Obama's Drone War a PR Disaster for America

WorldMeets

Villagers offer prayers for people reportedly killed by a U.S. drone attack

along the Afghanistan border in Miranshah, the capital of Pakistan's tribal

region of North Waziristan, June 2011. Is it fair to say that the American

people only consider American lives precious?

Obama's Drone War a PR Disaster for America (The Frontier Post, Pakistan)

"Unless American life and limb is at stake, the American people couldn't give two hoots if U.S. militarists mow down people abroad as if they were flies - even innocent ones. Only American lives are precious to them. As renowned international human rights watchdogs, non-profit groups and even U.N. rights workers cry themselves hoarse about the heavy civilian toll these drones exact, the American people and warlords are in total denial. Their drone technology is precise and accurate, they insist."

The word is out. U.S. President Barack Obama's drone war is mired in disrepute and

abhorred, causing his public approval ratings to plummet sharply around the world. Since assuming office, he has not only boosted the number of drone attacks, but he has personally approved of their targets. Not only that, he has given U.S. drone attack policy a new twist. The targets are now “suspect compounds” rather than in the past when “suspect al-Qaeda operatives” were the focus.

Out of the 20 countries surveyed by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center, more than half of respondents in 17 of these countries disapprove of the Obama drone attacks on extremist leaders and groups in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia [graphic, above]. The strongest opposition was in the Muslim countries of Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, while survey results for Pakistan are to be released next week. In Egypt, 89 percent, in Jordan 85 percent, and in Turkey 81 percent, oppose the drone attacks.

But significantly, opposition in European countries is overwhelming. The greatest opposition is registered in Greece, where 90 percent want to see an immediate cessation of these attacks. Drone strikes also drew strong opposition in Spain, Brazil, Russia and Britain. The only country in which Obama's drone war elicited high levels of approval was none other than the United States itself. And that is understandable.

Unless American life and limb is at stake, the American people couldn't give two hoots if U.S. militarists mow down people abroad as if they were flies - even innocent ones. Only American lives are precious to them. The lives of others have almost no value. As renowned international human rights watchdogs, non-profit groups and even U.N. rights workers cry themselves hoarse about the heavy civilian toll these drones exact, the American people and warlords are in total denial. Their drone technology is precise and accurate, they insist unconvincingly.

But who can tell? The Hellfire missiles that their pilotless murder machines use reduce those they strike to mangled flesh and unrecognizable ash. Where they and the spy agencies they collude with find eyewitnesses to confirm that only extremists and militants are hit nobody knows. Nevertheless, more often than not, surviving family members tell of the compounds that are struck and the largely-innocent neighbors they woefully mourn who are slaughtered in the attacks.

Of course, America’s warlords and their colluding foreign operatives derisively dismiss such wailing. They chant nonchalantly that the mourners are making all of this up. But human rights workers who have gone out into the field and collected information, including from independent eyewitnesses and surviving family members, have concluded that U.S. drone attacks inflict horrific damage - or what the U.S. warlords deceptively call, “collateral damage.”

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