Decade of the Drone: America's Aerial Assassins http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/72340

The United States has not only increased its arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles by twenty five times over the past decade, it has massively increased the range and lethality of its hunter-killer drones. A recent report disclosed that beginning in 2008 the Air Force Research Laboratory started to "build the ultimate assassination robot," described as "a tiny, armed drone for U.S. special forces to employ in terminating 'high-value targets.'"Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians." 

For each alleged al-Qaeda or Taliban member killed by missiles fired from U.S. drones "140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities....On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day." [4] The dead may have been armed or unarmed, males or females, adults or children. What they have in common is that they were targeted based on "actionable intelligence" provided by someone on the ground, not necessarily a disinterested party. 

Last October, as the killing had begun in earnest, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston warned: "My concern is that these drones, these Predators, are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law. "The onus is really on the government of the United States to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary executions, extrajudicial executions, are not in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons." [5] Undaunted, the U.S. substantially intensified the attacks.

Last December the government of Venezuela called on the world community to condemn incursions into its airspace by U.S. military drones operating from Aruba and from Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles. The type of drones that flew for several days over Venezuelan territory wasn't specified, but under both bilateral and NATO military obligations the Netherlands would not refuse the U.S. the right to station Predator and Reaper drones on bases in their Caribbean island colonies. The United States has not only increased its arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles by twenty five times over the past decade, it has massively increased the range and lethality of its hunter-killer drones. A recent report disclosed that beginning in 2008 the Air Force Research Laboratory started to "build the ultimate assassination robot," described as "a tiny, armed drone for U.S. special forces to employ in terminating 'high-value targets.'” [21]