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BAsics

"No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, whom the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born. I say no more of that."

BAsics 1:13

 

Obama and His Drones

April 27, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

A funeral for civilians killed in 2011 by a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.A funeral for civilians killed in 2011 by a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. AP photo

On April 23, U.S. President Obama stepped up to a microphone at the White House and announced that an American and an Italian, both held hostage by al-Qaeda, were killed in a U.S. drone attack on a suspected al-Qaeda site in Pakistan in January of this year. Obama expressed his regret and sorrow at the deaths of the two innocent Westerners. The very next day, he gave a speech at the CIA praising the work of the “intelligence community” that carries out the drone attacks.

A question: Is it possible that the purported “pinpoint accuracy” of U.S. drone attacks based on “reliable intelligence” is a lie? Of course it is; just look at the evidence.

For years, people in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan who gathered in groups at wedding parties, tribal meetings, or car convoys have been slaughtered by America’s remote-controlled high-tech death machines. Obama, this stone-faced murderer, has never spoken a word or shed a tear for the THOUSANDS of innocent people who have died because of HIS ordering of these drone attacks.

Drone warfare has become a central tool in the U.S.’s so-called “war on terror.” Its continuing use shows again that the whole effort is a criminal and murderous war in which civilian deaths are a calculated attempt to bludgeon whole peoples into submission to the U.S. empire. This, not “faulty intelligence,” is the real problem.

American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People’s Lives.
—Bob Avakian, BAsics 5:7

Chart showing CIA drone strikes in Pakistan

The chart at right shows the number of deaths by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan alone, with a comparison of the numbers under the Bush and Obama regimes.

For important exposure about U.S. drone warfare in the Middle East and South Asia, see the book and the film of the same name, Dirty Wars, by journalist Jeremy Scahill.

For country-by-country data on deaths by U.S. drone attacks, see the Bureau of Investigative Journalism website.

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