OMNI DRONE/ASSASSINATION NEWSLETTER #
12, November 1, 2013. Compiled by
Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and Justice. (Newsletter
#1, Dec. 29, 2010; #2 July 20, 2011; #3 Feb. 16, 2012; #4 May 3, 2012; #5 June
9, 2012; #6 Oct. 12, 2012; #7 Dec. 20, 2012; #8 Jan. 22, 2013; #9, Feb. 16,
2013; #10 May 11, 2013; #11 May 29, 2013; #12 Nov. 1, 2013.) See Newsletters on ACLU, Air War, Assassinations, CIA, Civil Liberties, Constitution
and Drones, Democracy and Drones, Extra-Judicial Killing, Geneva Conventions, International
Law, Killing Civilians, Media and Drones, Obama ,
Pakistan
The multifarious methods of oppression employed by
an oppressor state would fill an encyclopedia.
One general method is the control of language,
of rhetorical devices. A specific figure
is euphemism, one of many effective
devices designed to hide the truth. For example, our government has rebranded US
If
any subject links these newsletters, it is violence, particularly US
Write or Call the White House
President
Obama has declared his commitment to creating the most open and accessible
administration in American history. That begins with taking comments and
questions from you, the public, through our website.
Call
the President
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Comments:
202-456-1111Switchboard: 202-456-1414
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Comments:
202-456-6213Visitor's Office: 202-456-2121
Write a letter to
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Here are a
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as quickly as possible.1. If possible, email us! This is the fastest way to get your message to President Obama.
2. If you write a letter, please consider typing it on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper. If you hand-write your letter, please consider using pen and writing as neatly as possible.
3. Please include your return address on your letter as well as your envelope. If you have an email address, please consider including that as well.
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Washington , DC 20500
My blog: War
Department/Peace Department
My Newsletters:
Index:
Peace, Justice, Ecology National
Days
Visit OMNI’s Library.
“Act in such a way that the
principle according to which the action is performed can be accepted as a
universal law.” Immanuel Kant’s
Categorical Imperative.
DRONE
WATCH: www.MuckRock.com
, a free, online data-base.
Nos. 7, 8 at end
Contents #9 2013
New Medal for Drone Pilots
Yemen
Moyers and Co.: Drones vs. Democracy
Moyers and Co.: Innocents Murdered, Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize
a Mistake
Washington
PBS NOVA
Drone Report Underwritten by Lockheed Martin, Maker of Drones (see #8)
Dick’s Letter to PBS Ombudsman
Obama Creates
Manual or “Playbook:” for the Killing Process
30,000 Drones Over US by 2020
Contents #10,
May 11, 2013
PAKISTAN
Drone Strikes Illegal
Abbot, Strikes in Pakistan
Amnesty International Petition: Drones Not Above Law
VFP April Black Tuesdays Project , Take
Action
Goodman: Drone, Obama, CIA
Assassinations—from In These Times
Stop Drone Strikes in US, Take Action
Disclose Records of Drone Strikes (ADG from NYT)
Sirota, Language of Drone War
Court Opens Secrecy, a Little
Rassbach, Germans Against Combat Drones
Contents
#11
Robert Greenwald Film Needs Our Help
Extra-Judicial Killing, UN Rapporteur
Medea Benjamin Challenges President Obama
Sprusansky on Muslimi and Obama Admin.
Preference for Killing
BOOKS ON DRONES (in reverse chronological
order)
Scahill, Dirty Wars
Benjamin, Drone
Warfare
Engelhart
and Turse, Terminator Planet
Cavallaro,
Living Under Drones (a long report)
Contents #12
Resistance to Obama’s Drone Wars
United Nations: Put Drones Under International Law
Draft Drone Ban Treaty
Malala to Obama: Dones Cause Terrorism
Dirty War Film
Jeremy Scahill
Amnesty International
Palast,
Drones, Missiles, Etc.
FAIR, Media Not Examining Drone Attacks
Against Alleged “Terrorists” in Yemen
Savage and Baker, Obama Limits Targets and
Shifts to Military Control
 Amy Goodman, Truthdig 31 October 13 PM Reader Supported News Goodman writes: "Resistance to Obama's drone wars is growing. In upstate READ MORE http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/20174-the-rising-resistance-to-obamas-drone-wars |
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UN: PUT DRONES UNDER
INTERNATIONAL LAW
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An Anti-War
Blockbuster
There's no end to the pro-war movies
we're subjected to: countless celebrations of bombs, guns, and torture.
