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Remembering Bush, accurately
Bush was the President who launched the Aghanistan war and illegally invaded Iraq. He was he President who sanctioned torture. He did a lot of really bad shit that screwed up the world and the country.
President Obama isn't a better Bush. Such claims are pathetically absurd.
ENDING TORTURE = Three Torches
- Ordered an end to the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, withdrew
flawed legal analysis used to justify torture and applied the Army Field Manual on interrogations
government wide. - Abolished the CIA secret prisons.
- Says that “waterboarding is torture” and “contrary to America’s traditions… contrary to our ideals.”
- No reports of extraordinary rendition to torture or other cruelty under his administration.
- Failed to hold those responsible for past torture and other cruelty accountable; has blocked
alleged victims of torture from having their day in court.
The best thing President Obama could have done, in addition to ending Bush's policies, would have been to investigate the war crimes of the Bush administration.
Before the drone debate clouds everyone's memory of Bush, there are facts to be considered.
Fact: There is a Constitutional/legal basis and precedent for targeting Americans who take up arms against their country, and there are circumstances in which lethal force may be the only option.
From the Center for Constitutional Rights (arguing against the current policy for targeted killings, but citing the exceptions) :
<...>
Under the Constitution and international law, individuals must be afforded due process and convicted for a capital crime before they may be executed by the state. In extremely narrow circumstances, judicial process is not required if an individual poses an imminent threat of death or serious physical harm to others, and lethal force is a last resort to address the threat. A targeted killing policy in which names are added to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and remain on the lists for months is clearly not limited to addressing imminent threats or using lethal force as a last resort, and goes far beyond what the law permits. By substituting its own bureaucratic process for the due process required by the Constitution and international law, the executive is assuming the role of judge, jury, and executioner.
<...>
The executive process for authorizing these killings also plainly violates the legal requirements for the use of lethal force by the state. Outside of armed conflict, where the Constitution and peace-time international law apply, the United States can only take an individual’s life, no less the life of a U.S. citizen, after trial and conviction. The only exception to the rule is where the individual poses a grave threat of such imminence that judicial process is infeasible and lethal force is the only option that could reasonably address the threat. That individuals are added to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and left on the lists for months at a time flies in the face of the requirement that killing must be a last resort to address an imminent threat that leaves no time for process or deliberation.
http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/kill-lists
Under the Constitution and international law, individuals must be afforded due process and convicted for a capital crime before they may be executed by the state. In extremely narrow circumstances, judicial process is not required if an individual poses an imminent threat of death or serious physical harm to others, and lethal force is a last resort to address the threat. A targeted killing policy in which names are added to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and remain on the lists for months is clearly not limited to addressing imminent threats or using lethal force as a last resort, and goes far beyond what the law permits. By substituting its own bureaucratic process for the due process required by the Constitution and international law, the executive is assuming the role of judge, jury, and executioner.
<...>
The executive process for authorizing these killings also plainly violates the legal requirements for the use of lethal force by the state. Outside of armed conflict, where the Constitution and peace-time international law apply, the United States can only take an individual’s life, no less the life of a U.S. citizen, after trial and conviction. The only exception to the rule is where the individual poses a grave threat of such imminence that judicial process is infeasible and lethal force is the only option that could reasonably address the threat. That individuals are added to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and left on the lists for months at a time flies in the face of the requirement that killing must be a last resort to address an imminent threat that leaves no time for process or deliberation.
http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/kill-lists
Senator Wyden:
“As I and ten other senators told the President yesterday, if individual Americans choose to take up arms against the United States, there will clearly be some circumstances in which the President has the authority to use lethal force against those Americans, just as President Lincoln had the authority to use force against the Confederate Army during the Civil War. At the same time, it is vitally important for Congress and the American public to have a full understanding of how the executive branch interprets this authority, so that Congress and the public can decide whether the President’s power to deliberately kill American citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards. Every American has the right to know when their government believes that it is allowed to kill them.
The Constitution does grant the President the authority to use lethal force against citizens who take up arms against the United States in armed conflict and in situations where the individual, as the CCR noted, "poses a grave threat of such imminence that judicial process is infeasible and lethal force is the only option."
