Innocent victims of drone bombings

The evidence suggests that innocent bystanders are killed and injured often in US drone attacks — not occasionally.

The evidence is contained in a report compiled by Shahzad Akbar, the director of the Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity, Reprieve.

When we are told that 16 militants have been killed in a drone strike, it usually turns out that, for example, four of these militants were children and seven were women.

Governments lie!

And governments are lying about the particulars of these drone bombings. US officials are not on the ground immediately after such strikes to access whether or not militants have been killed or not.

They just announce that militants were killed and we shrug and then go back to our soap operas and sporting dramas.

However, the Pakistani authorities, Afghan authorities, etc, who deal with the aftermath of these drone bombings report time and time again that woman and children are predominantly the victims of these bombings — accounting for approximately 90% of the fatalities and injured.

And, of course, the assumption is that the men who die in these drone bombings are all militants, which is a ridiculous presumption for anyone to make.

Louis Shawcross

Inns Court

Hillsborough

Co Down