From the Revd Dr David L. Gosling
Sir, - I have more reason than most to be utterly dismayed by
the killing of so many people at All Saints', Peshawar, because at
least one of my own former students was among the dead. I also
believe that the raising of an issue by terrorists does not in
itself make that issue important. None the less, I believe that the
killing of a reliably estimated 2500 innocent civilians by US
drones inside Pakistan's borders is a desperately urgent
matter.
Within six weeks of my first arrival in Peshawar in 2006, a US
drone killed about the same number of teenage boys as the total
number killed at All Saints'. My students told me then what had
happened, and this was later confirmed by General Musharraf. Yet,
to this day, the United States has not admitted the attack.
Imran Khan swept to power throughout the Province of
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa because he made opposition to the drones his
main electoral plank, and yet in the West there is still very
little awareness of the significance of this new phase of modern
warfare. The press and the politicians have conned us into thinking
that drones are swift and "surgical". They are, as also were the
Nazi gas chambers.
If, as you report, the Archbishop of Canterbury wishes to
describe the victims of the recent Peshawar bombing as martyrs,
then may we accord the same status to the many more innocent
civilians killed by US drones?
DAVID L. GOSLING
(Former Principal of Edwardes College, Peshawar)
2 St Luke's Mews, Searle Street
Cambridge CB4 3DF