The MQ-1 Predator, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle used in cross-border execution operations
Hajira Talbot
News reports of yesterday’s strike on a Pakistani village in North Waziristan have revealed one of the five victims of the attack to be British citizen Rashid Rauf. Rauf had been accused by the US government of “masterminding” a foiled terror attack on airlines flying between Heathrow airport and various North American locations in 2006.
Rauf left his home in Birmingham for Pakistan in 2002 after the death of his uncle. He was detained by Pakistani authorities over the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot (because he was believed to put some of the alleged conspirators in touch with a bloke from al-Qaeda – this makes him a mastermind???) In December 2006 a judge declared terrorism charges against him “unfounded” and he was re-charged with forgery and carrying explosives. An attempt to extradite Rashid to the UK failed, and Rauf escaped while being transported back to prison from a court hearing.
Does this justify the US government sending an unmanned Predator drone over from Afghanistan into Pakistani territory to snuff this problematic man’s life out – because they didn’t have enough evidence to prove the names they were smearing him with. Imagine what life would be like if you or your children could be exterminated officially at the push of a US military button because you were suspected of being a mastermind of something happening on the other side of the world. I’d be pissed.
The tribesmen of Waziristan, as traditional and stubborn (or “extremist”) as they may be, have no way of protesting their innocence, no way of stating their case – except to fight back guerilla-style. The cycle of needless violence continues.
Tory MP Patrick Mercer has questioned whether the British government had prior knowledge of the attack that led to what he called “the execution of a British subject”, saying it raised some serious questions about Britain’s collaboration with the US on murky issues such as targeted executions and extraordinary rendition.
Hopes that Barack Obama would put an end to the wanton disregard of human rights in George Bush’s war on terror were dashed when Obama recently stated that he would step up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, regardless of borders. This means the reign of push-button extermination is set to continue and increase.
Counter-terrorism expert and Obama advisor, Bruce Riedel, has openly crowed at the execution, saying Rauf “epitomises the Pakistan-UK connection that al-Qaeda is trying to exploit to attack Britain and the United States”. Why did he “epitomise” it? Why was he so dangerous if the courts couldn’t find a shred of evidence to support claims that he was a terrorist?
Maybe he was. I’m not emphatically saying he wasn’t a man intent on killing civilians to make a political point (I try to refrain from labelling people “terrorists” wantonly, unlike the rest of the media and government officials). It’s just that the Western world loves to play self-righteous when people die in “uncivilised” and “un-Christian” countries. There are so many casualties, so many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians murdered at the hands of oppressors in Muslim countries (Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, now Pakistan). But no-one remembers them here in this modern, insular, civilised world I live in. Who’s going to speak for the dead? If you speak up, you probably get killed by a Hellfire missile (good name, don’t you think?) fired from an unmanned drone.
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