need to make people speak up and say that when Obama says this [program] is on a tight leash, this is not true. This is a lie.”
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Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of "Breaking the Sound Barrier," recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
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By Kiley Kroh
3 comments on "As Obama Expands Drone War, Activists & Victims’ Advocates Join D.C. Summit on Civilian Toll"
May 04, 2012 2:56pm
This is one of those issues that the Libertarians actually start sounding like they make sense. The more power the government acquires the more irresponsible it seems to become in it's actions. Drones, either by virtue of the intelligence or by the fact of it's ability to direct deadly force, afford a new kind of power to the government and it is clear that, whether it's the military of the CIA, is misusing and abusing that power. When we make it easier and less messy to kill potential opponents in the field, there will be less moral quandaries for the executive to have to contemplate. There will be more people killed indiscriminately, and because it's not large numbers of corpses, there's no reason to get too excited. One news cycle, tops! How long do you think it will take for our militarized police to latch onto drones for crowd control? For halting speeding drivers? (Gives new meaning to the idea that a stretch of road is patrolled by aircraft).
This technology is more than just a better mousetrap. It is going to require some new ethical considerations. Better to get at them before we start seeing these machines in numbers over American cities, armed and enforcing the new discipline.
April 28, 2012 11:54pm
The only difference between drones and other areal weapons systems is our crew members’ safety is not at risk in the process of projecting military power.
The need for projecting areal power in Pakistan is the direct result of rules of engagement that precluded our ground troops from pursuing and engaging our enemies inside Pakistan.
This whole quandary could have been avoided by partnering with India to stabilize Afghanistan.
April 27, 2012 6:53pm
The use of drones is a war crime, commission of an unprovoked attack , simply murder. Those who manufacture, deploy, approve to deploy, or otherwise use drones to kill, terrorize, spy, gather intelligence are murderers. I fully support the rights of all humans beings victimized or potentially victimized by the use of drones to pre-emptively defend themselves against the use of drones by any means necessary. Those who use or would use drones are threatening bodily harm to all of us -- this is a crime in itself, and the best response I can think of is pre-emptive self-defense against anyone who would employ, even if only for the purpose of terrorism against a domestic population, the use of drones. Act now for liberty and justice: take out the drones and their cronies.