Drones backfire on us

Now the unseemly celebration of our supposed ‘surgical’ drone strike in Syria has subsided, let’s reflect on what we’ve done: in cold blood, we executed two fellow Britons merely on the suspicions of our notoriously unreliable ‘intelligence’ services.

That it occurred in a remote place overseas doesn’t make it any different in principle from sending a ‘kill squad’ into Cardiff to execute suspects, much as the Nazis and Stalinists purged ‘enemies of the state’.

That is the logical end of this cynical ‘kill first and don’t even bother to ask any questions later’ policy. All tyrannical regimes have spuriously pleaded ‘ national emergency’ to excuse their murders. Do we really want to go down that path?

Another pernicious aspect to this affair is the way our U.S. cousins, to huge public approval, first experimentally executed a car-load of people by drone in Yemen in 2002.

After that, President Bush authorised 150 more strikes — but that’s nothing compared to the deluge of drone attacks since unleashed by obama, now running into thousands.

There are now so many victims that one drone ‘ pilot’ has resigned in revulsion at the 1,600- plus unsuspecting and defenceless people he has obliterated. And we thought the ‘American Sniper’ was a hero.

Drone killings are just too easily sanctioned and carried out. No one is accused of anything, much less tried, and the public is conditioned to approve, even applaud, them.

A shroud of secrecy prevents the public knowing of all the women and children ‘surgically’ cauterised, and the President simply sits down with the CIA on ‘terror Tuesdays’ and ticks names on a hit list. A few days later, those people are eliminated.

As former CIA officer Richard Blee remarked: ‘In the early days, for our consciences, we wanted to know who we were killing before we pulled the trigger. Now we’re lighting these people up all over the place.’

DAVID H. LEWIS, Nelson, Caerphilly.