The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq has not meant an end to U.S. military violence against people in the Middle East and other parts of the world. The U.S. government’s latest strategy is to bring terror by launching attacks from unmanned drones. Supposedly these strikes are meant to target so-called “terrorists” but in fact the strikes are a form of terrorism by the U.S. meant to intimidate and enforce its power.
In 2013, the U.S. launched 55 drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, killing over 271 people. Since the program of drone strikes began in 2004, 3,520 people have been killed. Many people have been caught by the drone strikes while going about their daily lives. In November a drone strike destroyed a seminary in Pakistan. In early December a drone strike hit a wedding party in Yemen killing 13 people including a pregnant woman and three children.
The U.S. government and the Obama administration continue to claim that they are waging the so-called “War on Terror,” however the death of innocent civilians in these drone strikes reveals the real goal of the program of unmanned military drones – to terrorize the people of the Middle East, of Africa, and of other regions of the world where U.S. corporations have economic interests at stake.
