[LINK] OT: bin Laden is dead

kim holburn kim at holburn.net
Tue May 10 13:13:55 AEST 2011


On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 9:42 AM, Frank O'Connor
<francisoconnor3 at bigpond.com> wrote:
> Utter crap ...
>
> Restrain those politics, prejudices and biases Old Son,
>
> Of the 35,000 mentioned by PM Galani, 1000-1500 odd were killed by
> anti-personnel strikes by the US (missile strikes or bombings) in the North
> Pakistan provinces.
>
> The other 34,000 died due to bombs set by the Pakistani Taliban, fighting
> between the Taliban and the Pakistani Army, tribal conflicts in the North of
> Pakistan, reprisals by the Pakistani Army and raids by the ISI and
> Pakistanis Security forces.
>
> That said, the US does have (by my count) about 550,000 deaths it is
> directly responsible for in Iraq and Afghanistan ... which shouldn't be
> brushed under the table. They made a 'war on terror' out of what should have
> been a criminal investigation ... which would have made more sense bringing
> those responsible for 9/11 down - but the US tends to make 'wars on'
> everything it doesn't like (drugs, crime, terrorism, etc) ... possibly
> because otherwise its military would have nothing to do.
>
> And don't come back with your ever so common comeback of 'prove it' or

????  Seems to me you've been saying that to me.

> 'where's the evidence' if you want to dispute my figures ... you made the
> initial claim, you prove that the US killed 35,000 Pakistanis by missile
> attacks. (I doubt the US has the number of anti-personnel missiles in its
> magazines to do that.)

http://en.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Extrajudicial_killing#Pakistan_drone_attacks

In this article in 2009:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23830.htm

UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston said:
> ‘My concern is that drones/Predators are being operated in a framework
> which may well violate international humanitarian law and international
> human rights law,’ he said.
>
> US strikes with remote-controlled aircraft against Al-Qaeda and Taliban
> targets in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan have often resulted
> in civilian deaths and drawn bitter criticism from local populations.
....
> Since August 2008, around 70 strikes by unmanned aircraft have
> killed close to 600 people in northwestern Pakistan.

That's UN figures.  It's two years later now.  So I expect the total
is considerably larger.  The drones have improved and the tech has got
better.

> Just be cause Kim Holburn says something doesn't make
> it so.

Never said it did.




-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request




More information about the Link mailing list