Fighting terror?

The American usage of drones to kill "terrorists" has escalated lately, up to the point that Pakistani officials are protesting and closing borders for NATO supply trucks. To make matters worse US troops shot down a pakistani military helicopter, assuming that they were militant islamists. This is forcing supply trucks to take another more dangerous route through Baluchistan. In this area  40 NATO oil trucks have been destroyed.

The NATO/American way of waging war is turning a whole area against them. Instead of decreasing the number of militant islamists targetting Western interests, we can safely assume they will keep growing and may also turn more violent. Furthermore, I suspect that American actions will reflect on the rest of the Western society, thus increasing threats not only in USA, but in all of the Western world.

[Pakistan] [USA] [War] [Terrorism] [Drones] Share on Facebook

War games

In front of a computer screen sits a young man, he uses a joystick to aim and shoot. So far nothing strange, it happens all over the world. What is new is that this time a man really dies when he shoots. This is the newest weapon in the American arsenal. They are usually refered to as drones, unmanned small aircrafts with advanced weapon systems. You may say it is war, people die in wars. However, this is problematic in several ways.

The killings do not really take place in a war. The killings are more like death penalties for suspected terrorists without any trials and they have hit innocent civilians. Furthermore, this takes out the personal aspect of war, one guy presses a button and another guy in another part of the world dies. To me it is very disturbing. According to New America Foundation over 1000 have been killed in drone strikes, many of which are civilians. The U.N.'s senior official for extrajudicial executions, Philip Alston, said the United States should explain the legal rationale for the CIA's campaign of drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, which he characterized as "a vaguely defined license to kill" that has created "a major accountability vacuum."

[War on Terror] [Drones] [USA]Share on Facebook