Islamabad issued another condemnation on Monday of Washington’s drone war in northwest Pakistan, branding it “unlawful, counterproductive and unacceptable,” after President Obama for the first time publicly acknowledged the classified program.
Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said: “Our position on drone strikes is clear and based on principle. We cannot condone the violation of our sovereignty.”
Obama acknowledged the extrajudicial execution campaign in an interview that streamed live on YouTube. “I want to make sure people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” he said. “For the most part, they’ve been very precise, precision strikes against against al-Qaeda and their affiliates.”
But investigative reports tell a very different story, namely that a large portion of the thousands of people killed in drone strikes since 2004 have been civilians. Furthermore, those militants that have been killed are mostly low-level insurgent operatives that are only known as such because the government said so.
Pakistani officials have been known to assist the CIA in carrying out drone strikes in the past, so Islamabad’s condemnation cannot be considered totally genuine. But the Pakistani people have been outraged by such constant attacks and have protested in the hundreds of thousands.
This man is despicable
its amazing and satisfying that people in the west are standing up against this mayhem, resulting from gross injustices by their governments. Keep the flame up!
People in the West can "stand up against this mayhem" all they want but here in the United States both parties know that 90+ percent of those who bother to vote are going to vote for one of the two parties no matter what they do, and in this case, both parties have the exact same foreign policy. Even if individuals are voted out of office they are replaced by carbon copy drones who have been vetted to ensure nothing will change. I have no doubt that it is the same in other Western nations. Therefore, political parties have no need to pay any attention to those that "stand up against this mayhem." Nothing will change in the United States until people realize that the two parties are one corrupt political machine with its own agenda.
Drone strikes = State terror.
That's just lip service of that "Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit".
I guess when he says such things in the morning he doesn't know of that anymore in the evening when he is cashing in his USD.
W9
Of course drone strikes are against the law, just as is murder, and those strikes fall into the category of mass murder.
None of this matters to such a belligerent government, as is now the USI.
Right now the drones in the air belong to the USI, but someday soon that will all change and we will witness an indignant crybaby nation complain about drone attacks against them. What goes around comes around – even drones.
Pakistan should target all drones that breach their airspace and shoot them down. Amerika is the biggest instigator of terror, and mass murder on the planet period
Forgive a stupid question but specifically, what law are drone strikes in violation of?
Basically invading a sovereign nation's airspace and territory and killing its citizens, same as if it were an aircraft piloted by a human being.