How they see us: Life under drone attack

Thousands of innocent people live in daily fear of being suddenly murdered by an American drone strike, said Yemeni activist Farea al-Muslimi in Al-Monitor.com. The buzz overhead is terrifying. “Where will they strike? Will I be next? These are the questions youngsters now grow up asking.” I have spoken to a man who saw his 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter die in his arms of wounds from a drone strike. Yet the collateral damage goes further than the body count. Right now, the vast majority of Yemenis do not support al Qaida. Enough senseless killings, though, and that could change. Apparently it doesn’t matter to the Americans “whether they terrorize—and radicalize—entire populations as they check another name off their kill list.”

Drone strikes have led to a vicious cycle in Pakistan, said Miangul Abdullah in The Frontier Post (Pakistan). The U.S. claims that these strikes are carefully targeted and take out only militants, but according to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, more than 880 civilians and nearly 200 children have been killed in Pakistan since 2004. Even when al Qaida and the Taliban are hit, their numbers aren’t ultimately diminished. Instead, “these attacks have provoked militants to speed up their activities” and target security forces, drawing on new recruits from the angry, radicalized masses.

What’s the alternative? asked The Nation (Pakistan) in an editorial. “Are we in a position to drive out the terrorists hiding in our [frontier regions] on our own instead?” When we sent in Pakistani troops in the past, they killed far more civilians than the Americans have with their drone strikes. Yet if we just leave the militants where they are, “they would pose a greater threat to our territorial integrity and would be free to carry out terrorist activities across the country.”

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Still, if we’re going to allow drone strikes, said Pakistan Today, there has to be some kind of legal framework. As it stands, the U.S. claims that it is acting under the U.N. Charter’s right to self-defense, by targeting al Qaida militants who, in President Obama’s words, “pose a direct threat to the U.S.” But this is nonsense, as a McClatchy news investigation has found: In the 12-month period ending in September 2011, more than half the 482 people killed by CIA drones were not al Qaida leaders, but rather Afghan or Pakistani extremists or “unknowns.” The U.S. doesn’t know who these people are, much less whether they intend it any harm.

What if the U.S. hunted terrorists on its own soil that way? asked The Express Tribune (Pakistan). A Facebook post that went viral after the Boston bombings pretended that the police had called in a drone strike to take out Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in that boat in Watertown. “An enormous explosion engulfed the area, destroying the boat and several nearby homes,” the post read. “Sources say 46 Watertown residents were killed in the missile strike, including 12 children.” The post, written by an American, was liked and shared by thousands of Pakistanis. If only more Americans tried to put themselves in our shoes.