NSFW

[The U.S. military and/or CIA again used illegal follow-up missile strikes] this weekend in Pakistan, which witnessed what Reuters calls “a flurry of drone attacks” that “pounded northern Pakistan over the weekend”, “killing 13 people in three separate attacks”. The attacks “came as Pakistanis celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan with the festival of Eid al-Fitr.” At least one of these weekend strikeswas the type of “double tap” explosion aimed at rescuers which, the US government says, is the hallmark of Hamas:

“At least six militants were killed when US drones fired missiles twice on Sunday in North Waziristan Agency.

“In the first strike, four missiles were fired on two vehicles in the Mana Gurbaz area of district Shawal in North Waziristan Agency, while two missiles were fired in the second strike at the same site where militants were removing the wreckage of their destroyed vehicles.”

An unnamed Pakistani official identically told Agence France-Presse that a second US drone “fired two missiles at the site of this morning’s attack, where militants were removing the wreckage of their two destroyed vehicles”. (Those killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan are more or less automatically deemed“militants” by unnamed “officials”, and then uncritically called such by most of the western press – a practice that inexcusably continues despite revelations that the Obama administration has redefined “militants” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone”.)

It is telling indeed that the Obama administration now routinely uses tactics in Pakistan long denounced as terrorism when used by others, and does so with so little controversy. Just in the past several months, attacks on funerals of victims have taken place in Yemen (purportedly by al-Qaida) and in Syria (purportedly, though without evidence, by the Assad regime), and such attacks – understandably – sparked outrage. Yet, in the west, the silence about the Obama administration’s attacks on funerals and rescuers is deafening.

But in the areas targeted by the US with these tactics, there is anything but silence. Pakistan’s most popular politician, Imran Khan, has generated intense public support with his scathing denunciations of US drone attacks, and tweeted the following on Sunday:

As usual, US policies justified in the name of fighting terrorism – aside from being rather terroristic themselves – are precisely those which fuel the anti-American hatred that causes those attacks.

The reason for the silence about such matters, and the reason commentary of this sort sparks such anger and hostility, is two-fold: first, the US likes to think of terror as something only “others” engage in, not itself, and more so; second, supporters of Barack Obama, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, simply do not want to think about him as someone who orders attacks on those rescuing his victims or funeral attendees gathered to mourn them.

That, however, is precisely what he is, as this mountain of evidence conclusively establishes.

anonymissexpress:

June 1, 2012, by Glenn Greenwald

Virtually every time the U.S. fires a missile from a drone and ends the lives of Muslims, American media outlets dutifully trumpet in

headlines that the dead were ”militants” – even though those media outlets literally do not have the slightest idea of who was actually killed. They simply cite always-unnamed “officials” claiming that the dead were “militants.” It’s the most obvious and inexcusable form of rank propaganda: media outlets continuously propagating a vital claim without having the slightest idea if it’s true.

This practice continues even though key Obama officials have been caught lying, a term used advisedly, about how many civilians they’re killing. I’ve written and said many times before that in American media discourse, the definition of “militant” is any human being whose life is extinguished when an American missile or bomb detonates (that term was even used when Anwar Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son, Abdulrahman, was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen two weeks after a drone killed his father, even though nobody claims the teenager was anything but completely innocent: “Another U.S. Drone Strike Kills Militants in Yemen”).

This morning, the New York Times has a very lengthy and detailed article about President Obama’s counter-Terrorism policies based on interviews with “three dozen of his current and former advisers.” I’m writing separately about the numerous revelations contained in that article, but want specifically to highlight this one vital passage about how the Obama administration determines who is a “militant.” The article explains that Obama’s rhetorical emphasis on avoiding civilian deaths “did not significantly change” the drone program, because Obama himself simply expanded the definition of a “militant” to ensure that it includes virtually everyone killed by his drone strikes. Just read this remarkable passage:

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. “Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don’t hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs,” said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.

This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the “single digits” — and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants.

But in interviews, three former senior intelligence officials expressed disbelief that the number could be so low. The C.I.A. accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One called it “guilt by association” that has led to “deceptive” estimates of civilian casualties.

“It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants,” the official said. “They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are.”

[…]

“Militants”: media propaganda

Note Anonymiss Express: WUT?

A US drone strike hit a village mosque in northwest Pakistan early Thursday, killing at least 10 people, according to reports.

It was the second drone strike within 24 hours in the North Waziristan tribal area.

Four “suspected militants” were killed yesterday in a drone strike on a compound near Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, the Press Trust of India reported.

The strikes comes at a time when diplomatic relations between the US and Pakistan have worsened over Pakistan’s refusal to reopen NATO supply routes shut down last November.

President Asif Ali Zardari left the NATO Summit in Chicago without announcing any move to reopen supply lines for foreign forces in Afghanistan.

[…]

Local tribesmen said 10 bodies were pulled from the debris and that efforts were underway to retrieve others, NBC News reported.

“The drone fired two missiles and hit the village mosque where a number of people were offering Fajr [morning] prayer,” local tribal elder Roashan Din told NBC.