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Obama administration continues practicing "double tap" drone strikes

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Post  Progurt Mon Aug 20, 2012 6:50 pm

They do this because of the near-total silence from what was once laughably called the anti-war movement. Oh wait, it's an election year, what's one more Pakistani corpse on top of the pile? We gotta be free, baby.
US drone strikes target rescuers in Pakistan – and the west stays silent
But attacking rescuers (and arguably worse, bombing funerals of America's drone victims) is now a tactic routinely used by the US in Pakistan. In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that "the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals." Specifically: "at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims." That initial TBIJ report detailed numerous civilians killed by such follow-up strikes on rescuers, and established precisely the terror effect which the US government has long warned are sown by such attacks:
"Yusufzai, who reported on the attack, says those killed in the follow-up strike 'were trying to pull out the bodies, to help clear the rubble, and take people to hospital.' The impact of drone attacks on rescuers has been to scare people off, he says: 'They've learnt that something will happen. No one wants to go close to these damaged building anymore.'"
The frequency with which the US uses this tactic is reflected by this December 2011 report from ABC News on the drone killing of 16-year-old Tariq Khan and his 12-year-old cousin Waheed, just days after the older boy attended a meeting to protest US drones:
"Asked for documentation of Tariq and Waheed's deaths, Akbar did not provide pictures of the missile strike scene. Virtually none exist, since drones often target people who show up at the scene of an attack."

Not only does that tactic intimidate rescuers from helping the wounded and removing the dead, but it also ensures that journalists will be unwilling to go to the scene of a drone attack out of fear of a follow-up attack.

This has now happened yet again 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 strikes was 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".)
Of course, anybody we kill is a "militant" and had it coming. A mindset one would expect from conservatives, but also one now widely shared by democrats.
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Post  gendoikari87 Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:43 pm

yes but by all means, vote for obama for the marginal and possibly non effectual token support he's begrudgingly thrown at gay rights. it's okay a few LGBT appointees and passports are worth the lives of thousands of innocent people, as long as they are in other countries. GO 21st Century nationalism, i'm sure it'll be much better the second time around, and totally won't repeat what happened at the beginning of the 20th century.
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Post  Progurt Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:52 pm

On a related note, this snuck through on friday:
Cover-Up of Civilian Drone Deaths Revealed by New Evidence
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Post  gendoikari87 Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:58 pm

Progurt wrote:On a related note, this snuck through on friday:
Cover-Up of Civilian Drone Deaths Revealed by New Evidence
why cover up what you openly admit to and boast that you don't have to show why you have the legal authority?
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