‘US drones violate international law’

Press TV has conducted an interview with Leah Bolger, with Veterans for Peace from Oregon, to discuss the US assassination drone attacks overseas.

Below is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The drones were always presented by the US government as an amazing instrument, as an accurate instrument. Are we to understand that that is an incorrect presentation of what the drones really are?

Bolger: Well, absolutely. The United States government claims that they are very precise, they call them surgical and with very pinpoint accuracy but we know that that is far from the truth and even if it were true that the drones could hit exactly what they intended to kill; you know, the problem is that it is impossible to know from a camera who is guilty and so the whole process of the drone assassinations just completely flies in the face of international law and the international judicial system. You know, you cannot just go around assassinating people based on what you think they might be doing.

Press TV: Right, the course of the voice that is speaking out against drones seems to be growing as the days go forward but do you believe that that will make any difference to US policy when it comes to drone use?

Bolger: Well, I am afraid that the United States needs to have a lot of pressure put on it from around the world before it will change its ways but I am calling, and the other anti-combat drone activists, are calling for other countries, especially the countries who have been victimized by America’s militarism and aggression just to stand up and to fight back against this horrible policy of assassinating innocent people, women and children and civilians and so without that kind of pressure put on the United States, I am afraid that the drone programs would continue as it has been.

Press TV: And so do you believe the drone program makes the US less safe in the world?

Bolger: Absolutely. That is absolutely true. you know, I went to Pakistan over a year ago and I met first hand, with the victims of drone attacks and they told us that for every person, every innocent person that is killed, the United States is creating exponentially more enemies, more enemies who will remember, these children that are being brought up in fear, afraid to go outside to go to school. They will not forget what their lives have been like with these drone attacks and so even if that we were successfully killing the people we intended to kill, we are absolutely creating more enemies… and it is just a horrific program.

Press TV: And on that last point that you made, you know, when it comes to creating more enemies, do you believe that the American public understands that?

Bolger: Well, I am afraid they do not. But the American public has not been told the truth. The American public is being told that we are only killing bad guys, that we are only killing terrorists and militants and very few civilians are killed and this is what the United States government wants us to believe. But thanks to organizations like the Bureau for Investigative Journalism and your show, you know, you are advocating for people… who are speaking out; so that the world will know, that the United States propaganda cannot continue to hide the truth. That the United States is guilty of war crimes, it is guilty of killing innocent people and the American people will come round eventually but they are sheltered from the real truth.