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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Drone attacks being covered up


The Air Force Times reports that the Air Force began publishing monthly data on airstrikes launched from remotely piloted aircraft in Afghanistan in October and made the statistics available in November, December and January. The statistics report for February contained an "empty space" where the data on drone strikes had previously been and reports from previous months had been scrubbed of drone strike data. Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Air Forces Central Command did not respond to a request for comment. Over the last decade of war, remotely piloted drone Predators and Reapers have become a critical weapon to gather intelligence and conduct airstrikes against terrorists or insurgents around the world. They have been used extensively on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and northern Africa. The White House on Thursday said President Obama does not have the authority to use a drone to kill a U.S. citizen on American soil if the citizen is not engaged in combat. Attorney General Eric Holder made the assertion in a letter to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who held up the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director amid claims that the administration could use drones to target Americans suspected of terrorism. I think we as Americans should know exactly what's going on in our country if our leaders are going to enforce drone attacks on u.s. citizens or other country's than its our right to know.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Lindsay:
It appears to me that the proliferation of drones in this country, and in overseas operations is growing exponentially. It seems like just a couple of years ago, they were being used to gather intelligence in the middle eastern conflict area, and now they are being used by the US military to wipe out any perceived enemy of the country overseas,(a good thing), to spy on everyone else overseas, (a good thing), and now to patrol the skies over the United States, (I don't know about this being good or bad yet.)
Survielence is one thing, but to use them to hunt down and eliminate American Citizens just seems outside the law. We just gave Osama Bin Laden's son-in-law miranda rights and a shot at a civil trial. but we are going to drone Americans??

Unknown said...

Hi :)

I completely agree I think that it is unconstitutional to carry out a drone attack on a "possible threat". That is not how our judicial system works. I am curious how you feel about drones being used on American soil for surveillance not equipped with military capabilities?

Unknown said...

I cant believe we are actually doing attacks based on the fact tht we are not positive they are actual threats. The government is doing a terrible thing and should be stopped in my opinion. Droans have been around for many years now and have always bought trouble.