They come in the form of cartoons, science-fiction, historical fiction, dramas,
and reenactments pre-censored by the CIA. Movies show us the
excitement without the suffering. War in our theaters resembles almost
anything else more than it resembles war.
Journalists appear in our movies too, usually as comic figures,
talking-head air-heads, numskulls, and sycophants. In this case, the
depiction is much more accurate, at least of much of what passes for
journalism.
But, starting in June,
a remarkable anti-war / pro-journalism film will be showing -- even more
remarkably -- in big mainstream movie theaters. Dirty Wars (I've read the book and seen the movie and highly recommend both) may be one
of the best educational outreach opportunities the peace movement has had in a
long time. The film, starring Jeremy Scahill, is about secretive aspects of U.S.
Dirty Wars won the Cinematography
Award for U.S. Documentary
at the Sundance Film Festival 2013 and, recently, the Grand Jury Prize at the Boston
Typically, information
that does not support our government's war agenda appears only on the printed
page, or perhaps in a power-point presented to the usual heroic crowd of aging
white activists gathered outside the range of corporate radar. But stroll
through an airport and you'll see hardcopies of Dirty
Wars displayed at the
front of the bookstores. Check out the movie listings in June and July, and you're likely to
see Dirty Wars listed
right alongside the latest super-hero, murderfest, sequel of a sequel of some
predictable Hollywood hackery.
I wrote a review of the book some time back, after which I picked
up a job helping to promote the film. But I'm promoting the film because
it's a great film, which is different from calling it a great film because I'm
paid to promote it. And my interest remains less in selling the film
tickets than in recruiting those who see the film into an active movement to
change the reality on which the film reports.
This is not Zero
Dark Thirty. You can't walk into Dirty
Wars supporting drone
strikes, night raids, and cluster bombs and walk out with your beliefs
reinforced. Most viewers of Dirty Wars will leave the theater believing that U.S. wars make the United States
The film opens by contrasting embedded war journalism -- the
regurgitation of spoon-fed propaganda -- with what the viewer is about to
see. And what we see is investigative journalism. The film begins
by providing us with an understanding of night raids, including from the point
of view of family members who have survived them. We see the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff tell Scahill that night raids that kills civilians
should not be investigated. And then we see Scahill investigate them, his
search leading him to secretive branches of the U.S.
The film does have a failing. It doesn't tell people
anything they can do about the horrors they're exposed to. But, of
course, activism is possible and far more effective than any journalism -- good
or bad -- will tell you.
One of the stories told
in the film and the book of Dirty Wars is the story of the destruction of al
Majala. On December 17, 2009, U.S. Tomahawk missiles and incendiary
cluster bombs rained down on the tiny Yemeni village of al Majala Yemen
Shaye reported on the
carnage, including photographing missile parts labeled "Made in the United States U.S.
strikes in Yemen
Shaye is in prison in Yemen
While the United
States U.S.
On February 2, 2011, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, under
public pressure, had drawn up, printed out, and was prepared to sign a pardon
of Shaye. But Saleh received a phone call from President Barack Obama,
who opposed release of the journalist. Saleh ripped up the pardon.
The White House is
feeling a little pressure over recent revelations of government spying on and
seeking the prosecution of U.S. U.S. U.S. media outlets raising concerns over the
imprisonment of a Yemeni journalist at the instruction of the U.S.
There is much else that
we are not regularly told to be found in Dirty Wars.
Organizations that would like to help promote this film and organize around it
in U.S.
From: Zeke at Amnesty International
[mailto:alerts@takeaction.amnestyusa.org]
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2013 5:10 PM
To: Sue Skidmore
Subject: Drones, Dirty Wars and the secret "global war"
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2013 5:10 PM
To: Sue Skidmore
Subject: Drones, Dirty Wars and the secret "global war"
|
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Watch and learn the truth for yourself.
