Host John Oliver of HBO's Last Week Tonight criticized the U.S. government's drone program for inflicting fear in children.
"When children from other countries are telling us that we made them fear the sky," he says, "it may be time to ask some hard questions."
Oliver uses a segment to discuss U.S. drone program and the legacy President Barack Obama will leave behind. "Drone strikes will be as much a characteristic of the Obama presidency as Obamacare or receiving racist email forwards from distant relatives," he says.
Oliver starts the segment claiming that drones are the third most annoying thing in skies after mosquitos and plastic bags, but the monologue brings up serious points, pointing out that drones are used everywhere from wars to weddings.
The sobering remarks prove that the half-hour weekly comedy show explores topics in a complex and in depth manner, in a way that shows that broadcast daily are not doing.
Last week, the U.S. launched two deadly drone strikes in Waziristan and Yemen. The only footage from these strikes comes from the Iranian government's English language TV station. To put it in perspective, the Obama administration has launched eight times as many drone strikes compared to the entire Bush presidency.
"Drone strikes are one of those things that it's really convenient not to think about that much," Oliver says. "Like the daily life of a circus elephant or that Beck is a Scientologist." He stresses that the American people need to listen and think about these issues for the future of our children and children across nations.
His discussion features a clip of a 13-year-old Zubair Rehman from Pakistan whose grandmother was killed by a drone strike. "The drones do not fly when the skies are gray," the boy says. He no longer looks for blues skies.
Oliver touches on "the psychological impact of living underneath drones" by showing a clip of Yemini youth activist Farea Al-Muslimi addressing Congress in 2013, a week after his village suffered from a drone attack.
Oliver argues that drones are often used without complete intelligence on who they are targeting, which puts innocent people at risk.
The former Daily Show correspondent made the topic of drones deadly serious even when masked in his comedic monologue.
