One hour and a half was the time the two campaigns agreed upon for the foreign policy debate. They had a moderator, Bob Schieffer, who would ask all questions from the point of view that America is justified in whatever it does so long as it does it. When and how to do it would be the discussion, not why or whether it was legal, moral or humane.

Students and staff at the Human Rights Clinic at the Columbia Law School have released a report examining tracking organizations’ estimates on drone strikes by the United States. The clinic’s systematic review found reports often rely on unnamed Pakistani government officials or unnamed witnesses. The organizations were all “hampered methodologically and practically.” They “consistently underestimated the potential number of civilians killed in Pakistan during the year 2011.”

To show solidarity with the people of Waziristan in Pakistan, who have experienced and been victims of US drone strikes, thousands of Pakistanis marched in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan led the march. Thirty-one American peace activists affiliated with CODEPINK participated in the march as well.

The motorcade, which left Islamabad on October 6, took a route that ended in Dera Ismail Khan (DIK) on the first day. There was a rally in DIK at the end of this phase of the march. Then, on October 7, the motorcade continued onward and passed through Tank, a city nearby Waziristan, where tens of thousands of people met the march as it arrived.

Over thirty American activists traveled to Pakistan to draw attention to US drone strike policy. The delegation has joined a historic two-day peace march from the nation’s capital Islamabad to the village of Kotkai in South Waziristan, where a major rally is to be held. It left on Friday, October 6.

This is not a march where tens of thousands of people come out into the streets for some hours in the day and then disappear after walking a couple miles. The march with Americans from the peace activist group CODEPINK is the first attempt of thousands of people to reach the tribal areas of Pakistan, which are typically off-limits to non-residents. It happens to be backed by Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI), a political party in Pakistan, whose chief, Imran Khan, a former cricket star, is said to be leading the march.

A blog post published by Reuters reporter Myra MacDonald and on the internet today highlights a recent report from clinics at Stanford University and New York University and argues the “anti-drone campaign” is doing damage. It has been widely circulated on the internet yet makes a number of dubious or completely disingenuous arguments about critics of drones, which is why it deserves to be deconstructed and examined.

A delegation of around thirty-five people from the United States is in Pakistan for a week of action in opposition to drone strikes by the United States. The group of delegates, organized by CODEPINK, has had a positive and welcoming response so far. They met with Acting US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Hoagland and had a breakthrough by getting him to talk specifically about US policy on the record. And the group is preparing for a protest in South Waziristan on October 7.

Clinics at the law schools of Stanford and New York University released a ground-breaking report on September 25 that challenged the “dominant narrative” that United States drones in Pakistan are a “surgically precise and effective tool,” which “makes the US safer by enabling ‘targeted killings’ of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts.” The report, which included firsthand accounts from Pakistanis to bolster the study’s conclusions, called this narrative “false” and stated civilian casualties are “rarely acknowledged by the US government, there is significant evidence that US drone strikes have injured and killed civilians.” And it stated publicly available evidence that strikes make the US safer is “ambiguous at best” and considers the legality of the strikes to be “doubtful.”

But, for some commentators and pundits the findings of the report, “Living Under Drones,” were frustrating.

Does he look like a person the US would target? Is he a militant? Such is the nightmare that is the US drone war. And it enjoys the support of both candidates running for president, especially President Barack Obama himself, who said today in front of the United Nations, “Understand America will never retreat from the world. We will bring justice to those who harm our citizens and our friends, and we will stand with our allies.”

The constant presence of drones in the sky brings terror to the lives of the people of Pakistan. It is “harrowing” for children, grown-ups, women, and anyone who hears the sound of a drone and thinks they will be next. And in some respects, surveillance by drones is even worse than drone strikes because Pakistanis do not ever know for certain that a drone in the sky is just overhead to spy.

Last week, in an attempt to damp down protests against the United States in Pakistan, the US State Department ran advertisements on Pakistani TV.