No More Wiggle Room: Drone Wars a Knockout Punch to US Credibility!

• No more wiggle room: Drone wars a knockout punch to US credibility! 
  by Patrick Henningsen, http://rt.com/op-edge/ 
  This week saw the most extraordinary scene materialize in Washington DC. Nine-year-old Nabeela ur Rehman, from North Waziristan in the remote tribal region of Pakistan, arrived to a media blitz.
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  She came to tell her own personal story to the nation, in front  of the US Congress and national media, of drone horrors and the  savagery of America’s secret assassinations overseas. Accompanied  by her family, Nabeela told the story of the day her grandmother,  a 67-year-old midwife, was killed by a US drone strike while  tending her garden.
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  There is talk of financial compensation being awarded to the  family, which US officials are keen to avoid because of the flood  of claims which might follow even one single, official admission  of guilt on their part.
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  Almost certainly, someone, somewhere is setting up a special new   ‘NGO’ to handle US drone compensation funds should they ever be  awarded. But direct payouts to victims might upset certain  Pakistani officials, as such restitution would bypass the main  financial beneficiary of US counterterrorism policy in Pakistan –   corrupt factions within the Pakistani security services and  military who’ve already received billions is US dollars over the  last decade in order to assist Washington in its famous War on  Terror.
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  Notice how there has never been any serious diplomatic rift  between Pakistan and Washington, even though Pakistani officials  now admit that at least 67 innocent civilians have been killed by  US drones since 2008. One UN investigator puts the number at 400  since 2004. Some human rights groups put the number even higher.
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  It’s legal because we say it is’
  To date, the White House’s party line on its clandestine,  unmanned air force has been strict denial of civilian casualties,  followed by sweeping legal statements made to exonerate any  wrongdoing on its part. But it will take more than political  dexterity for the White House to talk their way out of this case.  For both American and overseas voices alike, a serious  conversation over the criminality of US drone policies is long  overdue. Maybe it will take the honesty of a nine-year-old girl  to break down the flaky arrogance of salaried apologists in  Washington.
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  read more!

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