While We Are Sleeping

The Reaper comes whenever he wants to

Deep in the night he prefers it
or just before
Dawn

When nobody can see him doing his murderous

work

With the Reaper, no man in our village

ever dare
Congregate with old friends

A shadow hangs over our province

Children have stopped going to school
We are kept from our trades
Even the dust trembles in fear

What chance have we got here on

the ground

Many of our houses are shattered

and broken

Reaper says all those he ever killed

were on a list of bad men
And they deserved
to die

The President said so himself

Karim Ali was on no list, he was

just five years
of age
Khoda Hassan died playing with her friends
at a jirga

Malik Wazir, double tapped whilst digging

his grandfather
Out of his bombed home

Malala Akbar and six of her children

dead at
Marwan Aleem's wedding

Killed by two AGM-114 Hellfire

missiles

Murdered by remote control

By a dehumanised, government
assassin
Just performing his duty on a warm
Nevada day

Our hearts are sick with it

When is the world going to show
it is outraged
Where are the great voices condemning
this crime

There is no honour in this

The Reaper has no room for compassion

or pity
He is a mosquito who has brought palsy
and fear
To our herds

He sows only the seeds of hatred

and vengeance
And fans the flames of permanent
war

My daughter says she can no longer sleep

at night
Her dreams have become filled with
the cries
of her friends

I tell her I love her more than life

itself
But I'm worried too

Tomorrow I must drive to Peshawar

to pick up
Supplies
A journey of 200 miles
[End]

With special acknowledgement to all those who provided the images.

No copyright infringement intended.
Mike Davies 20th November, 2012
For more like this please visit:
http://renegadepoet.wordpress.com
http://www.scribd.com/renegadepoet

Notes

A single MQ-9 Reaper drone costs $36.8 million

One Hellfire missile costs about $70,000
One Paveway bomb, $20,000
Powered by a 900 horsepower turbo-prop engine
Fitted with a multi-spectral targeting system, cameras and sensors
Has a range of 3,682 miles and an operational altitude of 50,000 ft
Can stay airborne for up to 14 hours fully loaded
Active over the skies of Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan
Since 2004 it has been estimated that drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of
whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children

Videos
Air Force Shows Off the Reaper Unmanned Plane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ByR8hU7TYo
America's New Air Force
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAgI4e29Tdk&feature=related
Attack Of The Drones USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMOzvmgVhc
Living Under Drones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msHJLwYWX30
Rise Of The Machines - USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20JCGDwBt7A&feature=relmfu
Warfare by Remote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auAaY6uWtNI&feature=relmfu

Articles
America's Deadly Double Tap Drone Attacks
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208307
A Brief History of Drones
http://www.thenation.com/article/166124
Do Drones Undermine Democracy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22
License To Kill
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2012/01/09

Obamas Five Rules For Covert Drone Strikes

http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/09/06
Secret Kill List Proves A Test of Obamas Principles And Will
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29
Drones causing mass trauma among civilians, major study finds
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/09/25
The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama
http://www.esquire.com/features/obama-lethal-presidency-0812
The Predator War
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer
UK Drone Strikes
http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/uk-drone-strike-list/
What Are Drones?
http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/aboutdrone/

Websites
Dronestagram
http://dronestagram.tumblr.com/
Drones War UK
http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/
Know Drones
http://www.knowdrones.com/
Living Under Drones
http://livingunderdrones.org/
The Bureau Of Investigative Journalism
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com