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"A group of Pakistanis met in Islamabad late last month to discuss the impact of U.S. drone strikes in their communities. One of the attendees was a 16-year-old boy named Tariq Aziz who had volunteered to learn photography to begin documenting drone strikes near his home. Within 72 hours of the meeting Aziz was killed in a U.S. drone strike. His 12-year-old cousin was also killed in the Oct. 31 attack."
—U.S. drones have killed 175 children. (via)
#LEVITATETHEPENTAGON
I that to the extent we identify these horrible events as being uniquely associated with "drones", we're making a mistake. Plenty of men, women, and children have been killed by bombs, artillery rounds, and plain old rifles, as well. I think that the proper response to this is not to be outraged about the use of drones, it's to be outraged that we continue to have counterproductive, semi-covert wars going on all of the world.
@SeanP I'm not sure I agree. I think there's a lack of accountability with drones – both psychologically and procedurally. What do you do if a drone kills someone? Who gets punished or held responsible? It's a layer of anonymity between the death and the person who pulls the trigger.
@SeanP Can one be outraged about both the drones and the permawars? Or is outrage a serial one-at-a-time kind of thing. (Asking for a friend.)
@SeanP Modern weapons systems are reputed to be more discriminate in their application of firedeathblowupping. Whether or not this is true or is just marketing is difficult to determine, since the Pentagon will probably never let any kind of audit happen.
@SeanP Remember when we used to talk about landmines all the time? Now no one talks about landmines.
@Choire Sicha – Well, the US never really had a problem with landmines. It's generally the third world civil wars where they spread them with impunity.
@Ham_Snadwich Korea, Vietnam, France. We have buried them all around the world.
This is the future of killing.