USA Today’s photo illustration of a drone (photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)
To the Editor:
Your June 15 report about a new Pew poll showing broad opposition to US drone strikes included an odd characterization of those attacks:
The administration has carried out strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, often prompting charges in those countries that innocent civilians have been killed.
There are not “charges” that civilians are killed in those strikes; such deaths are well-documented. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks drone strikes in several countries, estimates that drones have killed at least 400 civilians in Pakistan alone. According to a recent UN report, there were 45 civilians killed by drone strikes in Afghanistan in 2013.
Perhaps those opposed to US drone attacks are aware that drones indeed kill innocent civilians.
Regards,
Peter Hart
I think they were talking about credit card “charges”. That’s next up for all of us — not only deliveries by drone, but targeted death by drone if you haven’t paid your charges …
Even that same administration acknowledges some “collateral damage”, always with the exculpatory “do everything in our power to minimize them”.
Ironic that USA Today, which dutifully regurgitates baseless “charges” by officialdom as received gospel, apparently looks askance at their admissions in this instance.
Well they were correct in that it has resulted in “charges” against us. What they forget to mention is that those charges stand true, and therefore are “true”; e.g. A person who commits murder is ‘charged’ with a crime. The Person committing the crime doesn’t see it as a crime, they see it as ‘their right” as all dyed in the wool criminals do.
Imagine that there’s a powerful country with which we have good relations — embassies open, businesses trading, etc. Now imagine that this country flies drones above U S cities and towns, killing citizens on a daily basis. U S citizens, however, which this country believes to be a danger to them. How would we react? How would YOU react? Oh, but the U S isn’t just another country; we’re god’s favorite people, or whatever. How much difference should that make? Any? Not to me, it doesn’t. We’re at best bullies, and at worst murderers.