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Dear Sue, Shhh...we're not supposed to talk about it. But you probably heard President Obama's recent speech where he acknowledged that the use of drones to kill people raises some pretty "profound questions." However, the We are gravely concerned that the Obama administration is killing people outside the bounds of human rights and the law. Silence is not an option. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill is chasing down the hidden truth. In the documentary Dirty Wars opening in theaters tomorrow, Jeremy shines a light on the Watch the film | Learn more | Take action When you watch the film, keep an eye out for mention of journalist Abdul llah Haydar Shayi', who was sentenced to five years' imprisonment after he reported on an alleged U.S. missile strike in Yemen. The former Yemeni President issued an order for his release, but it was not carried out after President Obama intervened. Stories like his deserve to be heard. We're just beginning to peel back the layers. We'll keep you posted as we find out more. Sincerely, Zeke Johnson Director, Security & Human Rights Program Amnesty International USA P.S. Be sure to take action to prevent extrajudicial killings with drones and other weapons. |
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Dirty Wars reporter Jeremy Scahill with Somali warlord 'General' Indha Adde, AKA 'White Eyes.' (photo: Richard Rowley/Big Noise Films)
The Drone Ranger:
Obama's Dirty Wars By Greg Palast, Vice Magazine 14 June 13
round the time Barack Obama ordered the drone strike that killed Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki,
the 16-year-old American kid Facebooked his second-rate choice of hip-hop
favourites. I say "second-rate" because Abdul was my son's age, almost exactly, so I know the kind of crap
they listen to.
Every Tuesday, President Obama personally checks off
the names of people he wants killed. George Bush, a bit more squeamish than
Obama, never did that; but Mr Obama felt those decisions were the president's
responsibility: he "want[s] to keep his own finger on the trigger",
according to one report. A tidy,
scheduled man, the President only picks his victims once a week, now called
"Terror Tuesday".
On
October the 14th, 2011, Abdul went
out with his cousins and friends for a good old US-style barbecue, when Obama's
drone fired a rocket, blowing the teenager to pieces. Or I should say
"piece". All that was left of Abdul was a piece of skull with long
curly hair that allowed his relatives to identify this hunk of his head by his
US-style haircut.
Obama didn't order the killings (Abdul's friends and cousins
died, too) as a random act of crazy. No-Drama Obama doesn't believe in random.
Abdul's problem was that his father was
Anwar al-Awlaki. Obama killed Abdul's dad as
well. Daddy al-Awlaki, an American imam who voted for George Bush, had gone
over to the side of the bad guys. And, after leaving the USA , broadcast pro-terrorism radio reports from Arabia
We
can argue until the cows come home about whether Daddy al-Awlaki was a
legitimate kill target. It is, after all, right there in the US Constitution
that the penalty for treason is death. I suppose that, before executing him, a
jury trial would have been nice. But nice was not going to happen. So, OK,
Barack, we'll let that one go.
But
what about the 16-year-old? Obama didn't even pretend that the kid was a
terrorist, or a terrorist in-the-making, nor adopting in any way his father's
crazed kill-Americans crusade.
What
could justify execution of Abdul? When asked, then-White House press spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said,
"I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father."
I
guess he should have.
Obama's
minions tried to cover up the hit on the teenagers. Attorney General Eric
Holder informed Congress of the killings by writing that US drones had blown up
Anwar al-Awlaki, the crazy cleric, and three other Americans who "were not specifically targeted".
Holder's
comment makes it seem that Awlaki's son was blown up with him - a sad case of
"collateral damage".
But
are you ready for this? The teenager - along with his cousin and friends - was
killed two weeks after and hundreds of miles away from the site where rockets
killed his father.
(the trailer I had not yet seen for "Dirty Wars" was inserted here, can be viewed at the attached link)
(the trailer I had not yet seen for "Dirty Wars" was inserted here, can be viewed at the attached link)
Obama's
Seal Team Sick
I was
straightened out on the facts by Richard
Rowley, America US
The
film centres on Rowley's reporting partner, the indefatigable Jeremy Scahill, whom Rowley follows
from the scene of a massacre at a wedding party in Afghanistan to an interview
with a warlord in Mogadishu (while under sniper fire).
You
might know Rowley as Ricardo, the pathologically calm cameraman portrayed in my
book Vultures' Picnic. In Iraq
In Dirty Wars, Rowley and Scahill reveal
that drones are just one toy in our Presidents' murderous toy-chest. And the
kill list is far larger than even a smart dude like Obama can tick off on a Tuesday.
Scahill calculates that the targeted kills in Afghanistan
and Pakistan
Drones
can't kill them all. In 2009, a US cruise missile hit al Majala,
a remote village of Bedouins in Yemen Yemen
However,
a courageous Yemeni reporter, Abdulelah Haider Shaye, visited the site,
photographed the remains of the US
The US is particularly shy about taking credit for
the cruise missile kills, as it boosted al-Qaeda's recruitment drive in Yemen
Rowley
and Scahill are the only US
reporters to have gone to the Bedouin village and filmed the missile casing;
cold evidence confirming the US
Scahill
also revealed that, while Yemen
WikiLeaks:
Cleaning up Dirty Wars?
