Madiha Tahir: Wounds of Waziristan reflects the subjectivities and experiences of those who experience drone attacks firsthand. These are some of the people on the front-lines of the terror wars, and Americans rarely hear from them. Leaks to the media have revealed the Obama administration’s view of Pakistan’s Tribal Areas. Last year, for example, The New York Times exposed how the American government has been counting all military-age males in a strike zone as “militants” leading to skewed figures about just who has been killed. Successive reports in McClatchy as well as The New York Times this year show that the Obama administration has been using a tactic in which it does not even bother to determine just who it is killing. Known as ‘signature strikes,’ these drone attacks–particularly in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas–are based on what is called a “pattern of life” analysis in which suspicious behavior is enough to qualify for death. Wounds injects the voices of those who have been either labeled de facto as “combat militants,” or summarily dismissed as “collateral damage.” We simply ask: Just what does it take to be considered human?
Wounds of Waziristan Trailer from AJ Russo on Vimeo.