Bombers ‘mistake’ children.
Landmines maim them.
Re-reporting, editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett
Many U.S. citizens now focused on the anniversary of September 11 and the controversy over whether an Islamic Center should break ground near ‘ground zero’ [and the mass media’s affair with a mental incompetent in Florida] may be asleep at the wheel, Kathy Kelly writes in a September 9 opinion piece. Citizens may be oblivious to clear violations of international law, which we have obligations to prevent — at the very least, to discuss.
Corporate media fails substantively to aid ordinary people in understanding that drones hovering over potential targets every day — in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other places — “create small ‘ground zeroes.’” Kelly tells the story of children cut down in a criminal war.
Eleven-year-old Nur Said was in a hospital ward for young boys injured by various explosions, she reports. Some of the injured boys sat in an outside garden talking about their experiences.
Nur Said stayed indoors because he was “too miserable to talk. [He] would merely nod…. Weeks earlier, he had been part of a hardy band of youngsters that helped bolster their family incomes by searching for scrap metal and unearthing landmines on a mountainside in Afghanistan. Finding an unexploded land mine was ‘eureka’ for the children.” When opened, the mine offered valuable brass parts the children could sell.
“Nur Said had a landmine in hand that suddenly exploded, ripping four fingers off his right hand and blinding him in his left eye.
Another group of youngsters scavenging for scrap metal in the Kunar Province on August 26 fared far worse. “Following an alleged Taliban attack on a nearby police station, NATO forces flew overhead to ‘engage’ the militants.… In this case, the bombers mistook the children for militants and killed six six- to 12-year-old children. “Local police said there were no Taliban at the site during the attack, only children.”
U.S. DRONES
PAKISTAN— Peshawar
On Wednesday, the infamous American drones killed eighteen people and wounded many others in parts of North Waziristan agency; the majority of the dead and wounded were alleged militants and fugitives. Predator planes also struck the Danday Darpa Khel and Datta Khel areas.
In the early hours of Thursday, according to the Pakistan Observer, another drone attack in North Waziristan Agency “left at least five more people dead and many others wounded. This was the notorious American spy planes’ fourth missile hit within 24 hours, the eighth in a week. “U.S. drones continued their killing spree in the Pakistani northern tribal belt even in the holy month of Ramzan and launched around a dozen missile attacks in North Waziristan agency often before or after Iftari and Traveeh prayers killing large numbers of people mostly among the faithful.”
As a rule, the U.S. military does not confirm drone attacks but, the Yemen News Agency reports, the “[U. S.] Armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy pilotless drones in the region. More than 1,040 people have died in 122 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, including a number of senior militants.”
U.S. DRONES, Counterattack
AFPAK
Ten civilians (est.) died Thursday and four suffered wounds when a roadside bomb exploded in Pakistan’s Kurram tribal region on the Afghan border. In the renewed violence following the floods at least 150 people have died.
Fighters linked to al-Qaeda have recently stepped up bomb and suicide attacks in Pakistan after a brief lull amid the worst flooding in the country's history.
U.S. DRONES
AMERICAS
Inside USA
A U.S. military officer told the press on Thursday “an unmanned navy helicopter had flown out of control towards the U.S. capital last month before communications were restored.” This drone “headed right for the heart of the national capital region.…
“The episode came as the military presses civilian officials at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ease restrictions on the use of unmanned aircraft over the United States.”
On Texas./MEXICO border
Six drones had been operating along the U.S./Mexico border. This week, for the first time, the U.S. government launched an unmanned aircraft from a Corpus Christi, Texas, Naval Air Station.
Sources and notes
Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org), a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. In 2009, Voices for Creative Nonviolence formed a small delegation to visit Pakistan, aiming to learn more about the effects of U.S. drone warfare on the civilian population and to understand better the consequences of U.S. foreign policy in Pakistan. Kelly’s most recent trip to the region, in 2010, included a visit to Afghanistan, focusing on surgical centers serving victims of war, http://vcnv.org/speaker-bio/kathy-kelly
“The Indefensible Drones: A Ground Zero Reflection” (Kathy Kelly, t r u t h o u t
Op-Ed), September 9, 2010,
http://www.truth-out.org/the-indefensible-drones-a-ground-zero-reflection63096
“U.S. weighed shooting down runaway robotic helicopter: admiral,” September 9, 2010, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jpb2H3PrhxH4mjK1qXwEESB0IqJA
“Five more perish in drone attack” (Tariq Saeed), Pakistan Observer’s epaper, September 10, 2010,
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=51621
“U.S. Drone Strike Kills Six Militants in Pakistan,” Yemen News Agency (Saba), September 9, 2010, http://www.sabanews.net/en/news223801.htm
“U.S. drones kill 18 in latest missile strike on tribal area,” September 9, 2010, Morning Star, http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/95068
“Roadside bomb hits tribal region along Afghan border amid suspected U.S. drone attacks in North Waziristan,” September 9, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/09/20109964537209244.html
“Drones Patrol Our Border — U.S./MEXICO BORDER - A drone aircraft is finally on patrol along the Texas-Mexico border,” September 10, 2010, http://www.ktsm.com/news/drones-patrol-our-border
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