The Waziris interviewed for this report almost uniformly reported having neutral or in some instances positive views of the US before the advent of the drone campaign. One 18-year-old, for example, admitted, “[f]rankly speaking, before the drone attacks, I didn’t know anything about a country called America. I didn’t know where it was or its role in “When people are out there international affairs.”729 But the picking up body parts after a strikes now foster the development of strongly negative views toward drone strike, it would be very the US. Another interviewee easy to convince those people to explained: “Before the drone fight against America.” attacks, we didn’t know [anything] about America. Now everybody has - Noor Behram, Pakistani Photojournalist come to understand and know about America . . . . Almost all people hate America.”730 Noor Khan, whose father, Daud Khan, a respected community leader, was killed when a drone struck the March 17, 2011 jirga over which he presided, remarked that “America on one hand claims that it wants to bring peace to the world and it wants to bring education. But look at them, what they are doing?”731 One man, who has lost relatives in drone strikes, expressed his deep-seated anger toward the US, declaring that “we won’t forget our blood, for two hundred, two thousand, five thousand years—we will take our revenge for these drone attacks.”732 A Waziri who lost his younger brother in a strike stated that there would be revenge: “Blood for blood. . . . All I want to say to them is . . . why are you killing innocent people like us that have no concern with you?”733 A teenage victim of a drone strike commented: “America is 15,000 kilometers away from us; God knows what they want from us. We are not rich . . . . We don’t have as much food as they do. God knows what they want from us.”734 Unable to find any other explanation for why US strikes have struck innocent people in their community, some
Interview with Shahbaz Kabir (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb. 26, 2012). Interview with Umar Ashraf (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Mar.9, 2012); see also Interview with Saad Afridi (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb. 26, 2012) (“Before drone attacks, I didn’t know America.”). 731 Interview with Khalil Khan, Noor Khan, and Imran Khan, in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb.26, 2012). 732 Interview with Uzair Rashid (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb. 26, 2012). 733 Interview with Mehfooz Shaukat (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb. 29, 2012). 734 Interview with Faheem Qureshi, in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb.29, 2012). 729
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