Drone attacks counterproductive; Haunting civilians

Faced by a constant threat from the drones that hover over our northern communities, terrorising the unarmed men, women and children who live in perpetual fear of being the next victims of a faceless killer, Pakistans plight- and the clamour of her citizen begging for respite- has largely been ignored by the world.
The US government, which rarely recognises civilian causalities of these attacks has repeatedly stated in public statements that there have been negligible or single digit civilian casualties during these attacks.
However, recently, an exposé by the New York times was partially successful in explaining the White Houses astoundingly low estimates by revealing that the Obama administration considers "all military-age males killed in a strike zone" to be combatants.
"In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling argeted killings of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false" states a newly released report Living under Drones, further evidence that the Western media and society is finally sitting up and taking notice.
The research, which was carried out as a joint effort between Stanford and NYU School of Law after nine months of intensive investigations, recounts harrowing narratives from citizens of the survivors and witnesses of these attacks, providing detailed account of civilian deaths in the region.
Labeling the CIA led strikes as highly counterproductive and being responsible for the murder of thousands of innocents caught in the proverbial crossfire, the report alleges that from June 2004 to mid September 2012, the drone strikes have killed between 2,562 to 3,325 Pakistani civilians, out of whom majority were innocent, including 176 children.
The report details the psychological trauma amongst civilians who have pulled their children out of schools and who are unable to even assist attack victims due to the inhumane US practice of "double-tap" strikes, which have caught rescuers arriving on the scene unaware, targeting them in follow-up attacks.
Illustrating the story of 16-year old Faheem, a survivor of a January 2009 attack, the report chalks out the miserable existence of those who afterwards spend days combing through rubble -all the while afraid of another attack- to look for things the dead had on their persons, if only as a reminder of the brothers, fathers and children they have lost.
Echoing the Nazi "Buzz-bombs" of WW-II, the attacks have not only maimed, injured and killed, but are a source of untold grief and economic damage to the citizens, who are powerless to protect themselves against a strike that always comes without warning. And while the world has only now begun to listen, Pakistanis have long been bearing a cross that has been thrust on them unjustly.
Paraphrasing The New York Times, these drone attacks have done nothing more than having replaced "Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice" for violent non-state armed groups, and has only helped worsen Pak-Us relations. However, evidently, the seething anti-US sentiment nursed by a huge majority of the Pakistani population is not enough to deter the powers that be.
And in the words of Abdul Quyyum Khan, a man whose son breathed his last on June 15, 2011 in a car on the dusty road between Miranshah and Sirkot, it is therefore pointless to ask America to quit because those who matter are not listening.
"We will ask nothing of them. In my point of view, this is a futile effort. My son will not come back. My son is dead".