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17 - No One Feels Safe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2014

Peter L. Bergen
Affiliation:
New America Foundation
Daniel Rothenberg
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
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Summary

I am thirty-seven. I run a medical supply store in the Miran Shah bazaar in North Waziristan. I have been going to this bazaar almost all my adult life. From my village, Datta Khel, west of the capital, I often travel by pickup truck to the bazaar, sometimes hanging on with dozens of others.

Along with the noise of daily life in the bazaar, I have now grown accustomed to another sound.

A steady humming. This is the sound of CIA drones.

The drones have been hovering above the skies of Waziristan for several years. Their presence is a constant element of our lives. And everyone knows that they frequently fire missiles.

Personally I am not afraid of the drones.

I am neither a Taliban nor an al-Qaeda.

But, I fear becoming part of the “collateral damage” when missiles from the drones hit a car in the bazaar, a mosque, or a school.

I don’t want to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time, or find myself with the wrong people.

What if I am standing near a car with tinted glass in the bazaar on my way to the shop and a missile hits the occupants of the car with some target inside?

Type
Chapter
Information
Drone Wars
Transforming Conflict, Law, and Policy
, pp. 345 - 347
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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