In a time where we sit in our lounge rooms and watch as the war unfolds on our television set, or YouTube on the Internet, we also share in the witnessing of civilian death, though we may not recognize it. Obama addressed in his farewell State of Union speech that 10,000 airstrikes equated to taking out “leadership, oil, training camps and weapons,” but of those numbers he didn’t mention the bombings of hospitals in Kunduz Afghanistan or the Yemeni wedding attacked by U.S. drone strikes.
Most won’t question that the bombing campaigns led by the U.S. tend to achieve their missions – or so they say – but the multiple injuries upon citizens beneath these airstrikes tends to be dismissed as ‘collateral damage.’ As a noun, the term is considered rare even by dictionary standards, unless you work in the military.
No one doubts the atrocities carried out. Some say it’s by the military-industrial complex, some others argue its very existence. Regardless of semantics, multiple civilians are killed and injured with these attacks. Most civilian statistics are ignored, disregarded and hidden from U.S. civilian sight…until recently.
This past week the U.S. Central Command has admitted to their less than successful drone strikes, admitting civilians have been killed and injured in an attempt to hunt down British born hacker Junaid Hussain in August 2015. Hussain, 21, joined the ‘cyber caliphate’ headed by ISIS. Prior to his leap into terrorism, Hussain had been jailed for six months in 2012 after publishing Tony Blair’s details from an address book allegedly owned by the former PM.
Because of Hussain’s role, he became a target for the U.S drone strikes. However, during the course of strikes, it has been reported that initial attacks missed their target and cost civilians their lives. At this stage, the number of deaths is still unknown.
Drone strikes have essentially become the breeding ground for future terrorists. The ideal recruitment ground is fresh for picking when someone’s father, uncle or son has been brutally murdered – especially if they were innocent. It’s only natural a family call for revenge; terrorist groups have picked up on this.
It isn’t as though we have been without warning either. Brandon Bryant and his associates who served as drone operators in the U.S. Air Force recently blew the whistle on their government for the environment the drones are creating. In a joint letter they said “innocent civilians we were killing only fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like ISIS, while also serving as a fundamental recruiting tool…This administration and its predecessors have built a drone program that is one of the most devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world.”
The horror they have witnessed, and the attempts by the government to silence them by freezing bank accounts and threatening their families, only adds credence. At the end of the day, for as long as we kill the innocent, the innocent will soon rise up and become our enemy. It is time to break this vicious cycle.
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