Reports document US slaughter of civilians in drone strikes

Written on October 24th, 2013 in politics Comments Off

Published on World Socialist Web Site WSWS, by Barry Grey, Oct 23, 2013.

A series of reports released over the past several days document the killing of thousands of people, including hundreds of non-combatant civilians, in US drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and other countries. The reports, issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, 105 pages, on Tuesday and the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions last Friday, expose as lies the claims of President Obama and administration officials that the drone strikes are “surgical” attacks that kill few civilians. 

All three reports suggest that the United States is concealing the extent of the carnage caused by its program of extrajudicial executions and is in violation of international humanitarian law. The reports were timed to coincide with a United Nations General Assembly debate on drone attacks to take place this Friday … //

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Links:

HRW: Q & A on drones;

Amnesty International Report;

Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, on OHCHR, Oct 9, 2013;

Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, on OHCHR for the 23rd session HRC, by Christof Heyns, April 9, 2013 (A/HRC/23/47);

Bankers expecting bigger bonuses this year, on Left Foot Forward, by James Bloodworth, October 23, 2013;

Shocking dashcam video catches moment of deadly Volgograd terrorist attack on bus, 1.13 min, on Russia Today RT, Oct 22, 2013: A new video released by the Investigative Committee shows the moment of the deadly blast in the Volgograd bus on Monday recorded by a dashcam in a car following the vehicle;

Volgograd mourns victims of bus bombing, police look for organizers, on Russia Today RT, Oct 22, 2013;

Volgograd suicide blast was planned for Moscow – Investigative Committee source, on Russia Today RT, Oct 21, 2013;

Toxic Overflow Of Thousands Of Fukushima Tanks Following Heavy Rains, on Countercurrents.org (first on CommonDreams.org), by Lauren McCauley, October, 22, 2013: Highly radioactive water crested the walls of some 1,000 storage tanks at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility after plant officials underestimated the amount of rainfall Sunday …;

Why the U.S. Should Retire Its Drones, on The Progressive, by Amitabh Pal, Oct. 22, 2013;

Sergey Lavrov at the Royal Institute for International Relations, on Voltairenet.org, by Sergey Lavrov, Oct 15, 2013;

Hidden Hands, Vocation and Sustainable Critique in International Relations, (talk no #58), on Theory Talk, with Daniel Levine, October 1, 2013.

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