PRETTY CUTE, for a War Criminal:
President Obama Addresses Use of Drones Remix Video
When I started out on this project I had no idea what direction I wanted to go in because there were almost too many options. My idea sparked after watching the testimonial given before members of congress by Zubair Rehman. Zubair, a 13-year-old boy from Pakistan, watched his grandmother blown into pieces in front of their home by a drone strike. In his speech he speaks about how drones have changed his entire life; all of the children in his village no longer go outside to play and are afraid to walk to school out of fear of the drones. Zubair’s father, Rafiq ur Rehman, a Pakistani primary school teacher, also spoke, “Nobody has ever told me why my mother was targeted that day, Some media outlets reported that the attack was on a car, but there is no road alongside my mother’s house. Others reported that the attack was on a house. But the missiles hit a nearby field, not a house. All of them reported that three, four, five militants were killed.” Once I started looking into the reports of drone strikes and civilian murders that accompany them I decided to create a video on the discrepancies between what the media is reporting and what the government is saying. The basic idea of the video is cutting up the president’s speech and splicing it with news reports that contradict his statements. I started out by watching the President’s hour-long speech defending the use of drones to counteract terrorist groups. From there I researched and collected footage of debates, news reports, drone strikes and victim testimonials. I hope that my video makes people question the information on drones they are presented with.
phone lullaby 