David Hambling at Wired’s Danger Room blog ventures a guess as to why so many people died in the newest drone-strike embarrasment. According to eye-witnesses, the drones dropped bombs instead of firing missiles, fueling Hambling’s hunch: …the Predator has now been joined by the much larger MQ-9 Reaper, which can carry a heavier payload, around [...]
Posts Tagged ‘drones’
Mechanics of a Slaughter
Posted: June 24, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties, drones, Pakistan
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Drone Attack Kills more than 60 in Pakistan
Posted: June 24, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties, drones, Paksitan
U.S. drone attacks in support of a pending Pakistani offensive against Taliban leader Baitullah Meshud has likely caused another major civilian casualty event–by using tactics similar to those used by suicide bombers. Democracy Now! reports: At least 60 people have reportedly died in the South Waziristan region of western Pakistan after a US drone attack [...]
On Becoming What You Hate
Posted: June 23, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties, drones, Pakistan
Reports are surfacing that U.S. drone operators are firing initial missiles at targets, and then firing secondary missiles at crowds that gather. This is a tactic we’re used to seeing…from suicide bombers. On Thursday, US drones launched an attack on a compound in South Waziristan, and when locals rushed to the scene to rescue survivors, they [...]
Contesting Jihad within Radical Islam, Part 1
Posted: June 10, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Afghanistan, airstrikes, CIST, civilian casualties, Countering Ideological Support to Terrorism, drones, Islam, Khudai Khidmatgars, McKiernan, Michael Doran, Obama, strategic communications
President Obama’s speech in Cairo last week shows that he’s taking the advice of folks urging the U.S. to drop the us-versus-them “War on Terror” rhetorical frame in favor of one that reinforces the idea of a conflict within Islam about the use of violence in political conflict. For quite some time, proponents of “strategic [...]
