Drone strikes in Pakistan have killed 1,000 civilians, activists say, while the US maintains they only target terrorists. Victims of drone warfare and their families live in constant fear of another strike, and say they are “angry and want revenge.”
A review of classified US intelligence records has revealed that the CIA could not confirm the identity of about one-quarter of those killed by drone strikes in Pakistan during a period spanning 2010 and 2011. In a review of 14 months of classified records, 26 out of 114 attacks designate fatalities as “other militants,”and in four other attacks those killed are described as “foreign fighters.” The CIA is reluctant to reveal information on its drone program, Chris Woods of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism told RT. “With so many civilians reported killed, and yet the CIA reporting that it’s killed no more than 50 or 60 civilians I think there is need for an open, not only an open inquiry, but also for the CIA to share the information it has on who it believes it’s killed in places like Pakistan. President Obama’s speech the other week did seem to promise more openness but unfortunately we’re not seeing signs of that just yet,”Woods said. In his post-election address to parliament, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called for an end to US drone attacks in the country’s northern tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. "This daily routine of drone attacks, this chapter shall now be closed," Sharif said to enthusiastic applause. "We do respect others' sovereignty. It is mandatory on others that they respect our sovereignty." “Most of the strikes in Pakistan these days are really not related to Al-Qaeda or those terrorist activities but really to the war across the border in Afghanistan. The drone war has changed quite significantly over the ten years or so it’s been running. We see the US talking about using drones in Syria for example; we have had calls from Iraq and Rwanda recently for the US to use drones there. So there’s a concern among some that the US wants now to use these drones as an easy plank in their view of foreign policy,”Woods explained. Pakistani protesters from the United Citizen Action torch a US flag as they shout slogans during a protest in Multan on May 30, 2013.(AFP Photo / S.S Mirza) Residents of Pakistan say they are living “in constant fear of another strike.” Amin Ullah was on his way to work at a mine near his village when a drone struck the area. He lost his leg in the attack, and three other miners were killed. "The Americans should be able to tell an ordinary person from a Taliban leader. They should know who they're killing. What did we do to deserve this?" Ullah told RT. “We are simple villagers who are stuck in a war that we didn’t ask for. It’s a hopeless feeling. Death is above our heads all the time,” he added. Another victim of the drone attack, Nek Bahadar, lost part of his hearing and nearly his foot: “The drone’s shockwave was so intense that it threw us outside far from the place where we were sleeping. After several minutes there was another strike and it killed many more people.” “Of course this has made me hate the Americans. We are angry and want revenge. They’ve destroyed our lives. My parents, my wife my children – we all see America our worst enemy now,” Bahadar said. Pakistani human rights lawyer Shahzad Mirza Akbar has sued both the US and Pakistan on behalf of civilian victims in Waziristan, a mountainous region in northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. “I simply call it a concentration camp, that you've built a wall of military and militants, and behind this wall you are keeping more than 800,000 people who are not allowed to come out and no one from the rest of the country is allowed to go in. And that is kind of laboratory that US is using to use test its drone program,” Akbar told RT’s Lucy Kafanov. Evidence of drone strikes is difficult to gather; fragments of the attacks were collected by a local journalist Noor Behram, who spent years documenting the civilian toll of drones, especially on children. “Whenever my 3-year-old daughter hears the plane she runs inside and won’t sleep that night. The children here have been traumatized by the drones. The sound of a door banging shut is enough to terrify them,” Behram said. There are fears that the US campaign to eliminate terrorists could end up creating more. “By carrying out drone strikes, killing innocent people who are not part of the conflict, you are just widening the conflict. You are giving the reason to people who were not part of the conflict here to become part of the conflict,” Akbar explained. Breakthrough advances in unmanned aircraft technology have also sparked concerns at the UN. The UN’s rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, Christof Heyns, is calling for a worldwide ban on "killer robots"that could attack targets autonomously, without a human having to pull the trigger. According to the report, the US, Japan, South Korea and Israel have developed various types of fully- or semi-autonomous weapons. “It’s important to say there’s no particular day we’ll be able to say, now we have fully autonomous robots. But there are already very high levels of autonomy available, and full autonomy may be available within a few years. It’s important to emphasize the distinction between drones and lethal autonomous robots (LARs). With drones you have a human in the loop with somebody sitting behind the computer and taking the decision to pull the trigger. With robots there’s no human being in the loop, it’s a computer that takes a decision,” Heyns explained. Just 24 hours after Austria decided to withdraw its 380-strong contingent from the UN force policing the Golan separation zone, President Vladimir Putin stepped forward Friday, June 7, with an offer of a Russian force to take its place on the highly sensitive Syrian-Israeli border. Thursday, two peacekeepers were injured by falling ordnance from a battle between Syrian and rebel troops around Quneitra.
