this is one of a kind article. it talks about what it’s like to live under the constant threat, the constant robotic buzz of drones. it’s heart-breaking. pls read.
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Buzzing robots sail through the sky, and nobody sleeps. Poor villagers spend their meagre savings on pills; at night they swallow sedatives and in the morning they take anti-depressants. They sweep their rooms and courtyards every couple of hours, trying to purge their homes of microchips. Nobody has seen the tiny chips – some say they’re invisible to the naked eye, others say the electric filaments are fine enough to be woven into cloth. Every garment is suspect, every speck of dust.
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A financially weakened United States, chastened by its military misadventures, will likely increase its reliance on unmanned aircraft.
If drones are the future, Pakistan’s tribal areas offer a look ahead at the dystopia that emerges when mechanical hunters drift overhead.
It’s a dark and confusing picture, making it hard to say whether the missile strikes reduce, or increase, the number of terrorists.
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Villagers whisper about the drone strikes leaving behind poisonous dust that causes a variety of ailments, from diarrhea to skin disease.
People who sleep under the buzzing of the drones say it’s hard to settle down for the night, listening to the sound of armed machines nearby.
Muhammad Amad, executive director of Idea, an aid group that works in the tribal areas, was telling a visitor that the drones are counterproductive because they stir up local anger, when he was interrupted by one of his local staffers from Waziristan, interjecting in broken English: “Mental torture,” said the bearded man, with sun-weathered skin. He repeated himself, struggling to enunciate: “Mental torture.”
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?”They come here with headaches, insomnia, anxiety,” Dr. Shafique said. “They lie down at night and they don’t know if they will get up again. Especially at night, they are seized with anxiety.”
The doctor paused as a Pakistani fighter jet thundered past, so loud that it set off car alarms in the street. Drones are not the only thing that can kill you in the tribal areas, but Dr. Shafique said their omnipresence gets under your skin.
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?”I grabbed my Kalashnikov, because I thought somebody fired a rocket at my house,” Mr. Dawar said. The second explosion opened cracks in his ceiling, and the blasts kept coming – seven in total, destroying his neighbour’s house. He went to investigate the smouldering ruins, drawn by the sounds of a child weeping.
“There was nothing left but body parts, and a kid lying under some bricks,” he said.
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More here.