So did US drones really kill 60 plus people in Yemen?

[malaise]

Were these human beings? Do they count? Does anyone care?

[DesMoinesDem]

1. "Turns out I'm really good at killing people." -Obama

[malaise]

4. He's not in Bushco's league

That's who destroyed all American credibility

[marions ghost]

2. Apparently yes

But here's something from Reuters that indicates that the government may not be able to justify it so easily in future:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/21/us-nytimes-dronestrikes-lawsuit-idUSBREA3K0QC20140421

(Reuters) - A federal appeals court ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to turn over key portions of a memorandum justifying the government's targeted killing of people linked to terrorism, including Americans.

In a case pitting executive power against the public's right to know what its government does, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling preserving the secrecy of the legal rationale for the killings, such as the death of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen.

Ruling for the New York Times, a unanimous three-judge panel said the government waived its right to secrecy by making repeated public statements justifying targeted killings.

These included a Justice Department "white paper," as well as speeches or statements by officials like Attorney General Eric Holder and former Obama administration counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, endorsing the practice.

The Times and two reporters, Charlie Savage and Scott Shane, sought the memorandum under the federal Freedom of Information Act, saying it authorized the targeting of al-Awlaki, a cleric who joined al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate and directed many attacks.

"Whatever protection the legal analysis might once have had has been lost by virtue of public statements of public officials at the highest levels and official disclosure of the DOJ White Paper," Circuit Judge Jon Newman wrote for the appeals court panel in New York.

He said it was no longer logical or plausible to argue that disclosing the legal analysis could jeopardize military plans, intelligence activities or foreign relations.

(More at link)

[malaise]

3. That's very good news

I'm weary of the violations of 'international law' and more than a few people across the planet are just as tired.
Kerry's trip to Ukraine is looking like farce.

[marions ghost]

5. This is a war we are waging on Yemen

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/death-from-above-how-american-drone-strikes-are-devastating-yemen-20140414

And I call it terrorism. Imagine if some country were doing this to us.

"The people of Yemen can hear destruction before it arrives. In cities, towns and villages across this country, which hangs off the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, the air buzzes with the sound of American drones flying overhead. The sound is a constant and terrible reminder: a robot plane, acting on secret intelligence, may calculate that the man across from you at the coffee shop, or the acquaintance with whom you've shared a passing word on the street, is an Al Qaeda operative. This intelligence may be accurate or it may not, but it doesn't matter. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, the chaotic buzzing above sharpens into the death-herald of an incoming missile.

New Report Documents the Human Cost of U.S. Drone Strikes in Yemen

Such quite literal existential uncertainty is coming at a deep psychological cost for the Yemeni people. For Americans, this military campaign is an abstraction. The drone strikes don't require U.S. troops on the ground, and thus are easy to keep out of sight and out of mind. Over half of Yemen's 24.8 million citizens – militants and civilians alike – are impacted every day. A war is happening, and one of the unforeseen casualties is the Yemeni mind.

Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma and anxiety are becoming rampant in the different corners of the country where drones are active. "Drones hover over an area for hours, sometimes days and weeks," said Rooj Alwazir, a Yemeni-American anti-drone activist and cofounder of Support Yemen, a media collective raising awareness about issues afflicting the country. Yemenis widely describe suffering from constant sleeplessness, anxiety, short-tempers, an inability to concentrate and, unsurprisingly, paranoia.

Alwazir recalled a Yemeni villager telling her that the drones "are looking inside our homes and even at our women.'" She says that, "this feeling of infringement of privacy, combined with civilian casualties and constant fear and anxiety has a profound long time psychological effect on those living under drones."

(more at link)

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/death-from-above-how-american-drone-strikes-are-devastating-yemen-20140414#ixzz2zednGKfh
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[malaise]

6. This is madness

This is the real violation of international law.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

19. What is this "law" of which you speak?

Is that one of those quaint notions of a bygone time when rulers fabricated rules that allowed them to act as they saw fit while the people obeyed in hushed servitude?

