Check out the following passage from an article in Time magazine about the backlash against the American use of drones:
A slew of reports over the last two weeks detailing cases of U.S. armed drones killing civilians signaled a new wave of outrage over the unregulated use of drones by the U.S. There was one report from the United Nations, another from Human Rights Watch, and one from Amnesty International. The uproar—and the sense that Washington has done little to make more transparent its use of drones—is culminating in a debate Friday at the UN.
The italics are mine. Notice that section. Interesting spin, and you keep hearing it over and over, sometimes in the context of other classified programs such as the NSA’s domestic spying.
The people that I know aren’t interested in seeing the drone program become more transparent. The people I know who are concerned about drones, and I suspect this is true about most of other people who care about the issue, aren’t interested in greater transparency. We want the program to stop. We want the US to stop murdering people without any cause whatsoever. Transparency? That would be nice, but it really misses the point.
1 Comment.
«Transparency» – whatever that means (transparent to whom ?) – seems to have become the bureaucrat’s favourite answer when forced to suggest amendments to indefensible programmes, like the extra-judicial murder of people whom the US president determines are expendable, or the snooping on everybody and everything being carried out by the NSA (with, of course, the help of its friends in Britain, Australia, and, lest we forget, here in Sweden). I think Ted’s on the right track : «[w]e want [them] to stop». Period, ’nuff said….
Henri