{UAH} THE TRAUMA OF DRONE STRIKES

Worlds Apart – The Trauma of Drone Strikes

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Soren Dreier

Author: John Knefel

On October 25th, the United Nations convened a panel to discuss the United States’ controversial overseas drone strike programs.

The speakers included human rights advocates, legal scholars and special rapporteurs, all of whom called for the U.S. to make its drone policy more transparent and accountable. But the most moving statement came from Brandon Bryant, a former U.S. Air Force drone operator who logged thousands of hours firing remote missiles at distant targets in Afghanistan and Iraq over six years.

“At the end of our pledge of allegiance, we say ‘with liberty and justice for all,’” said Bryant, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his time as a drone operator. “I believe that should be applied to not only American citizens but everyone we interact with as well – to put them on an equal level and treat them with respect.”

Two days later, Rafiq ur Rehman sits with two of his children in a hotel conference room in Washington, D.C., along with a translator, a lawyer from the human rights charity Reprieve, the filmmaker Robert Greenwald and me.

The Pakistani family – Rafiq, 39, his son Zubair, 13, and his daughter Nabeela, 9 – traveled from their village in North Waziristan this month to tell Congress the story of Rafiq’s mother, Mamana Bibi, who was killed by what was almost certainly a U.S. drone strike on October 24th, 2012. Mamana, a midwife, was picking okra near her family’s house when a missile struck her directly, blowing her to pieces.

The two children were both in the field and saw the missile strike their grandmother. “When [the missile] hit, we couldn’t tell the difference between night and day,” says Zubair. “It was day before and it immediately became dark, and I couldn’t see my grandma anymore.”

Zubair was close enough to be hit by shrapnel from the strike. “I felt on my left leg a burning sensation and I didn’t know what had occurred,” says the teenager, lifting up his pant leg to reveal a four-inch scar. “So I just started to run.” His younger sister was in the field gathering okra as well, and was also hit by shrapnel. “When I looked down I saw my hand was bleeding,” Nabeela says. “I tried to wipe it off but the blood wouldn’t stop.”

Following the first strike, the other children in the house ran outside, at which point a second missile struck nearly the exact same spot as the first. Nine children in total were injured, according to Reprieve lawyer Jennifer Gibson.

Rafiq – who works as a teacher at the local primary school – was at the market getting food to celebrate the Muslim holiday Eid ul-Adha when his mother was killed. When he returned to his village, he tells me, he saw his neighbors standing around a freshly dug hole in a plot of land reserved for his family in the graveyard.

A young boy told him that the mother of Latif Rehman had been killed; the boy didn’t know that Latif is Rafiq’s older brother. His children, Zubair and Nabeela, had been taken to the hospital, but at first, Rafiq says through the translator, “I thought I lost them too.”

All three share memories of the beloved 67-year-old woman who died that day. Nabeela tells me that since she’s one of the youngest in the family, she was a favorite of her grandmother’s. She got to accompany her on trips to weddings that her siblings and cousins didn’t get to attend. When I ask her if there was dancing at the weddings, she breaks out in a smile and hides in her headscarf.

“She says there was dancing, but she won’t tell me if she danced,” the translator, Michelle, explains. “She’s shy.” Over the course of the interview, Nabeela uses crayons to draw several pictures of drones flying over her house.

Read More: Here

           Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
           Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"