US Drone Kills 4 in Pakistan Bakery

The unidentified victims, supposedly dangerous terrorists, were shopping for groceries

An U.S. drone fired two missiles at a bakery in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing four alleged militants, in the third drone strike in the country in less than a week.

As is usual, no hard information was provided about the individuals killed in the strike. Despite the fact that everybody knows about the drone war in Pakistan, the program is still technically secret and so the Obama administration refuses to answer questions about it. The underlying premise here being that it’s none of the American people’s business who their own government is killing.

According to Pakistani officials, the victims were buying goods from a bakery when the bomb hit and killed them. Early justifications for the drone strikes were that insurgents in Afghanistan were hiding out in neighboring Pakistan and preparing operations to fight and kill U.S. troops across the border. But killing people in civilian areas while they are not engaged in any combatant operations is hard to justify even using the administration’s logic.

Pakistan considers drone strikes into its territory a severe breach of its sovereignty. Despite repeated demands for Washington to stop bombing their country, the Obama administration has continued the drone war unabated.

 

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.