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US Killed 700 Civilians in Pakistan in 2009

7 January 2010

The following is the except of an article by Jason Ditz and it's Chinese translation:

On January 1, 2009, a US drone strike killed two senior al-Qaeda leaders, the first in what then President-elect Barack Obama had said would be a dramatic escalation of the aerial bombardment of Pakistan’s tribal area.

And escalate it did. The US launched 44 distinct drone strikes in Pakistan in 2009.

The actual successes (of the air strike missions) are few and far between, with only five confirmed kills of real militant leaders.

The vast majority of the deaths, around 700 according to one estimate, have been innocent civilians. With such a massive civilian toll and so little to show for it, it is no wonder that Pakistani people have been up in arms over the continued strikes.

But US officials have rarely commented on the drone strikes, except on those rare occasions when they actually kill someone meaningful, and seem completely ambivalent to the hundreds of innocent people killed in the meantime. The ultimate example of this was June 22-23.

On June 22, the US struck at a house officials called a “suspected militant hideout,” burying a few locals inside. When others rushed to the scene to rescue them, they launched another missile, killing 13 apparently innocent Pakistanis. When they held a funeral procession on June 23, the US hit that too, ostensibly on the belief that Baitullah Mehsud might be among the mourners. He wasn’t, but the attack killed at least 80 more people.

2009年一月一日，美军轰炸机在巴境内炸死了两位塔利班高官。美军尝到甜头，自此拉开了对巴基斯坦偏远部落狂轰滥炸的序幕。去年一年，美军轰炸机共对主权国家巴基斯坦进行了44次军事轰炸。在上千名死者中，除了五人被大致确定是塔利班分子外，至少有700人是毫无关联的平民。无怪乎巴基斯坦民众对美军持续轰炸他们的家园恨之入骨。

其中最令人发指的屠杀事件发生于去年六月22日。当时有几名被美军收买的巴奸任意指一民居为疑似塔利班据点。当附近居民纷纷赶去被美军炸弹击中着火的房子里救人时，美轰炸机再次扔下炸弹，13名救人者当场死亡。第二日，当无辜死难者下葬时，美军因怀疑有一名塔利班人员混在送葬人群中，竟再次轰炸。事后证实该名疑似塔利班人员并不在葬礼现场，而被炸死的80多人皆为平民。

但至今为止，美国政府对美军大量杀死巴国平民之事鲜置一词。

(Source: news.antiwar.com)

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