MQ-9 Reaper Drone, Photo, Wikipedia
While reading yesterday's New York Times account of the American conducted drone war in the Pakistani [1] tribal areas and according to the people directly affected including the local tribesmen, (some of them CIA paid informants who place GPS type devices near the homes of suspected militants) as well as interviews and videos with the militants themselves (supposedly connected to al Qaeda and the Taliban) who carry out the deadly execution of the informants, I came away with the following reactions:
- A renewed contempt for the American corporate media journalistic practice that steno graphically presents the verbal accounts of the various interviewees (many anonymous) in such a cold blooded manner (as if the use of drones is a legal American right and is therefore morally and ethically neutral) is infuriating.
- Such "reporting" to the American public gives the distinct impression that the use of drones is a justified given rather than the contemptible illegal practice that serves to expand the war on terror while increasing the number of militants vowing revenge and retaliation against anything American.
- The only thing the "Times" piece criticized was the brutality of the militants in taking deadly reprisals against the American paid informants.
- As for the drone killing of innocents, well "strike accuracy seems to be improving," (there by making it all the more palatable).
Yet it's the very use of American drones that are causing the reprisals. And not unsurprisingly we get this from a senior Pakistani Taliban commander speaking anonymously, "In every civilized society, the penalty for spying is death". Exactly! Thank you CIA.
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