I was
curious: Did Scahill and Rowley make use of WikiLeaks?
"WikiLeaks
was absolutely indispensible," Rowley told me - a treasure trove of State
Department confessions confirming what they found on the ground. It was through
WikiLeaks that they discovered that President Saleh joked with US operatives
about lying to his Congress about the US
And
it was in WikiLeaks that Scahill found that the warlord Indha Adde - AKA "White
Eyes" - was on the USA US US knew he was the protector of the al-Qaeda
bombers who blew up the US Embassy in Nairobi
Rowley
captures the warlord/general on camera saying, "The USA is the master in
war" - quite a compliment from a natural born killer like White Eyes.
And
General "Eyes" is quite right. Obama's secret war has now spread to
75 nations. It's all under the command of General William H McRaven.
The US US
Maybe
that was some horrible mistake. But McRaven's crew, called "The American
Taliban" by Afghans, made sure that no one would finger the US
McRaven's
semi-private army, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), is warring in
our name in 75 nations - nations he won't name and Obama will arrest you for
naming. Not even Orwell could have dreamed up that one.
I
asked about the value of WikiLeaks to Rowley and Scahill because of the ongoing
trial of Pvt Bradley Manning and the impending capture of Edward Snowden, the
contractor willing to blow away his career and freedom to let you know that
nice Mr Obama has been spying on you
A
rabbi from Nazareth
I am
convinced the hit on al-Awlaki's son was meant to teach a lesson; If you want
to be a martyr, we'll make your son and your mum and daughter martyrs, too.
Such
terror-for-terror can be, I'll admit, quite effective. During the Ronald Reagan
years, that gutless faux-cowboy President sent weapons to Ayatollah Khomeini in
return for the release of hostages taken by Hezbollah. The Russians got their
hostages home another way. The USSR
By
rocketing the children of those we fear, we are indeed teaching them a lesson.
But what are they learning?
Next
year, Malia Obama turns 16. I hope we never hear that harm has come to Malia
while some chuckling spokesman for al-Qaeda says, "She should have had a
far more responsible father."
Greg
Palast's films with Richard "Ricardo" Rowley for BBC Television and
Democracy Now! are available on the DVD, "Palast Investigates: From 8-Mile
to the Amazon - On the Trail of Financial Marauders." This week, you can
download it here without charge from the Palast Investigative Fund.
If
you're in Canada
Defining Drone Deaths in Yemen
Media present dubious official claims as fact
8/13/13 FAIR fair@fair.org
The
But how can
media know for sure who is being killed?
The uptick
in attacks is apparently related to the alleged terrorist chatter that prompted
the U.S. U.S.
"An
American drone delivers a deadly message to Al-Qaeda," announced the CBS Evening News (8/7/13). Correspondent Bob Orr
reported, "For the fifth time in two weeks, U.S.
On August
8, when Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell asked, "Who is being
targeted by these drone strikes?," Orr answered:
Well,
sources tell us that most of those killed so far had been terrorist foot
soldiers.... It's worth noting, though, even the elimination of rank-and-file
operatives does have value; it reduces the group's manpower, and, more
importantly, it forces the other terrorists to keep an eye on the skies.
The New York Times ran an Associated Press story (8/9/13) that led, "Three American drone strikes in Yemen
Two days
later, the CBS Evening News (8/11/13) declared that "just this week, drone
strikes in the country may have killed at least two dozen suspected Al-Qaeda
militants, according to Yemeni officials."
And on ABC's This Week (8/11/13), correspondent Martha
Raddatz said that those the government suspects of plotting a major attack
"were not killed in those strikes in Yemen
But how
would anyone have any confidence about who is dying in the drone strikes in Yemen U.S. U.S.
drone strikes in Yemen
As the Washington Post (12/24/12) reported under the headline "When U.S. Drones Kill
Civilians, Yemen’s Government Tries to Conceal It," the Yemeni government
"has often tried to hide civilian casualties from the public, fearing
repercussions in a nation where hostility toward U.S. policies is
widespread."
While
Western news reports have cast casualties of the next strike, on Aug. 1, as
militants, locals in the area of Hadramawt where it took place have claimed
that the dead had no links to the Al-Qaeda group and included a child.
As for the
strikes dealing any sort of blow to the group, another report from the Post(5/30/12) noted that "an unintended consequence
of the attacks has been a marked radicalization of the local population."
The paper added:
In 2009,
when President Obama was first known to have authorized a missile strike on Yemen , U.S.
