Hellfire from the Sky: Targeting of Innocent Civilians by Unmanned Drones

Outside a house, with bloodstained walls, after a U.S. drone attack in Mohammadkhel village in north Waziristan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in October 2008. The strike killed about 20 people in two villages.



United States President Barack Obama, who is due to visit India in early November, has virtually adhered to almost all the security policies of his predecessor. In fact, he has enhanced some of the most reprehensible policies of the George W. Bush administration, including the targeting of civilians by unmanned drones. Rendition (kidnapping) and indefinite detention of terror suspects have increased under his watch.

President Obama has substantially increased defence spending and has expanded the war in Afghanistan. A Federal Court in the U.S. overturned a decision by a lower court granting former prisoners tortured by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the right to sue for damages. The Federal judge said he overturned the ruling because he supported the Obama administration's position on the issue. He stated in his judgment that “there is a painful conflict between human rights and national security”. The judge concluded that fundamental human rights had to be sacrificed at the altar of national security.'

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