Monday, July 18, 2011

US drone strikes in Waziristan doing more harm than good. File under "Only an Idiot Could Fail to See"

From Foreign Policy magazine's AFPAK Channel daily roundup:
The Guardian has a must-read story [July 17, 2011] about Noor Behram, a resident of Pakistan's tribal regions who has made an effort to document the aftermath suspected U.S. drone strikesin the area (Guardian). Behram claims that civilian casualties from the strikes are far higher than reported, and that, "The youth in the area surrounding a strike gets crazed. Hatred builds up inside those who have seen a drone attack. The Americans think it is working, but the damage they're doing is far greater." And Pakistani lawyers and a British human rights advocate plan to seek an international arrest warrant against former CIA general counsel John Rizzo for approving drone attacks (Express Tribune)