{"id":176427072,"date":"2013-10-26T23:27:49","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T04:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176427072"},"modified":"2013-10-26T23:27:49","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T04:27:49","slug":"video-wounds-of-waziristan-the-story-of-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2013\/10\/26\/video-wounds-of-waziristan-the-story-of-drones\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Wounds of Waziristan &#8211; The Story of Drones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/drones.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-176427073\" alt=\"drones\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/drones.png\" width=\"640\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/drones.png 640w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/drones-300x164.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<header>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8216;Wounds of Waziristan&#8217;: <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Story of Drones <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">As Told By the People <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Who Live Under Them<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<div id=\"yw0\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">By\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/author\/AlexPasternack\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Alex Pasternack<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div>\n<p><b><iframe src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/71499528\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/b><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/blog\/wounds-of-waziristan-the-story-of-drones-by-the-people-who-live-under-them-video\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000; font-size: large;\"><strong>GO HERE TO VIEW FULL DOCUMENTARY<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><em>A MOTHERBOARD PREMIERE:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/blog\/wounds-of-waziristan-the-story-of-drones-by-the-people-who-live-under-them-video\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A NEW DOCUMENTARY BY MADIHA TAHIR<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">The drone war\u00a0is obscure by design. Operated by armchair pilots from clandestine bases across the American west, the Predators and Reapers fly\u00a0over Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan&#8217;s Tribal Areas at invisible heights,\u00a0where they are on orders from the CIA to kill &#8220;high value&#8221;\u00a0targets with laser-guided &#8220;surgical&#8221; precision thousands of feet below. But because of where the Hellfire missiles land, and because the program is operated in secret,\u00a0verifying their precision and their lasting effects\u00a0isn&#8217;t easy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">For years, US officials have downplayed the number of civilian deaths in particular, even as\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebureauinvestigates.com\/category\/projects\/drones\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">a chorus<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.livingunderdrones.org\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">independent reports<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have offered their own grim estimates. The latest, according to\u00a0new research by the United Nations and Amnesty International:\u00a058 civilians killed\u00a0in Yemen, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/blog\/us-drones-have-killed-up-to-900-civilians-in-pakistan\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">up to nine hundred in Pakistan<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0In a speech in May,\u00a0President Obama finally broke his silence on drones,\u00a0acknowledging\u00a0that civilians had been\u00a0killed\u2014he didn&#8217;t say how many\u2014and promising\u00a0more transparency for the program.\u00a0\u201cThose deaths,&#8221; added the President,\u00a0&#8220;will haunt us for as long as we live.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">For journalist\u00a0Madiha Tahir, the numbers are important, but they&#8217;re not the whole story. Her documentary &#8220;Wounds of Waziristan,&#8221; which premieres above, features interviews\u00a0with the people who live in the southern part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, bordering Afghanistan, under the eyes of the drones, and in the wake of their destruction. The film\u00a0switches\u00a0up the typical calculus that drives\u00a0the drone debate at home. Tahir, who grew up between Pakistan and the U.S.,\u00a0points out that drone strikes\u00a0aren&#8217;t just about the numbers of casualties, or\u00a0the kinds of ethical arguments that arise around &#8220;just war&#8221;\u00a0concepts like\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/%20joshuafoust.com\/proportionality-and-discrimination-how-the-drone-debate-misses-the-point\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">proportionality<\/span><\/a>. The effects of the drone war have as much to do with\u00a0the way those casualties rip apart communities and haunt the living, in distant places that\u00a0\u200bexist on the fringes of law and order.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">&#8220;Because drones are at a certain remove, there is a sense of uncertainty, a sense that you can&#8217;t control this,&#8221; Tahir says, describing the attitude among the people who live\u00a0in Waziristan.\u00a0Already haunted by\u00a0the legacy of British colonialism and the laws it left behind, this part\u00a0of the Tribal Areas is\u00a0now ruled with a brutal fist by the\u00a0Pakistani military and various insurgent groups. But\u00a0the buzz of the drones, sometimes seven or eight overhead a day, signals another kind of\u00a0indeterminate power. &#8220;Whether\u00a0its true or not, people feel that with militants there is some degree of control. You can negotiate. There is some cause and effect. But there is no cause and effect with drones. It&#8217;s an acute kind of trauma that is not limited to the actual attack.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/lh5.ggpht.com\/R2q1eiC0CMrOWBGhzinmWgA9WbjdLvprQlkSKORBDdEhic3tc8CRyXAfW8h5I4GCqhiqu19SC6m__pFduocFtzy9fCVetF9OV_I\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">For the operators of the drone program, who have launched more than 300 missile attacks in Pakistan since 2008, the political vacuum of the\u00a0Tribal Areas have encouraged a special kind of\u00a0war-on-terror calculus.