Winged death of democracy
I think this article deserves to be read in Russia as well. So that there are no illusions about what those who call themselves "the leader of the free world" and "the luminous city on a hill" are doing with the other hand. Hundreds of thousands of people on our planet today are peering into the sky with horror, waiting for the arrival of the winged death of democracy. What it is? These are unmanned aerial vehicles, in short - UAVs. They are also called differently - drones. But it would be correct to call them that - the winged death of democracy ...
Jennifer Gibson, Los Angeles Times (October 4 2012, p. 21)
"Living with death from drone"
Last week, Stanford and New York Universities released the largest study on the use of drones in the ever-expanding, and endless, war on terror. Unfortunately, many comments missed the main message of this report: drones are terrorizing the entire civilian population.
I was one of the researchers for this report and spent more than one week in Pakistan, having interviewed more than 60 people in North Waziristan. Many of them were survivors of blows from UAVs, others lost loved ones and family members. They all live now under the constant fear of destruction.
What my colleagues and I have learned from these nameless and unknown victims of the American "War drones” gave the name of the report itself - “Living under drones”.
People in the United States think that drones fly to their targets, launch their deadly missiles with surgical precision, and return to American bases hundreds of thousands of miles away. However, the UAVs are constantly in the sky over the tribal zone in Pakistan’s North Waziristan. Sometimes up to six vehicles simultaneously cruise over local villages. The population hears them day and night. From them nowhere to hide, the drones have become a constant reminder of death from the air.
This aerial presence steadily destroys a community of two in the state of Rhode Island. Parents are afraid to send children to school, women are afraid to meet in the markets, whole families are afraid to attend the funerals of those who were mistakenly killed in previous attacks with drones. Drivers do not want to bring loads of food from other parts of the country.
Habitual daily life is broken into pieces. Innocent people hide in their homes, afraid to take to the streets. "Double tips", they also repeated blows to the same goals, led to the fact that residents no longer even help the wounded. The leading humanitarian agency is now delaying assistance for a critical six hours. And the worst part is that no one can tell people in these communities what to do to feel safe. No one knows who is on the American death list, no one knows how they get into it and how it can be excluded from it. Such a terrifying "roulette". Suddenly and without warning, a rocket arrives and makes the victims of everyone within 16 radius yards.
It is clear that the Obama administration claims that it strikes only against militants. But if we understand that since the days of September 11 (2001 of the year), this is what we need to study the final results. People are not aware that the administration defines as militants - all men of “military age”, that is, from 18 to 65. Moreover, since the United States usually does not publicize the names of the people killed, we don’t even know whether the victims were really militants or they were qualified as such only in Washington’s opinion.
Truly, the whole process is filled with the same number of “weak points” as, say, the regime of detention in the military prison at Guantanamo on the territory of the island of Cuba. In Afghanistan, the Bush administration paid fantastic sums for information "on the ground." In areas full of tribal and inter-family conflicts, the result was predictable: hundreds of innocent people were slandered as members of the Taliban or al-Qaida, many of whom then spent years in Guantanamo and other American prisons.
Now the United States offers similar notions to people in North Waziristan who promise to identify militants. The houses of those who were given for militants are entered into the base of satellite navigators and, when the informant is at a safe distance, they are carried into pieces. But since no one knows what kind of informants they are, people stopped inviting neighbors to the houses. The whole community ceases to have public relations, fearing at the level of its cells to go outside and at the same time fearing to call itself inside.
This is the “life under drones”. She turned North Waziristan into the greatest prison in the world. A humanitarian worker who was in New York on September 9 (2001) and is now working in North Waziristan said that the atmosphere of these two situations is very similar - a constant feeling of fear that has no boundaries.
Of course, we have to ask ourselves whether drones are legal under international law. My point is that - no. We must also ask the question, are they not counterproductive? I think yes.
However, this discussion will not be nearly complete if we are not aware of what it is to live under drones. ”
Commentary by Nikolai Starikov: Jennifer Gibson writes very eloquently only about Pakistan. Not to mention at the same time that today the use of UAVs by Americans in the "fight against terrorists" is also in full swing in Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia. With the same bloody score against civilians. Because the scheme is applied the same. At the same time, the plans of the Pentagon and the CIA (and the drones are being used by both these organizations at the same time) for the dissemination of "experience" in Libya and the Sahel zone are already beginning to be implemented. And, as the author of the article correctly notes, it is not only the casualties among the common population, but also the constant fear that takes root in people. Fear that destroys the connecting threads of society and, ultimately, destroys it. Do you think Washington does not understand this?
They understand. The only thing that keeps the winged death of a democracy. BYE - is Russia's presence of effective air defense and nuclear weapons. I do not know if anyone in the world is engaged in creating special weapons against drones. As in interstate conflicts they, it seems, have not yet been applied. As if no one else felt the threat of his skin. But this weapon of combat and reconnaissance-sabotage character has already been tested, and the Americans are working on its further improvement and development. And when these "birds" will begin to fly over the world will not seem to anyone. Can you shoot them down? Can. But only - anyway it's just a piece of hardware. A lively American who fights with this thing sits a hundred or a thousand kilometers from the place of use.
That's what I propose to think about ...
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