Source: http://www.democracynow.org
A U.S. drone strike killed three people in northwest Pakistan earlier today, marking the first such attack since Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly called for President Obama to end the strikes. Just last week, Amnesty International said the United States may be committing war crimes by killing innocent Pakistani civilians in drone strikes. Today we air extended clips from the new documentary, “Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars,” and speak to filmmaker Robert Greenwald. The film looks at the impact of U.S. drone strikes through more than 70 interviews with attack survivors in Pakistan, a former U.S. drone operator, military officials and more. The film opens with the story of a 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed by a drone just days after attending an anti-drone conference in Islamabad. We are also joined by human rights attorney Jennifer Gibson of Reprieve, co-author of the report, “Living Under Drones.”
This drone strike killed three people in northwest Pakistan earlier today, marking the first such attack since Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly called for President Obama to end the strikes last week. The identity of the victims has not been confirmed, but Pakistani intelligence officials say they are suspected militants, as is generally the claim with U.S. drone attacks. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism says at least 400 civilians have been killed by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. But in a twist Wednesday, the Pakistani government significantly downgraded its official estimate of civilian casualties. Previous reports have detailed the Pakistani government’s extensive cooperation with drone strikes. Today’s attack came as members of a Pakistani family are in the United States calling for an end to drone strikes which they say are killing innocent people.
One year ago, a 67-year-old Pakistani woman was killed by an alleged U.S. drone while picking vegetables in a field with her grandchildren on October 24, 2012. The United States has never acknowledged killing her or any other drone strike victims in Pakistan, always claiming that it is militants locked in the crosshairs. This week, her son and two of her grandchildren traveled to Washington, D.C., to became the first drone victims to testify before members of Congress — even though only five Democrats appeared at the hearing. Live in studio, we speak to Rafiq Rehman and his two children, nine-year-old Nabila and 13-year-old Zubair, both of whom were injured in the strike. “I don’t understand why this happened to me. I have done nothing wrong,” Zubair says. “What I would like to say to the American people is to please tell your government to end these drones because it is disrupting our lives.”
See her story @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE2O0q6rynQ
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