And it
appears that the United
States
Before, we
couldn't necessarily go after a driver for the organization; it'd have to be an
operations director.... Now that driver becomes fair game because he's
providing direct support to the plot.
Given that
the administration had previously defined militants as military-age males in
the vicinity of a target (Salon, 5/29/12), one would hope reporters would take official
claims--from U.S.
Obama, in a Shift, to Limit
Targets of Drone Strikes
Khaled
Abdullah/Reuters
This image,
taken in February, shows the location of an American drone stroke that killed
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and six Qaeda militants on October 14, 2011. Abdulrahman
al-Awlaki is the son of the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a
separate drone strike.
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and PETER BAKER
Published:
May 22, 2013
LIVE VIDEO AT 2 P.M. ET
Obama Delivers Speech
·
DOCUMENT: Holder Letter on Counterterror Strikes Against U.S.
Citizens
Related
·
The Caucus: Q
& A: Answering Readers’ Queries on Drones (May 23, 2013)
·
One Drone
Victim’s Trail From Raleigh to Pakistan (May 23, 2013)
·
How a U.S.
Citizen Came to Be in America’s Cross Hairs (March 10, 2013)
·
Debate Aside,
Number of Drone Strikes Drops Sharply (May 22, 2013)
Related in
Opinion
·
Op-Ed Contributor: Obama’s Forgotten
Victims (May
23, 2013)
Readers’ Comments
Readers shared their
thoughts on this article.
In his first major speech on counterterrorism of his
second term, Mr. Obama hopes to refocus the epic conflict that has defined
American priorities since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and even foresees an
unspecified day when the so-called war on terror might all but end, according
to people briefed on White House plans.
As part of the shift in approach, the administration on
Wednesday formally acknowledged for the first time that it had killed four American citizens in drone strikes outside the
battlefields of Afghanistan
and Iraq , arguing that
its actions were justified by the danger to the United States
A new classified policy guidance signed by Mr. Obama will
sharply curtail the instances when unmanned aircraft can be used to attack in
places that are not overt war zones, countries like Pakistan ,
Yemen and Somalia
Lethal force will be used only against targets who pose “a
continuing, imminent threat to Americans” and cannot feasibly be captured,
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a letter to Congress, suggesting that threats to
a partner like Afghanistan
or Yemen
The standard could
signal an end to “signature strikes,” or attacks on groups of unknown men
based only on their presumed status as members of Al Qaeda or some other enemy
group — an approach that administration critics say has resulted in many civilian casualties. In effect,
this appears to be a step away from the less restricted use of force allowed in
war zones and toward the more limited use of force for self-defense allowed
outside of armed conflict.
In the speech he will give on Thursday at the National Defense
University , Mr. Obama will also renew his long-stalled effort to close the
prison at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba Yemen
The combined actions constitute a
pivot point for a president who came to office highly critical of his
predecessor, George W. Bush, yet who preserved and in some cases expanded on
some of the counterterrorism policies he inherited. Much as Mr. Bush did in
2006 when he acknowledged and emptied secret overseas C.I.A. prisons, Mr. Obama
appears intent on countering criticism of his most controversial policies by
reorienting them to meet changing conditions.
In his speech, Mr. Obama is expected to reject the notion
of a perpetual war with terrorists, envisioning a day when Al Qaeda has been so
incapacitated that wartime authority will end. However, because he is also
institutionalizing procedures for drone strikes, it does not appear that he
thinks that day has come. A Pentagon official suggested last week that the
current conflict could continue for 10 to 20 years.
Yet even as he moves the counterterrorism effort to a next
stage, Mr. Obama plans to offer a robust
defense of a continued role for targeted killings, a policy he has
generally addressed only in passing or in interviews rather than in a
comprehensive speech. A White House official said he “will discuss why the use
of drone strikes is necessary, legal and just, while addressing the various
issues raised by our use of targeted action.”
While Mr. Obama may not explicitly announce the shift in
drones from the Central Intelligence Agency in his speech, since the agency’s
operations remain formally classified, the change underscores a desire by the
president and his advisers to balance them with other legal and diplomatic
tools. The C.I.A., which has
overseen the drone war in the tribal areas of Pakistan
and elsewhere, will generally cede its
role to the military after a six-month transition period as forces draw
down in Afghanistan
Drone strikes have already been decreasing in the past few
years as targets have been killed and opposition has grown. John O. Brennan,
the new C.I.A. director, has been eager to shift the agency more toward
espionage, intelligence gathering and analysis and away from the paramilitary
mission it has adopted since Sept. 11.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island
But Mr. Obama’s moves may provoke criticism from some Republicans who say a law enforcement approach underestimates the
continuing threat from terrorism. An aide to Representative Howard P.
