Drones - Who are allowed to use them?

[basilio]

We all know that the US government use military drones to regularly hunt and kill people they decide represent a threat to the US government. They effectively act as judge, jury and executioner. Hundreds/thousands of people have been targeted and killed

So far it seems that only the US has had the capacity and will to send out its drones to kill at will. So two questions to discus.

1) What would be our response to other countries developing drone technology and undertaking similar action ?

2) Is the action of the US government legal ?

Amnesty International calls for US accountability for drone strikes


ISLAMABAD - The United States has carried out "unlawful killings" in Pakistan with drone attacks and should be held to account, Amnesty International stated Tuesday.

The UK-based international rights group's report was released on the eve of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's meeting with President Barack Obama on Wednesday, when the use of drones is expected to be high on the agenda.

The report documents killings in Pakistan's north-western tribal areas.

Some of those killings could amount to war crimes or extrajudicial executions, Amnesty International says.

People in the tribal belt live in constant terror of death from such drones, according to the report, titled "Will I be next? US drone strikes in Pakistan."

The group slammed the US for an "almost complete absence of transparency" on the drone programmes.

"Secrecy surrounding the drones programme gives the US administration a license to kill beyond the reach of the courts or basic standards of international law," said Mustafa Qadri, the Pakistan researcher for Amnesty International.

It is time for the US "to come clean about the drones programme," he said in a statement. "What hope for redress can there be for victims of drone attacks and their families when the USA won't even acknowledge its responsibility for particular strikes?"

In the report, the group reviewed 45 known drone strikes in North Waziristan from January 2012 to August 2013. The region has seen more strikes than any other parts of Pakistan. It conducted detailed field research into nine of the 45 strikes.

A 68-year-old grandmother, Mamana Bibi, was killed in a double strike -apparently by a Hellfire missile - in October 2012 while she was picking vegetables in family fields surrounded by a handful of her grandchildren, the report read.

In July 2012, 18 labourers, including a 14-year old boy, were killed in multiple strikes on an impoverished village close to the border with Afghanistan as they were getting ready for an evening meal after work.

The report blamed such killings on "signature strikes" - attacks in which the victim's identity is unknown, but their age, gender and behaviour appears suspicious. Such strikes have been on the rise during the Obama administration.

"Anyone who grows a beard and has a gun and drives a car - people think he might be a Taliban fighter," the report quotes a resident of Esso Khel, one of the most drone-affected areas in North Waziristan, as saying.

"But over here every man carries a gun, so you cannot tell who is Taliban and who is just a local in his village."

The group also documented cases of so-called "rescuer attacks," in which those who ran to the aid of a drone victims were themselves targeted in a follow-on attack.

http://www.enca.com/world/amnesty-international-calls-us-accountability-drone-strikes

Iran gives Russia copy of US ScanEagle drone as proof of mass production

US spy drone given to prove Iran's forces have mass produced the drone they claim to have captured a year ago


Iran has given Russia a copy of a US spy drone as proof that its elite forces have reverse-engineered and mass produced the American unmanned aerial vehicle they claim to have captured a year ago.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/21/iran-russia-us-scaneagle-spy-drone-production-capture

 

[basilio]

To add a bit more to the picture.

Questions over US drone attacks that President Obama needs to resolve

The US cannot brush off charges of unlawful killings, claiming it is merely protecting US interests, without risking revenge attacks

Simon Tisdall
Simon Tisdall
The Guardian, Tuesday 22 October 2013

Drone strike Yemeni province of Lahj
A drone strike in the southern Yemen in August. Two people in the car were killed, bringing to 15 the death toll from four strikes in three days.

Detailed investigations into possible war crimes arising from US drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen published jointly on Tuesday by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, pose difficult questions for the Obama administration and for close allies such as Britain which implicitly condone or acquiesce in such attacks.

Answers to these questions are urgently required, given that unmanned aerial vehicle missile strikes have become Barack Obama's weapon of choice in prosecuting the "global war on terror" – a term he has publicly disavowed while simultaneously presiding over its rapid, largely covert escalation.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/questions-drones-obama-resolve?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

 

[Gringotts Bank]

Dominoes Pizza. ASX listed if you wanna get in on the ground floor!

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dominos-tests-delivery-pizza-remote-controlled-drone-150259

 

[CanOz]

Sadly i'm afraid the US will remain judge, jury and executioner for some time yet.:frown:

 

[Gringotts Bank]

Sadly i'm afraid the US will remain judge, jury and executioner for some time yet.:frown:

You mean Judge Judy and executioner?

 

[Calliope]

Queen bees use them to good effect!

 

[DB008]

Japan to Shoot Down Foreign Drones

Japan’s Defense Ministry has received approval from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for its plans to intercept and shoot down any foreign drones that ignore initial warnings to leave Japanese airspace. Abe’s approval of the plan asserts Japan’s readiness to respond unilaterally to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The move is the latest in a series of pronouncements and provocations by both China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu territorial dispute. Japan controversially purchased some of the islands in 2012, which thrust the long-unsettled dispute to the forefront of China-Japan relations, which have been strained ever since.

http://thediplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2013/10/22/japan-to-shoot-down-foreign-drones/