There are attempt to equate the drone white paper/legal memo with the Yoo torture memo. Where on earth has any civil liberties/human rights organization acknowledged that torture is allowed under any circumstance? Torture is a war crime.
Bush also lied us into an illegal war that resulted in the killing of more than 4,000 Americans and nearly a million Iraqis.
Objecting to the drone policy does not require the use of ridiculous false equivalencies. One can even criticize Obama for relying on them more than Bush did, but this program is not equivalent to torture.
The fact is that the one person targeted was a member of al Qaeda. There is a demand for public evidence and justification. That's an issue. Still, the point is how to deal with Americans who take up arms with terrorist, including defining a process to make the justification for targeted killings.
Senator: Let's Have a Targeted Killing Court
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022336516
Americans who take up arms against their country fall into the category "US Citizens." That such persons actions cause to be considers the same as any enemy of the state subject to lethal force is not up for debate. The debate is about the process of identifying them and bringing them to justice in those situations that require lethal force, and ensuring that lethal force is indeed the last resort. Even the ACLU and CCR acknowledge those instances, but what is the process for deciding who "poses a grave threat of such imminence that judicial process is infeasible and lethal force is the only option"?
It's a fact that the Constitution affords the President to act accordingly, and ignoring that is not going to make it go away.
We may again get a President like Bush. Sure, he allegedly conducted fewer strikes, but there weren't many reports at the time, and great care certainly wasn't taken to ensure that civilians weren't targeted.
Unreported Strikes
At the time of this writing, the US is believed to have conducted 344 total strikes in Pakistan, 52 between June 17, 2004 and January 2, 2009 (under President Bush),[62] and 292 strikes between January 23, 2009 and September 2, 2012 (under President Obama).[63] Those numbers, which TBIJ has pieced together from available media reports,[64] may underestimate the total number of strikes, especially during the early years of the drone program.
Between 2004 and 2007, the Pakistani government under President Musharraf attempted to hide the fact of US strikes (and Pakistan’s role in them) by contending that the strikes were either Pakistani military operations, car bombs, or accidental explosions.[65] Many of those claims were contradicted within days or weeks by anonymous leaks and eyewitness accounts,[66] and by local journalists gathering evidence at the scenes of the attacks.[67] In one unusually well-publicized incident, an official in the Musharraf regime reportedly asserted that the Pakistani military had conducted a strike on a religious school in Bajaur that killed over 80 people, including 69 children.[68] One of Musharraf’s aides reportedly told a Pakistani media source that the government believed “it would be less damaging” to claim it had killed 82 people than it would be to reveal that it had agreed to let the US carry out strikes on Pakistani soil.[69] Musharraf’s administration was reported to admit that the strike had been a US operation only after political backlash from the strike turned out to be much greater than the government had anticipated.[70] Considering the Musharraf government’s apparent efforts to cover up the US’s role in drone strikes, and the fact that drones often target remote or isolated areas, it is possible that other strikes from the 2004-2007 period have yet to be identified.
Our team’s fieldwork in Pakistan documented at least one incident that might fit this pattern. We interviewed 15 Waziris, including four survivors and four more who visited the strike site within hours or days of the attack, who described to us what they believed to have been a drone strike that took place on June 10, 2006.[71] The attack took place in the early morning of June 10 on a workers’ bunkhouse in a chromite mining camp in the mountains near Datta Khel. In the bunkhouse, a large group of young miners and woodcutters were asleep. Missiles killed 22 and badly injured four. The press described the incident as a helicopter gunship attack carried out by the Pakistani military,[72] based on statements by Pakistani officials claiming responsibility.[73] The survivors and those killed were asleep before the first explosion and knocked unconscious shortly thereafter. In light of the classification by media sources (helicopter strike), the lack of available physical evidence given the remoteness of the location, the lack of eyewitness testimony to the source of the strike, and the significant passage of time since the attack, our research team could not determine whether this incident was a US drone strike or Pakistani helicopter strike, and so chose not to include this event as a drone strike.[74] Nonetheless, given the extensive loss of life, this incident should investigated thoroughly by competent authorities.
http://livingunderdrones.org/numbers/
At the time of this writing, the US is believed to have conducted 344 total strikes in Pakistan, 52 between June 17, 2004 and January 2, 2009 (under President Bush),[62] and 292 strikes between January 23, 2009 and September 2, 2012 (under President Obama).[63] Those numbers, which TBIJ has pieced together from available media reports,[64] may underestimate the total number of strikes, especially during the early years of the drone program.
