In a demonstration that they are closing in on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, the US military is claiming success with a drone attack on his father-in-law’s Waziristan home, where a missile killed Mehsud’s second wife, three unidentified civilians, and wounded four children.
The US has posted a $5 million bounty on the head of Mehsud, based on charges he bore responsibility in Benazir Bhutto’s 2007 assassination, and for other suicide bombings. All charges he denies, but the Taliban leader won’t face his accusers long enough for unmanned drones to launch a missile his way.
Zanghra village had been targeted by US drones before, but no bounty had yet been announced for Mehsud’s extended family members. That proved to be no indication that US drone pilots in Nevada would not be carving notches for them.
While American warriors, by doing their missile targeting from the continental US, have made legitimate military targets of Air Force bases in Nevada, California and Colorado. Now they expand the battlefield to include combatant wives, relatives and progeny. As it should be.
(Imagine the relatives and cronies of our economic-war combatants, of our war criminal leaders, and our war industry profiteers; their folks at home contemplating their own culpability and vulnerability to suffer for the crimes by which their benefactors were able to enrich them. You don’t have to be remote piloting the Predators or Reapers, nor raining the Hellfire missiles upon America’s civilian adversaries to merit responsibility — it’s enough to be hollering along to “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.”)
And, as in the case of Baitullah Mehsud, the extra-judicial assassinations are acceptable for even non-combatants, suspected-of-crimes-only, and their family and extended family.
I can’t even begin to imagine the US political ‘leader’ and press hysteria that would ensue if the ‘terrorists’ were to take out Michele Obama and her kids as they fought for ‘Homeland Security’ for the Swat Valley of Pakistan? Apparently terrorism when the US government practices it is OK by the American people?
Yes, and imagine such collateral damage not as a result of invading armies, or indiscriminate bombing, but by the hands of undercover special operatives, local informers and braggarts directing the death blow from a cockpit cave on the other side of the globe.
Hmmm all this negative talk about controlling our drones from the states yet i bet none of you have been to war or witnessed anything close to it. We are not fighting wars like we did in WW2 and Vietnam so you can’t compare them to our current wars. We are fighting an assymetric fight and in case you forgot the United States was attcked on its soil. Also stop saying that we’ve made our airforce bases back in the states legitimate targets. To a terrorist or extremists any target is a legitimate target. Please educate youself before you degrade and cut down our military which oh by the way without them you probably wouldnt be able to have this website saying whatever you feel like saying. As far as this story goes obviously Medsud was the target he just wasn’t home. Don’t try to make it sound like we were aiming for his family. That’s just ignorant.
You’re right, we can’t compare them. Our “current wars” mean oppressing third world peoples murderously, now with the aid of drones, with complete detachment. Terrorism has no “legitimacy,” neither do our “wars.” Educate yourself on the law soldier. If you think you have the right to bomb innocent people, they have the right to defend themselves. And their only self-defense now is to attack our Air Force Bases. Way to bring the war home.
It sounds like Dorian has an ‘assymetric’ head. Yet another American just like that…
If you’re aiming at somebody’s house, you ARE aiming for his family.
Dorian, it only SEEMS sterile from the point of view of the oversized little boy with the video screen and the joystick.
“Target Destroyed” means “Human Lives Ended”.
It’s just an extension of “Only following orders”. Blind obedience is a classic pathway to pushing yourself into the abyss.
There are a limited few who are born sociopath- with no conscience
So few that I’ve never met one.
Far more likely one who has had his conscience trained into silence.
And they’re more numerous, paid to kill and their weapons bought for them at somebody else’s expense.
Like a video game that kills people on the other side of the globe.
And with a ready audience of applauders and apologists waiting to reinforce their training by scoffing at any opposition to such organized Evil.