McKeon of California, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said his boss
would insist on “concrete answers” about what Mr. Obama planned to do with
“terrorists who are too dangerous to be released” from Guantánamo.
In his letter to Congressional leaders, Mr. Holder
confirmed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who died in a drone strike
in September 2011 in Yemen United
States
The American involvement in Mr. Awlaki’s death has been
widely reported, but the administration until now had refused to confirm it.
Likewise, Mr. Holder confirmed the government’s role in the deaths of Samir
Khan, who was killed in the same strike, and Mr. Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman
al-Awlaki, who died in another strike. The letter disclosed the death of a
fourth American named Jude Kenan Mohammad but gave no further details.
Mr. Holder defended the actions, saying they were consistent with
American law and taken only after careful consideration. “Based on
generations-old legal principles and Supreme Court decisions handed down during
World War II, as well as during the current conflict, it is clear and logical
that United States citizenship alone does not make such individuals immune from
being targeted,” he wrote.
Critics were not assuaged. “The Obama administration
continues to claim authority to kill virtually anyone anywhere in the world
under the ‘global battlefield’ legal theory and a radical redefinition of the
concept of imminence,” said Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International. “President
Obama should reject these concepts in his speech tomorrow and commit to
upholding human rights, not just in word but in deed.”
The lifting of the veil of official secrecy over the
Awlaki killing could have broad legal ramifications. The Justice Department on
Wednesday afternoon dropped an effort to
throw out a California
Mr. Holder, in a speech at Northwestern law school last year, laid out the
administration’s basic legal thinking that it could target American citizens
deemed to be operational terrorists who pose an “imminent threat of violent
attack” and where capture is not feasible.
Mr. Holder’s letter expanded the rationale for the killing
of Mr. Awlaki. Mr. Holder said Mr. Awlaki not only had “planned” the attempted
bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009, a claim that has been
widely discussed in court documents and elsewhere, but had also “played a key
role” in an October 2010 plot to blow up cargo planes bound for the United
States, including taking “part in the development and testing” of the bombs. He
added that Mr. Awlaki had also been involved in “the planning of numerous other
plots.”
“The decision to target Anwar al-Awlaki was lawful, it was
considered, and it was just,” Mr. Holder said.
A
version of this article appeared in print on May 23, 2013, on page A1 of
the New York
Editorial:
Obama won't ground aerial strikes that kill terrorists. Good.
May
24, 2013
·
U.S. President Barack
Obama listens to an audience member interrupting his speech on the
administration's counterterrorism policy at the National
Defense University
at Ft. McNair
in Washington
President Barack Obama has taken a lot of heat over America Pakistan ,
Yemen and Somalia
Those complaints include kernels of validity but often have been
exaggerated. Drone attacks also have exterminated many sworn enemies of this
country without risking U.S.
Obama on Thursday answered his critics with a full-throated defense of
drones:
"To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far
more civilian casualties — not just in our cities at home and facilities
abroad, but also in the very places — like Sanaa and Kabul and Mogadishu —
where terrorists seek a foothold," Obama said in a speech at the National
Defense University in Washington. "Let us remember that the terrorists we
are after target civilians and the death toll from their acts of terrorism
against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from (U.S.
He's right. The drone campaign has been extremely and surgically
effective, targeting militants across Pakistan ,
Afghanistan , Yemen and parts of Africa .
It has killed wide swaths of al-Qaida leadership.
But the president also has suggested that he thinks the program has
shortcomings. That's why Obama administration officials have indicated that the
drone strike program will be narrowed and subjected to greater scrutiny: A new
classified policy directive signed by Obama reportedly curtails when the
unmanned aircraft can be used to attack in places that are not declared war
zones. The president also is shifting more responsibility to the military from
the CIA, an effort to provide more rigid accountability for the strikes.
Bottom line: This speech wasn't some dramatic new statement of policy.
And none of these refinements means America U.S.
targets terrorists: The number of reported U.S.
Obama also promised more transparency for the drone program, something
critics have long sought. One day before his speech, the administration
acknowledged for the first time that it has killed four U.S. citizens in strikes in Yemen and Pakistan
The president also mentioned the possibility of a secret court that
would sign off on future strikes. That's an idea floated by Democratic Sen.
Dianne Feinstein of California
The United States U.S. Pakistan while judges in Washington
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