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June 8th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay made the remarks on Thursday at the end of a four-day visit to Pakistan, where more than 150 people have died in twenty US drone attacks since the beginning of the year.
The commissioner noted that in her opinion “the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances” was in violation of international norms of human rights.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Mirza Shahzad Akbar, director of the Foundation for Fundamental Rights from Islamabad, to further talk over the issue.
The video also offers the opinions of two additional guests: David MacMichael, former senior CIA analyst from Washington, and Masood Haider who is with Pakistan’s Daily Dawn.
What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: Let’s look at some of the statistics about the number of civilians that are killed in the US drone strikes in Pakistan. If I am correct, it is a ratio of 10 to 1. Ten civilians to every one militant killed. You have done your own research on the trend in civilians’ deaths in Pakistan. What have you found?
Akbar: Your statistics are right that for every one militant, they are killing about 10 civilians but we have to also see in terms of legality of drone strikes in Pakistan.
First of all, I think UN Human Rights Body has made it clear today that these are extrajudicial killing but for the extent of that militant, the US has really to prove, even if you believe the US is true, the US has to really prove that that militant they are killing is an imminent threat to the security of the United States.
Now how would they prove that? I mean they have to show that that person has the capability or capacity to attack the United States. Now when we look at the militants in general who are being killed, so not more than a couple of dozens of al-Qaeda senior names or al-Qaeda officials have been killed but other than that even those militants who are killed, they are small-time militants having no value or threat for that matter to the United States.
So even that is a big anomaly which has been created by the US.
Press TV: If the United States is concerned for the lives of innocent civilians like it claims to be with the situation in Syria, how come it bears little regret when civilians die in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a result of their own actions? Do you view this as a contradictory stance?
Akbar: It is certainly a contradictory stance and let’s look at President Obama’s first air-strike. His first air-strike on 23rd of January, 2009, had killed innocent civilians and it was a wrong house they targeted and this thing was reported to President Obama straight away and this has been reported in Bob Woodward’s book and there is another book which is repeating the same fact.
But President Obama ignored the fact that he had mistakenly killed 9 people in that drone strike which everyone now knows was a mistake and there have been continuous mistakes of such nature which we have been trying to point out through our legal cases in Pakistani courts and in British courts and in other places, we are trying to raise the issue.
But every time the CIA does not provide any explanation to the facts which we are bringing to everyone’s attention. The number of children who have been killed, John Brennan said that last year no civilian was killed but last year on the 31st of October, a civilian volunteer who was working with our organization, trying to collect evidence of civilian deaths in drone strikes was taken as a target right after two days he spent in Islamabad getting training of how to take pictures and upload them online so the rest of the world can see and that person, that 16-year-old boy, was taken as a target.
But CIA pays no attention and simply they admitted that they have killed a 16-year-old but they said that he was a militant. And our question was that if he was a militant, he was in Islamabad, one mile away from US Embassy for 3 days interacting with international human rights activists and if he was a militant, you could have arrested him easily in Islamabad.
Press TV: Mr. Haider [another guest on the show] said that Pakistan and Afghanistan have been rendered inactive against the world’s greatest power meaning the United States. What do you think? Do you think that they are just going to have to sit aside and do nothing? Can they maybe advocate for the United Nations to be more involved in the proceedings?
Akbar: First of all, there is no doubt about the fact that if there are any criminal elements, any terrorists and anyone in Pakistan or Afghanistan, the respective governments have to take action against them.
But there is another point here which we really need to address and that is the presence of a foreign force in a country which provides legitimacy to all those people who are considered to be terrorists.
Now take example of Taliban fighting Americans in Afghanistan; I mean are they not fighting against foreign invasion? I mean this is a question which people do not like to address but now I think is the time when we need to address this because when you have a foreign force in any land for whatever reason, the local forces fighting against that are actually fighting against invaders.
Now this provides them greater legitimacy and when you have a history of 10 years of foreign invader in a country which is filled with human rights violation, indiscriminate killing, and extrajudicial killing not just in Afghanistan but across the border as well, then we lose that sense that if any force is on the right side and then it becomes a war.
Now for Pakistani and Afghan forces to act against any elements which are considered a threat to the world peace, then both governments can act, I think, more independently when we do not have any foreign force presence in the region.
So I think the key is American withdrawal from the region and then Pakistani forces can independently act against the elements which are involved in any sort of terrorism or criminal activities.
MSK/JR
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