Unnecessary Suffering In Our Name.

In an interview with a researcher for CIVIC, a civilian victim of a drone strike in North Waziristan carried out during the Obama administration recounted how his home had been visited by Taliban troops asking for lunch. He said he had agreed out of fear of refusing them.

The very next day, he recalled, the house was destroyed by a missile from a drone, killing his only son.

The CIVIC researcher, Christopher Rogers, investigated nine of the 139 drone strikes carried out since the beginning of 2009 and found that a total of 30 civilians had been killed in those strikes, including 14 women and children.

If that average rate of 3.33 civilian casualties for each drone bombing is typical of all the strikes since the rules for the strikes were loosened in early 2008, it would suggest that roughly 460 civilians have been killed in the drone campaign during that period.

Distracted by our busy lives, sheltered by our mainstream media, and free from the brutality of war, it's so easy to forget that real "flesh and blood" innocence suffer everyday as a result of ongoing wars that our young men and women risk their own lives to fight, and, all in our name.   Moreover, indiscriminately, unmanned drone bombings kill more innocent civilians - men, women and children (3.3 for every bombing) - than leading officials in al Qaeda.

So,  are these wars, that are further bankrupting our country, even remotely necessary?

Well, no. In fact, according to national security experts, waging war in the Middle East weakens national security and creates increases in  terrorism.   Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley was quoted as saying, "government officials were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which Americans would give them more power".  And former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate, the war on terror is "mythical historical narrative."

But, don't take my word.  Research for yourself.

 "All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so are brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes." - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf , 1925, Ch. 10