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Edward Snowden
The world famous whistle-blower Edward Snowden celebrates the leak that reveals America’s warfare with drones. But the White House and the Pentagon silent about the revelations.
The world famous whistle-blower Edward Snowden celebrates the leak that reveals America’s warfare with drones. But the White House and the Pentagon silent about the revelations.
It has been three weeks since the online magazine the intercept published the secret documents show that most of the victims of US air attacks with drones were “unintended targets” as the military the term goes.
The publication of the documents have accelerated the discussion about America’s warfare using unmanned aircraft.
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– Drönarprogrammet creates more terrorists than it kills says Edward Snowden in an exclusive DN interview in the Saturday magazine.
The 32-year-old Snowden , which DN’s Lena Sundström and Lotta Härdelin met in his exile in Moscow, is the man behind the revelations of intelligence services, the CIA and the NSA’s mass surveillance of ordinary citizens.
But it is not Snowden is leak behind drönaraffären. There is a person who worked with drone attacks in the US Armed Forces. The documents handed over to The intercepts founder Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who revealed the American secret NSA’s global mass surveillance.
Greenwald immediately saw explosive stuff in the material and chopped it up into eight parts entitled “The Drone Papers “drönardokumenten.
The most contentious section of drönardokumenten focuses on one of America’s special operations in Afghanistan, known as Operation Haymaker. The campaign ran from January 2012 to February 2013. During that time, 219 people were killed in targeted attacks by drones.
But the casualties were only 35 people – not even a fifth – actual target for attacks. During a five-month period within the allotted time was almost 90 per cent of deaths, other than “targets”.
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The documents reveal in detail the process that leads to a drönarattack, from the selection of the “victim” decision chain’s last link is the president.
The intercepts source also points to the system’s reliance on ESM via mobile phones, a method often gives wrong results.
“It may be months, or years, when you suddenly realize that it ‘hot targets’ you tracked down, in fact, was his mother’s cell phone “said the source in the report. This would explain why weddings are regularly targeted by drone attacks.
The Huffington Post , one of the world’s most widely read news sites, published extensive excerpts from the documents. Democrat Congressman Keith Ellison, influential member of the US Congressional Progressive Caucus (progressive bloc) has requested a review of defense drönarprogram. Amnesty International urges Congress hearings.
“old media” as the New York Times and the Washington Post, has not been as alert as readers protested. New York Times Reader’s Margaret Sullivan responded to the criticism: “Our journalists would probably have done readers a service if we wrote more about ‘Drönardokumenten,’” she noted in his column on 26 October. Dagens Nyheter reported on parts of drönaravslöjandet on 21 October.
The Obama administration and the Pentagon has so far met the revelation of the secret drönardokumenten with the utmost silence.
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In fact, , the US armed forces will focus even harder on the use of drones forward. The Pentagon is planning a nearly fifty percent increase in the number drönaruppdrag within the next four years – from 60 missions a day to over 90 °.
At the same time the ever new reports of drones civilian applications: in agriculture, in traffic, in order to look for missing people, in order to deliver goods to the homes.
From a military point of view, there are many advantages of drones over conventional battle plan. A drone is much cheaper and with pilotless planes, the risk that a pilot injured, killed or taken captive. The drones have disrupted and shattered much of the conventional guerrilla warfare where troops could previously retreated to the secluded bases.
– The drones have changed the Taliban army life basically. There are few places where they can hide. And unlike when you put ground troops can attack may come unexpectedly, says Barnett Rubin, one of the West’s leading Afghan experts.
However, the use of new technology in warfare course, expected to reduce the number of military side damage, “collateral damage “- not to increase them?
– Of course drones considered a weapon any, used by military forces that are expected to follow the laws of war. If it happens otherwise, the methods course revealed and adjudication, says Barnett Rubin.
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