ANALYST: OBAMA MORE BRUTAL THAN BUSH
Washington, 20 Jumadil Awal/31 March 2013 (MINA) – A political analyst says despite his peaceful slogans, US President Barack Obama has greatly stepped up Washington’s deadly drone attacks and proves more brutal than his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.
“There’s this illusion about American political culture that the Democratic Party is somehow better, or more peaceful or more progressive; that Obama somehow is different,” Iowa-based author and journalist Paul Street said in an interview with Press TV on Thursday (28/3) as monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
The expert criticized the Nobel Peace Prize winner US president for pretending to have anti-war views but in fact escalating assassination operations beyond US borders.
“It [drone attacks] has increased dramatically under Obama…. Far more attacks…and far more people were killed by Obama than anything [Bush-era Vice President] Dick Cheney and George W. Bush ever did with drones,” he noted.
The comments come as a group of US activists plan to launch a series of protests in April to generate a public uprising across the country against Washington’s assassination drone operations.
The planned protests, dubbed April Days of Action, will begin on April 3 with a rally in New York and will spread nationwide, targeting military bases, universities, and companies involved in the deadly drone policy.
The United States carries out drone operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia despite worldwide condemnation of the deadly attacks which have been never approved by the international community.
Washington claims its drone strikes target militants, although casualty figures show that civilians are often the victims of the attacks. A report published by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism in January 2013 said the strikes have claimed the lives of up to 3,577 people — including between 411 and nearly 884 civilians — in Pakistan since 2004.
In September 2012, the Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law put the number of ‘high-level’ targets killed at just 2 percent of total casualties from such attacks.(T/P05/P03).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