Between 2004 and 2007, the Pakistani government under President Musharraf attempted to hide the fact of US strikes (and Pakistan’s role in them) by contending that the strikes were either Pakistani military operations, car bombs, or accidental explosions.[65] Many of those claims were contradicted within days or weeks by anonymous leaks and eyewitness accounts,[66] and by local journalists gathering evidence at the scenes of the attacks.[67] In one unusually well-publicized incident, an official in the Musharraf regime reportedly asserted that the Pakistani military had conducted a strike on a religious school in Bajaur that killed over 80 people, including 69 children.[68] One of Musharraf’s aides reportedly told a Pakistani media source that the government believed “it would be less damaging” to claim it had killed 82 people than it would be to reveal that it had agreed to let the US carry out strikes on Pakistani soil.[69] Musharraf’s administration was reported to admit that the strike had been a US operation only after political backlash from the strike turned out to be much greater than the government had anticipated.[70] Considering the Musharraf government’s apparent efforts to cover up the US’s role in drone strikes, and the fact that drones often target remote or isolated areas, it is possible that other strikes from the 2004-2007 period have yet to be identified.
Our team’s fieldwork in Pakistan documented at least one incident that might fit this pattern. We interviewed 15 Waziris, including four survivors and four more who visited the strike site within hours or days of the attack, who described to us what they believed to have been a drone strike that took place on June 10, 2006.[71] The attack took place in the early morning of June 10 on a workers’ bunkhouse in a chromite mining camp in the mountains near Datta Khel. In the bunkhouse, a large group of young miners and woodcutters were asleep. Missiles killed 22 and badly injured four. The press described the incident as a helicopter gunship attack carried out by the Pakistani military,[72] based on statements by Pakistani officials claiming responsibility.[73] The survivors and those killed were asleep before the first explosion and knocked unconscious shortly thereafter. In light of the classification by media sources (helicopter strike), the lack of available physical evidence given the remoteness of the location, the lack of eyewitness testimony to the source of the strike, and the significant passage of time since the attack, our research team could not determine whether this incident was a US drone strike or Pakistani helicopter strike, and so chose not to include this event as a drone strike.[74] Nonetheless, given the extensive loss of life, this incident should investigated thoroughly by competent authorities.
http://livingunderdrones.org/numbers/
Contrary to misinformation, here are the fact surrounding the drone strikes under President Obama.
The report, Living Under Drones, states that between August 2010 and April 2012, civilian casualties were 117 to 284, including 17 children.
It also states that from January 2009 to December 2011, which ecompasses some of the above data, 297 to 559, including about 64 children.
See Appendix C, pages 178 - 179.
Living Under Drones
http://www.law.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/organization/149662/doc/slspublic/Stanford_NYU_LIVING_UNDER_DRONES.pdf
The majority of the strikes were in Pakistan.
First, while civilian casualties are rarely acknowledged by the US government, there is significant evidence that US drone strikes have injured and killed civilians. In public statements, the US states that there have been “no” or “single digit” civilian casualties.”[2] It is difficult to obtain data on strike casualties because of US efforts to shield the drone program from democratic accountability, compounded by the obstacles to independent investigation of strikes in North Waziristan. The best currently available public aggregate data on drone strikes are provided by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), an independent journalist organization. TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children.[3] TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228-1,362 individuals. Where media accounts do report civilian casualties, rarely is any information provided about the victims or the communities they leave behind. This report includes the harrowing narratives of many survivors, witnesses, and family members who provided evidence of civilian injuries and deaths in drone strikes to our research team. It also presents detailed accounts of three separate strikes, for which there is evidence of civilian deaths and injuries, including a March 2011 strike on a meeting of tribal elders that killed some 40 individuals.
http://livingunderdrones.org/
http://livingunderdrones.org/
The two issues, drone strikes and targeted killing, are intertwined, but the solution to targeted killings is separate from what to do about drone.
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