By Muideen Olagunju
A US Army bloke sits before an advanced computer system and studies the monitor closely with the rapt focus of a cheetah timing its move to hunt down a prey. He presses some keys and digitally gets an unmanned flying machine called a “drone” glide into a position. He presses some more keys and watches on his monitor as the drone’s advanced camera locks a target firmly on its crosshairs.
The army bloke, with probably a burger or ice-cold Coke or Bud Light on his table, presses the final “ENTER” Key and instantaneously, the drone unleashes a precision-guided missile down to the earth below. At that moment, he could bite on his burger or take a swing from the liquid can.
The US deploys drones with some regularity. In one instance in Yemen, the drone’s missile hit a wedding procession killing 12 people including the couple. To date, conservative estimates put innocent civilian deaths in the War On Terror orchestrated by the United States and its allies at 1.2 million.
Some international organisations put the figure as high as 3 million in just three countries, namely Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. That’s 3 million human beings who bore no arms and waged no war. Men, women and most unfortunately children. In one particular attack, a Tomahawk cruise missile killed 40 people in Yemen, including 22 children and 12 women.
Interestingly the film, “Rules of Engagement” was set in Yemen. At his trial for the killing of innocent civilians, Col. Terry Childers (played by Samuel L. Jackson) reeled out the riveting line:
“You think there’s a script for fighting a war without pissing somebody off? Follow the rules and nobody gets hurt?Yes, innocent people probably died. Innocent people always die but I did not exceed my orders”.
Two days ago, Paris, the capital of France and world renowned centre of arts, fashion, exquisite cuisine and a fabulous social life, was brought to its knees by carefully plotted terrorist attacks. 129 people have been officially declared dead, mainly people who took the time out to enjoy the best Paris had to offer.
At a Rock concert (ironically one of the bands on show is inauspiciously named “Death Metal”), scores of people were shot dead by the terrorists. One of the terrorists was reported to have blamed France for intervening against ISIS in Syria.
The world was quite quick to express its condemnation. The situation trended on Twitter and Facebook. In fact, Facebook experimented with a new feature known as “Temporary Profile Picture” offering a user the choice of having the tricolour flag of France super-imposed on the user’s profile picture. Many world famous landmarks including the Eiffel Tower, the CNN Tower, Sydney Opera House and the Toronto Tower have projected the Tricolour.
It was a sad day for the world. But na today?
Carefully orchestrated plots bring terror, like we had in Paris, to the doorsteps of the perceived oppressors.It is scary. London was once under attack. In America, security agencies work round the clock deploying billions of dollars to achieve homeland security. Every Arab or identifiably suspicious-looking Muslim is under the cosh of bare-skinned scrutiny. The fear is intense and unending. To the starry-eyed karmaists, it’s all America’s fault.
A blunt assessment reveals that America almost appears to thrive more as a super power on account of wars. The conspiracy theorists come up with various rationales. One is that America’s monstrously powerful defence contractors crave conflicts in order to make more money and secure jobs for their workforce.
There are some who say America intricately planned the 9/11 attacks in order to engineer regime changes in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s preposterous but there’s an angle that makes it at least remotely plausible.
America once planned to kill Americans in terrorist attacks in order to blame same on Cuban communists. This would then tilt public support to any invasion of Cuba. It was code named OPERATION NORTHWOODS. The plan had written approvals of all Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thankfully, President JF Kennedy had no liver to implement it. That should give an insight into how dangerously intelligence/military operations work.
Will there be more attacks on the unsuspecting civilian populations, particularly in the world’s main cities?I am afraid: Yes. As long as drones tear up limbs of women and children without repercussions; as long as world powers refuse to open themselves to genuine commitment to international peace and security; as long as there are double standards on the issue of international security; as long as there’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; as long as peace plays second fiddle to spoils of war.
As I round up, keep this in mind: we may still have many other country flags to use as our temporary profile picture on Facebook. There’s a long walk to peace in the world. That’s if we have begun the walk already.
Olagunju is a lawyer, public analyst and member of the Oyo State House of Assembly.