Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Drone Terror

From David Rohde's account of his capture and captivity by the Taliban. This is what people in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan live with daily.

It was March 25, and for months the drones had been a terrifying presence. Remotely piloted, propeller-driven airplanes, they could easily be heard as they circled overhead for hours. To the naked eye, they were small dots in the sky. But their missiles had a range of several miles. We knew we could be immolated without warning.

This is terrorism. How could this fail to strike fear into the hearts of anyone who had to live with this eye in the sky. It is as though the United States has set itself up as a god, who is always watching from above, ready to smite at the slightest provocation, or just on a whim.

There is no appeal to this god, no recourse to his laws. Your life, at all times, is in his hands.

Even the meekest of the meek would chafe under this oppression. How can we be surprised that the response of a culture as macho and honor-driven as the Taliban would be one of hate, fear, and violence? What is irrational about that?

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