If you look straight up at the sky at any time of the day, you’ll see a palette of colors: pink, blue, white, orange, or black. The next thing that may catch your eye may be an airborne object such as a plane, or flying creatures including a flock of migrating ducks or a random pigeon.
But what if you saw something different than a simple airplane, maybe something smaller, faster, and something that only comes out when the sky is blue. I’m not talking about a bird, I’m talking about drones.
According to Drone Wars UK, drones are unmanned aerial aircraft controlled by pilots from the ground. It is common for these pilots to not be near the site where the drones are being employed. I was privileged to attend a class presentation by ID 105 Visualizing Human Rights on Drone Strikes. From their lecture, I learned that in the U.S alone, Drones were first pioneered for military usage during the George W. Bush administration and its use doubled during the Obama administration.
The purpose of drones are to eliminate terrorist threats, known as target killing. However, this goal has not been so successful. Individuals who live in countries that are rumored to harbor terrorists are inevitably targeted as well. CNN reported a wedding convoy was struck by drones, in Yemen, mistaken to be “Al Qaeda militants” in 2013. It left 14 of the celebrants dead and 22 were injured.
In an akin situation, the defective accuracy of drones was improvised in "London Has Fallen" (Babak Najaf, 2016). In the film, the targeted protagonist was found, but the high profile target was in his daughter’s wedding. As the signal “Barkawi on site” was texted from a US spy to the pilots, the camera cut to an aerial bird eye view of the compound where the wedding was held. As the missile demolished everything, a lorry could be seen driving away from the destruction; Barkawi luckily escaped.
The moral lesson is that although drones seem faster, efficient, smaller and even cheaper to produce in comparison to manned jets, they are causing a new war and a new rising frustration towards the United States because harmless civilians are being targeted and killed.
Faheem Qureshi, 14-year-old survivor of Obama’s first drone strike, commented to The Guardian on how he felt regarding Obama’s drone executions, “If there is a list of tyrants in the world, to me, Obama will be put on that list by his drone program.” I feel sad because it makes me realize that someone across the world, who could be around my age, is scared to explore the open blue sky because of their fear of being mistaken as a terrorist.
Say no to drone programs. Give the people of Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia back their peaceful skies once more. If two percent of the drone victims are terrorists, what about the other 98 percent? Do they not deserve to breathe fresh air, and enjoy their gift of being human? People should not be surprised when new forms of menace will arise from the side effects of the Obama drone program. I encourage you to watch "London Has Fallen" because it shows that Barkawi's revenge, which caused a downfall for many countries, could have been prevented if other measures were implemented.
What do you think?
