‘Too Scared to Go Outside’
One year ago, a 67-year-old Pakistani woman was killed allegedly in a U.S. drone attack while picking vegetables with her grandchildren. President Obama has never acknowledged her death or that of any other alleged drone victim in Pakistan. This week, her son and two of her grandchildren traveled to Washington, D.C., to testify before members of Congress.
One year ago, a 67-year-old Pakistani woman was killed allegedly in a U.S. drone attack while picking vegetables with her grandchildren. President Obama has never acknowledged her death or that of any other alleged drone victim in Pakistan. This week, her son and two of her grandchildren traveled to Washington, D.C., to testify before members of Congress.
“Democracy Now!” spoke Thursday to Rafiq Rehman and his two children, 9-year-old Nabila and 13-year-old Zubair, both of whom were injured in the strike. “I don’t understand why this happened to me. I have done nothing wrong,” Zubair said. “What I would like to say to the American people is to please tell your government to end these drones because it is disrupting our lives.”
Meanwhile, a U.S. drone strike killed three people in northwest Pakistan earlier Thursday. It was the first such attack since Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly called for President Obama to end the assaults. Last week, Amnesty International said the U.S. government may be committing war crimes by killing innocent Pakistani civilians with drones. On Thursday, “Democracy Now!” aired extended clips from “Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars,” a new documentary by filmmaker Robert Greenwald. The film looks at the impact of U.S. drone strikes through more than 70 interviews with Pakistani survivors, a former U.S. drone operator, military officials and more. The film opens with the story of 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed by a drone just days after attending an anti-drone conference in Islamabad. “Democracy Now!” spoke with Greenwald and Jennifer Gibson, a human rights lawyer with the legal charity Reprieve and co-author of the report “Living Under Drones.”
— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
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