February 14, 2013

Kick my thread that's almost a week old.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018297995

February 8, 2013

Drone Debate Over Casualties Overlooks Cost to Those Who Survive

Source: PRI's The World

John Brennan, the chief architect of the US drone program, faces a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday for his nomination as the CIA’s new director. The Congressional hearing will be one of the few times Americans will hear a high level official publicly acknowledge and address the military and CIA’s joint drone program. It operates in countries like Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen where the US is not at officially at war, but has conducted hundreds of attacks using drones in covert operations.

Down a dimly lit corridor, in the only burn-unit hospital in Yemen lie the severely burned bodies of Sultan Ahmed Mohammed and Nacer Mabkhout al-Sabooly. They’re conscious, but barely able to speak out loud. Sultan, tells me his name and mutters just one sentence before closing his eyes.

“The plane struck me,” he said.

I met the two last September. They were victims of an attack that officially never happened. At the hospital, Abdelrahman Barman, an attorney who runs the Yemeni human-rights organization Hood, that advocates for the rights of drone victims, explained to me how this mini-bus driver and his cousin from a rural town in Central Yemen ended up barely conscious in a hospital in Sanaa....






Read more: http://www.theworld.org/2013/02/drone-debate-over-casualties-overlooks-cost-to-those-who-survive/

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I heard this on the radio on the way home tonight. I wonder if the U.S. behind drone strikes everywhere.

February 8, 2013

Drone Program Under Scrutiny As CIA Nominee Testifies

Source: National Public Radio


...The Obama administration has made its drone program the signature feature of its counterterrorism efforts. But it's not a subject it likes to talk about.

However, the controversial drone program and one of its chief architects came under the spotlight Thursday as John Brennan went before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing as director of the CIA.

During the Bush administration, fewer than 50 drone strikes were carried out. There have been more than 360 under Obama, according to the website The Long War Journal.

Brennan, who has been President Obama's adviser on counterterrorism, is expected to win Senate approval. But his role in the lethal drone program has drawn public criticism. As Brennan was reading his opening statement, he was interrupted repeatedly by protesters who shouted their opposition to U.S. drone strikes....



Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/07/171397729/drone-program-under-scrutiny-as-cia-nominee-testifies