Why we should not tolerate US remote executions by drones.
The drone papers were already published three month ago. They describe how American drones kill more than a thousand people in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The victims and their friends and relatives had no voice to make this terrible injustice public, until the brave journalists of the intercept got the respective files from a whistle-blower and published them. But nobody cares. After a few lines on several important news channels, the whole story was forgotten. Why such a scandal does not lead to popular outrage?
“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” wrote Gerald Seymour 40 years ago. These crimes were mainly committed to protect American interests and officially to defend values of western civilization, which are democracy, freedom and civic rights.
MQ-9 Reaper, Source Wikipedia
By killing so many mostly innocent people by drones or by shooting a missile into a wedding party we spurn the achievements of western civilization. One important corner stone of civic rights is a transparent legal system, which gives everybody the opportunity to defend himself in front of a court. Independent judges or juries come to fair court orders. If we let politicians and armies circumvent legislative authority, we risk to loose this right for ourselves and indirectly support tremendous injustice. In addition we maintain a ridiculous and immoral image, which we already have in many parts of the world.
Even for the US and their NATO partners difficult times are ahead. The army of enemies of the western world is ready to commit terror attacks. The secret services around the word are spending billions to observe everybody. As a result freedom and privacy are sacrificed as a global collateral damage. The eerie feeling, that soon the whole world is falling apart is getting stronger.
Here is my action plan:
- Push the president and government of your country to stand up against the described double-moral. (When the Austrian president visits a dictatorship, the question weather he should mention human-rights in the respective country is always discussed. Strange enough, the double moral question is never mentioned, when one of the powerful western countries is being visited)
- Express your opposition against breaking the international law.
- Get inspired by “Time for outrage” by Stéphane Hessel.
I am part of the western civilization’s mind-set. I really like to live in Austria. It’s a nice and save place. Please help to restore our common ethics and morality.