DEBKAfile: The Russian president saw his opportunity to pluck the fruits of Moscow’s success in backing the Syrian-Hizballah forces’ advances in major battles against rebels, notably at al Qusayr, and position Russian troops face to face with the Israeli army. They would constitute a barrier against any military intervention being mounted against the Assad regime from Israel. UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Hak said: "The UN would welcome Russia’s contribution to peacekeeping efforts in the region." Our military and intelligence sources doubt whether the Israeli government will be enthusiastic about Russian troops policing the Golan sector separating Israeli and Syrian forces. Jerusalem may be expected to seek advice from Washington in order to get the Russian contribution disqualified on the grounds that Moscow can hardly claim to be a neutral party when it is so heavily committed militarily to one side of the Syrian conflict. The Obama administration’s reaction to Putin’s move is hard to predict because a rejection could torpedo the fading prospects of the US-Russian-sponsored Geneva conference for a political solution of the Syrian war - for which no date has yet been set. The Russian president appears to be aiming at having Russian troops posted on Syrian soil under the US flag when – and if - the conference ever gets off the ground. What Putin said was this: “In view of the complicated situation which is currently unfolding on the Golan Heights, we could replace the Austrian peacekeeping contingent, which is withdrawing from this region, on the disengagement line between Israeli troops and the Syrian army.” The Russian president made no mention of the presence of Syrian rebels on the Golan. Israel has four major concerns in this matter: 1. The presence of Russian troops on the Syrian side of the Golan would inhibit Israeli cross-border military action should it become necessary for its security. 2. It would upset the relations the IDF has developed with certain Syrian rebel units, manifested by their war wounded receiving treatment at the military field hospital set up especially at the Tel Hazaka post on the Golan and transferred in severe case to hospitals in Haifa and Safed. Last week, US military released data with pictures showing the movements of Israeli special forces in and out of Syria. 3. The possibility of Russian officers in blue helmets interfering with Israeli military movements on the Israeli side of the Golan as well cannot be ruled out. 4. Some of the Russian contingent may be assigned to gather intelligence on Israeli military movements in the north of the country. There is no way to stop them handing those secrets over to the Syrian and Hizballah. In the event, the UN thanked Moscow but explained that the Syrian-Israeli 1974 disengagement accord did not allow permament UN Security Council members with veto power to serve in UNDOF. - Debka Being an atheist is fine, as long as you do good, Pope Francis said Wednesday, rocking the minds of less tolerant Catholics. In his homily at the morning Mass in Rome, the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics urged the faithfuls to broaden their horizon, following a principle Jesus taught his disciples. Citing the Gospel of Mark, he described how upset the disciples were at the news that someone outside their group was doing good. “They complained: If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good,” Francis said. “This was wrong,” he added, according to a report from Vatican Radio. Labeling the disciples as “a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good,” Francis remarked the importance of the “doing good” commandment. The principle, he said, unites all humanity, beyond religions and ideologies, creating a “culture of encounter” which is at the basis of peace. - News Discovery
PARIS (Reuters) - Close to half the staff managers at companies in French urban areas have seen problems arising from religious demands by employees and expect them to increase in future, according to a new study issued on Tuesday. Listing faith-related problems, the new study said some men refused to take orders from a woman boss or shake hands with women and some refused to handle alcohol or pork products. Other problems include employees wanting to pray or wear religious garb at work. Some employees try to impose their religious standards on colleagues, such as preventing non-observant Muslims from eating at work during Ramadan. Smaller towns and rural areas had far fewer problems, the study said. Fewer than five percent ofhuman resources managers in the western region of Brittany reported any difficulties. The survey, conducted by university researchers in Rennes and the international recruitment agency Randstad, was released as French lawmakers prepare new legislation extending strict public service bans on religious garb at work to some private firms.
HEADSCARF DEBATE Sociologists say most religious demands at work come from the large Muslim minority, with some also from orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians. These groups mostly live in or around big cities rather than the traditionally Catholic rural areas. Many demands concern Muslim women's headscarves, a sensitive issue in France where full-face veils are banned in public and women public servants and girls in state schools are not allowed to cover their hair. Reuters/Yahoo News The Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: "Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense...Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis...”. The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith. (From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of “treason,” and of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.” He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution.”) Being convicted in a court martial means that a soldier has committed a crime under federal military law. Punishment for a court martial can include imprisonment and being dishonorably discharged from the military. - Breitbart
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