The Institute for Public Accuracy provides an excellent update on the “Escalating Drone Strikes in Pakistan,” noting that the United States launched new drone strikes on Pakistan over the weekend, causing at least a dozen deaths in the tribal area of South Waziristan.
Junaid Ahmad, a law professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan, explains:
Media reports about the attacks portrayed all of the victims as ‘suspected militants.’ This is in line with the publication last week of a detailed article in the New York Times describing how President Barack Obama determines victims for targeted assassinations and personally authorizes a number of the so-called ‘signature strikes’ — those targeted not at clearly identified ‘suspects,’ but rather at gatherings deemed to be involved in ‘suspicious behavior.’
Countering the standard line repeated endlessly in the United States, Ahmad concludes:
The recent drone assaults are the most blatant expressions of American anger at Pakistan’s unwillingness to completely subordinate itself to U.S. diktat. The period after the Chicago summit has also witnessed repeated threats in Congress to halt all aid to Pakistan as well as a propaganda frenzy over a Pakistani court’s sentencing of a CIA informant who facilitated the Navy Seal raid that assassinated Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
It should be obvious to the world by now that these ongoing drone attacks are viewed with disgust in Pakistan, and are blamed for killing thousands, mostly civilians.
Ahmad earned his law degree in the United States, where he was an effective organizer on a variety of progressive issues. He continues that work in Pakistan.