\u00a0As the\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/05\/29\/world\/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">reported last year<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0the American government has been counting all military-age males in a strike zone as \u201cmilitants,\u201d which leads\u00a0to skewed figures about who exactly has been killed. The Obama administration\u00a0has executed\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcclatchydc.com\/2013\/04\/09\/188062\/obamas-drone-war-kills-others.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8220;signature strikes,&#8221;<\/span><\/a>\u00a0drone attacks based on\u00a0a so-called\u00a0\u201cpattern of life\u201d analysis in which simply suspicious behavior is enough to qualify for an\u00a0attack. And in a so-called\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-us-canada-24557333\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8220;double tap&#8221; maneuver,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0a second attack follows an initial strike, killing those who have come to recover bodies from the scene.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">&#8220;When an attack happens, the media claims to know how many militants were killed,&#8221; says Noor Behram, a journalist in the Tribal Areas who has been photographing the casualties of drone strikes for years. &#8220;Actually, you only find body parts on the scene, so\u00a0people can&#8217;t tell how many have died.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">In one interview, Tahir\u00a0speaks with a man from South Waziristan named Karim Khan, whose brother\u00a0and son were killed in a drone strike.\u00a0&#8220;What is the definition of terrorism?&#8221; he asks her, and she returns the question to him. His tired eyes light up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">&#8220;I think there is no bigger terrorist than Obama or Bush,&#8221; he says.\u00a0&#8220;Those who have weaponry\u00a0like drones,\u00a0who drop bombs on us while we are in our own homes, there are no greater terrorists than them.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Despite the secrecy, independent reports by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/node\/119925\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Human Rights Watch<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amnestyusa.org\/research\/reports\/will-i-be-next-us-drone-strikes-in-pakistan\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Amnesty International<\/span><\/a>, combined with a set of leaked cables detailing dealings between Islamabad and Washington and<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/national-security\/top-pakistani-leaders-secretly-backed-cia-drone-campaign-secret-documents-show\/2013\/10\/23\/15e6b0d8-3beb-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">published in the\u00a0<em>Washington Post<\/em><\/span><\/a>, have shed new light on the still-secret program. On October\u00a029, a family injured in a strike that Amnesty International mentions\u00a0in its report is scheduled to testify before Congress (though their\u00a0lawyer, Shahzad Akbar, who also appears in the film,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/sep\/24\/us-accused-drone-hearing-lawyer-visa-pakistan\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">has been denied a visa<\/span><\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">In a separate report last week to the\u00a0UN, which is due to be discussed before the General Assembly in New York on Friday,\u00a0the special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism\u00a0Ben Emmerson called for the US to declassify the program, which he said\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/EN\/NewsEvents\/Pages\/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13905&amp;LangID=E\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">may\u00a0be in violation of international laws<\/span><\/a>\u2014a claim that many officials and rights groups have echoed. The US, which has\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/10\/25\/world\/asia\/drone-issue-hovers-more-than-ever-even-as-strikes-ebb.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">slowed the rate of drone strikes<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to their lowest level in five years,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/oct\/25\/un-drones-us-policy-debate\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">insists they are<\/span><\/a>&#8220;necessary, legal, and just.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">&#8220;By hiding behind arguments of secrecy and exploiting the difficulty in confirming details of specific strikes due to the lawlessness, remoteness and insecurity of Pakistan\u2019s Tribal Areas,&#8221; Emmerson writes, &#8220;the USA is contributing to the litany of violations and abuses endured by a population that has been both neglected and assaulted by their own state and victimized by al-Qa\u2019ida, the Taliban and other armed groups.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Reports like the UN&#8217;s can help\u00a0make\u00a0the effects of drone strikes more tangible, Tahir says.\u00a0But\u00a0deeper, persistent\u00a0wounds linger, ones that are harder to calculate.\u00a0&#8220;There need to be ways we can talk about drones beyond the legal discourse,&#8221; she says.\u00a0&#8220;What are the ways we can think about what it means to experience life under drones, and about exactly what it means to be, as the President said,\u00a0&#8216;haunted&#8217; by the loss of life.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&gt;via:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/blog\/wounds-of-waziristan-the-story-of-drones-by-the-people-who-live-under-them-video\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/blog\/wounds-of-waziristan-the-story-of-drones-by-the-people-who-live-under-them-video<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Wounds of Waziristan&#8217;: The Story of Drones As Told By the People Who Live Under Them By\u00a0Alex Pasternack &nbsp; GO HERE TO VIEW FULL DOCUMENTARY A MOTHERBOARD PREMIERE:\u00a0A NEW DOCUMENTARY BY MADIHA TAHIR The drone war\u00a0is obscure by design. Operated by armchair pilots from clandestine bases across the American west, the Predators and Reapers fly\u00a0over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[6],"tags":[4,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176427072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176427072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176427072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176427077,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176427072\/revisions\/176427077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176427072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176427072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176427072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}