Death from above

There was an op-ed in the NYT from a man who went to Pakistan to meet with some of the tribal elders in NW Pakistan.  While there, he talked to a 16 year old boy who volunteered to collect evidence on the US drone strikes in Pakistan.  This is a dangerous business, because collecting evidence can convince some locals that you are working for the CIA or otherwise spying for the US.   The man who wrote this piece is Clive Smith, the director of Reprieve, an organization that advocates for prisoners' rights.  Here is part of what he wrote in the NYT piece:

At the end of the day, Tariq stepped forward. He volunteered to gather proof if it would help to protect his family from future harm. We told him to think about it some more before moving forward; if he carried a camera he might attract the hostility of the extremists. 

But the militants never had the chance to harm him. On Monday, he was killed by a C.I.A. drone strike, along with his 12-year-old cousin, Waheed Khan. The two of them had been dispatched, with Tariq driving, to pick up their aunt and bring her home to the village of Norak, when their short lives were ended by a Hellfire missile.

My mistake had been to see the drone war in Waziristan in terms of abstract legal theory — as a blatantly illegal invasion of Pakistan’s sovereignty, akin to President Richard M. Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia in 1970. 

But now, the issue has suddenly become very real and personal. Tariq was a good kid, and courageous. My warm hand recently touched his in friendship; yet, within three days, his would be cold in death, the rigor mortis inflicted by my government. 

And Tariq’s extended family, so recently hoping to be our allies for peace, has now been ripped apart by an American missile — most likely making any effort we make at reconciliation futile.

What the USA is doing in Pakistan and elsewhere with the drone strikes is hideously evil.  It mus stop!