Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Drone attacks in Pakistan are counterproductive, says report

Perbacco, ci voleva lo studio congiunto degli esperti di due prestigiose 
università americane per capire una ovvietà...
 
Ma allora, mi chiedo: quale è il livello intellettivo degli strateghi 
statunitensi?
 
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Drone attacks in Pakistan are counterproductive, says report
 
US academics' report says drones kill large numbers of civilians and 
increase recruitment by militant groups
 
     Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
     The Guardian, Tuesday 25 September 2012	
 
The CIA's programme of "targeted" drone killings in Pakistan's tribal 
heartlands is politically counterproductive, kills large numbers of 
civilians and undermines respect for international law, according to a 
report by US academics.
 
The study by Stanford and New York universities' law schools, based on 
interviews with victims, witnesses and experts, blames the US president, 
Barack Obama, for the escalation of "signature strikes" in which groups 
are selected merely through remote "pattern of life" analysis.
 
Families are afraid to attend weddings or funerals, it says, in case US 
ground operators guiding drones misinterpret them as gatherings of 
Taliban or al-Qaida militants.
 
"The dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a 
surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by 
enabling 'targeted killings' of terrorists, with minimal downsides or 
collateral impacts. This narrative is false," the report, entitled 
Living Under Drones, states.
 
The authors admit it is difficult to obtain accurate data on casualties 
"because of US efforts to shield the drone programme from democratic 
accountability, compounded by obstacles to independent investigation of 
strikes in North Waziristan".
 
The "best available information", they say, is that between 2,562 and 
3,325 people have been killed in Pakistan between June 2004 and 
mid-September this year – of whom between 474 and 881 were civilians, 
including 176 children. The figures have been assembled by the Bureau of 
Investigative Journalism, which estimated that a further 1,300 
individuals were injured in drone strikes over that period.
 
The report was commissioned by and written with the help of the 
London-based Reprieve organisation, which is supporting action in the 
British courts by Noor Khan, a Pakistani whose father was killed by a US 
drone strike in March 2011. His legal challenge alleges the UK is 
complicit in US drone strikes because GCHQ, the eavesdropping agency, 
shares intelligence with the CIA on targets for drone strikes.
 
"US drones hover 24 hours a day over communities in north-west Pakistan, 
striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning," the 
American law schools report says.
 
"Their presence terrorises men, women, and children, giving rise to 
anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those 
living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike 
may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to 
protect themselves.
 
"These fears have affected behaviour. The US practice of striking one 
area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes 
both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to 
assist injured victims."
 
The study goes on to say: "Publicly available evidence that the strikes 
have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best … The number of 
'high-level' militants killed as a percentage of total casualties is 
extremely low – estimated at just 2% [of deaths]. Evidence suggests that 
US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed 
groups, and motivated further violent attacks … One major study shows 
that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the US an enemy."
 
Coming from American lawyers rather than overseas human rights groups, 
the criticisms are likely to be more influential in US domestic debates 
over the legality of drone warfare.
 
"US targeted killings and drone strike practices undermine respect for 
the rule of law and international legal protections and may set 
dangerous precedents," the report says, questioning whether Pakistan has 
given consent for the attacks.
 
"The US government's failure to ensure basic transparency and 
accountability in its targeted killings policies, to provide details 
about its targeted killing programme, or adequately to set out the legal 
factors involved in decisions to strike hinders necessary democratic 
debate about a key aspect of US foreign and national security policy.
 
"US practices may also facilitate recourse to lethal force around the 
globe by establishing dangerous precedents for other governments. As 
drone manufacturers and officials successfully reduce export control 
barriers, and as more countries develop lethal drone technologies, these 
risks increase."
 
The report supports the call by Ben Emmerson QC, the UN's special 
rapporteur on countering terrorism, for independent investigations into 
deaths from drone strikes and demands the release of the US department 
of justice memorandums outlining the legal basis for US targeted 
killings in Pakistan.
 
The report highlights the switch from the former president George W 
Bush's practice of targeting high-profile al-Qaida personalities to the 
reliance, under Obama's administration, of analysing patterns of life on 
the ground to select targets.
 
"According to US authorities, these strikes target 'groups of men who 
bear certain signatures, or defining characteristics associated with 
terrorist activity, but whose identities aren't known'," the report 
says. "Just what those 'defining characteristics' are has never been 
made public." People in North Waziristan are now afraid to attend 
funerals or other gatherings, it suggests.
 
Fears that US agents pay informers to attach electronic tags to the 
homes of suspected militants in Pakistan haunt the tribal districts, 
according to the study. "[In] Waziristan … residents are gripped by 
rumours that paid CIA informants have been planting tiny silicon-chip 
homing devices that draw the drones.
 
"Many of the Waziris interviewed spoke of a constant fear of being 
tagged with a chip by a neighbour or someone else who works for either 
Pakistan or the US, and of the fear of being falsely accused of spying 
by local Taliban."
 
Reprieve's director, Clive Stafford Smith, said: "An entire region is 
being terrorised by the constant threat of death from the skies. Their 
way of life is collapsing: kids are too terrified to go to school, 
adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meetings, or 
anything that involves gathering in groups.
 
"George Bush wanted to create a global 'war on terror' without borders, 
but it has taken Obama's drone war to achieve his dream."
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/25/drone-attacks-pakistan-counterproductive-report
 
-- 
Sostieni Rete ECO
 
http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html
 

 Ma allora, mi chiedo: quale è il livello intellettivo degli strateghi statunitensi?
 
In mezzo a qualche operazione azzeccata, hanno un cospicuo record di
fallimenti. Un po' come tutti gli strateghi.
 
Ma in generale non sono dei pirla.
 
 
-- 
Tranquillo gni trombonno la moglie

 statunitensi?
 
Immagino che tu sia fratello in ispirito con quei pakistani che sono 
incazzati neri per la morte di Bin-Laden, assistita da uno o piu' drone.
 
Il controverso autore del 9/11 che fu in realta' causato dagli 
israeliani.
 
La cosa bella nelle passioni e' la costanza...
 
Am.

 statunitensi?
 
Quello tipicamente basso dei militari e quello ancora pi� basso dei
politici guerrafondai
 
Ciao!
 
-- 
 
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