Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com – 2012-04-30 15:12:42
White House Defends Drones Despite Civilian Deaths
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(April 29, 2012) — It’s no real secret that the Obama Administration’s ever escalating drone war has killed a massive lot of innocent people, but White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan was surprisingly glib today when pressed on the matter in an interview with ABC’s “This Week.”
“Unfortunately, in war, there are casualties, including among the civilian population,” Brennan insisted, though he did not mention that the drone strikes have been carried out almost exclusively in nations with which the United States is not at war: Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Brennan went on to defend the killings, saying: “Sometimes you have to take life to save lives.” He provided no examples of how the killing of nearly 2,000 people, virtually all of them unidentified, had “saved lives.”
Indeed the only thing that the drone strikes have conclusively done is ruin the US relationship with Pakistan, whose parliament has conditioned a return to normal relations on the US ending such attack
Pakistan ‘Normalization’ Talks in Doubt as US Resumes Drone Strikes
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(April 29, 2012) — Ongoing US negotiations with Pakistan aimed at “normalization” of relations are in serious doubt tonight after the Obama Administration ordered a resumption of drone strikes, killing four “suspects” in an attack on an abandoned high school in North Waziristan.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry was quick in issuing a condemnation of the strike, the first since Pakistan’s parliament issued a statement making resumption of normal relations with the US conditional on halting such attacks.
Ties between the US and Pakistan have been tense for years, but there was a major degradation in late November, when US warplanes attacked Pakistani military outposts on the Afghanistan border, killing 24 soldiers. The Obama Administration is still debating whether or not to officially “apologize” for the attack, but has expressed regret.
Since then Pakistan has closed the border to NATO occupation forces in Afghanistan, cutting a key supply line. Parliament has insisted that reopening the border must be predicated on ending the drone strikes, but the US seems content to continue to insist that it expects the border to reopen “soon” while launching more provocative strikes.
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