A US peace movement, CODEPINK, has announced that 40 American activists will be traveling to Pakistan from October 3 to10 on a mission to protest drone strikes and urge friendly relations between the two countries.
The group said it wants US relations with broader Muslim world, to be based on peace and friendship, not drone strikes and military occupations. The announcement came as a new US study Living Under Drones by human rights researchers from Stanford and New York Universities, has fueled a fresh debate on the costs and benefits of the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles in pursuit of suspected militant targets.
The study details Pakistani civilian casualties in tribal areas and says the drone strikes have had counterproductive effects.
“In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling ‘targeted killings’ of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false,” the study asserted.
According to the US media reports, American officials have not commented specifically on the new report.
Over the years, the Obama Administration has been defending the drone strikes as the most useful option available in a complex environment in getting rid of militants holed up in the Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghan border.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week that while Islamabad does not differ on the aim of the drone strikes, the method currently employed, without Pakistani permission, is illegal and in contravention of international law.
US peace delegates arriving to protest drone strikes
