America’s drones strikes are a violation of human rights because innocent men, women, and children are being killed, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Wednesday.
Gilani made the comment to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanthem Pillay and it was followed up by a vow from U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta that the drone strikes would continue, despite pleas from Islamabad.
Pakistan has repeatedly called for “an immediate cessation of drone attacks inside the territorial borders of Pakistan,” among other breaches of sovereignty by the U.S., but the Obama administration has continued these practices unabated.
“This is about our sovereignty as well,” Panetta vaguely said when asked about violating Pakistan’s sovereignty. Panetta made his comments after a speech at an Indian think tank, which is very provocative to Islamabad given their long conflict with India, widely considered their greatest security threat.
The drone war is under heightened scrutiny after reports that the Obama administration is using an overly broad method for choosing targets and counting corpses which basically presupposes that all military-age males killed by U.S. drones are combatants, whether they are known to be militants or not.
Former general counsel at the CIA John A. Rizzo, now under investigation in Obama’s war on whistleblowers, has referred to these killings as “murder.”
Robert Grenier, former head of the CIA’s counter-terrorism unit, said this week that the expansive drone war in Pakistan in Yemen has killed too many civilians, is provoking anti-American hatreds, and creating terrorist safe havens. “We have gone a long way down the road of creating a situation where we are creating more enemies than we are removing from the battlefield,” he said.
Grenier added: “If you strike them indiscriminately you are running the risk of creating a terrific amount of popular anger. They have tribes and clans and large families. Now all of a sudden you have a big problem … I am very concerned about the creation of a larger terrorist safe haven in Yemen.”
Drones would be easy targets for the Pakistan air force. I wonder if events are headed there?
"Pakistan PM: Drones Violate Human Rights."
Well, forget about rights. Before violating their rights, it violates their lives.
Pakistan must begin a policy of shooting all drones out of the sky that are in Pakistani territory. They are more than equipped to defend themselves against the US terror machine. They must also ask China, and Russia to be accepted as a full SCO member…now!
Hey, who made the above comment in my name?
Drone strikes against anybody, regardless of who they are, are in violation of human rights, unless we are at war with that nation. We have adapted the path of our worst enemies, the Soviet Union and Nazis, indeed with the Devil himself.
This is a blatant lie, of course. No women and children are -ever- killed by drones. And all males killed are militants because they're all "of age" and of course they're up to no good because otherwise why would they be in the kill zone? I know that's true because Obama said so.
It's simple, really. I can't understand why you all get yr panties in a bunch over some foreign Muslims half a world away. And we don't need to worry because This Is America. They would never, ever use flying killer robots here. Ever. Seriously. No, I mean it. They wouldn't…. ever?
PM Gilani always "says" but never does anything about it. He and his administration continue to allow a foreign superpower to wontonly violate their airspace and kill their people.
This is a blatant lie. Drones only kill terrorists. Obama said so, and he's a LIberal so he can't lie to us.
He could never be as bad a Bush, he's a Democrat!
Yes. So? In the US we no need no stinkin' human rights.