The law is nothing but the chains they hang around our necks.

[msanthrope]

21. I thnk you are incorrect--you assume that the legal analysis of the white paper will somehow

be deficient. I do not think that is the case.

There was plenty of justification to target Awlaki--heck, the BA bomb plot alone earned him a drone, in my opinion.

[marions ghost]

40. "earned him a drone"

and did 80 civilians earn a drone?

I think there may be other more effective ways to target Awlaki.

Also I think this sets a very bad precedent for conducting warfare where the American people have NO idea what is being done. Most people do not understand what is happening in Yemen--not like they did in Iraq.
There are plenty of other things wrong with drones, but I can see you're OK with them so...

I am not assuming that legal analysis of the white paper will be "deficient" (ie. not legal)--but I am of the opinion that we should have access to the documents so that we can better know what is going on, who has authorized it, etc. If we don't understand what's happening, how can we object? So the NYT winning on this is good. In this nasty drone business all we are doing is creating more terrorists while we ourselves terrorize innocent people. I'm sick of it. This is not an honorable way to do this.

Consider that a lot of things that are technically legal are basically immoral and just plain wrong. I don't think I have to give you examples. But you know what I mean.

[msanthrope]

42. Really? Tell us exactly how you would have targeted Awlaki? nt

[marions ghost]

46. Really?

You can't think of any other ways other than raining terror on a country of 20 million? And I think you know as well as I do that the numbers of civilian "bug splats" is likely to be higher than estimates.

I am not saying that we should let the jihadi leaders run amok. But without more controls on this type of stealth warfare we are headed for very dangerous waters, both strategically and morally. It is bad policy as it stands now. And I can't sit idly by while innocent civilians are being wantonly terrorized and there is a pattern of blatant overkill.

What does this form of terrorism do to the soul of OUR nation? You have to ask that question.

This is a military/CIA program out of control, taking full advantage of weaknesses in policy and international law.
------------------

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/04/us_drone_strike_kill_26.php

"The pace of the drone strikes in Yemen decreased last year from the previous year (26 in 2013 versus 41 in 2012). The reduction in the number of strikes coincided with a speech by President Barack Obama at the National Defense University in May 2013. The strikes are being reduced as the US government is facing increasing international criticism for conducting the attacks in both Yemen and Pakistan."

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/04/us_drone_strike_kill_26.php#ixzz2zn8hVYBn

-------------------
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-yemen/

http://www.livingunderdrones.org/report-legality/
http://www.livingunderdrones.org/numbers/
http://www.livingunderdrones.org/living-under-drones/

These legal concerns include questions regarding:

-- individual strikes, including those on mosques, funerals, schools, or meetings for elders to gather and resolve community disputes, where large numbers of civilians are present. Even when such strikes are aimed at one or more individuals who may be deemed legitimate military targets, the presence of large numbers of civilians in such spaces may make the strike disproportionate. Strikes that result in large numbers of civilian deaths also raise questions about whether adequate precautions in attack were taken;
-- signature strikes, which reportedly are based on behavior patterns observed from on high and interpreted thousands of miles away. The practice of such strikes raises concerns about whether they are conducted with the proper safeguards to ensure that they strike lawful targets;[40]
-- strikes on rescuers and first responders, as documented in the Living Under Drones Chapter.[41] These may violate the principle of distinction, and also contravene specific rules protecting the wounded and humanitarian assistance.[42] It might be that, under the ICRC formulation of the CCF test, a fighter could be lawfully targeted even while the person is at that moment rescuing someone.[43] However, available evidence raises very serious concerns about such strikes, given that they occur in areas where civilians are very likely to be present. The short time between first and second strikes at rescue sites further raises questions over how an individual’s lawful target status could be properly determined. Evidence uncovered by our research team that humanitarian actors may not attend to strikes immediately because of second-strike fears is especially troubling.[44] As U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, sum­mary or arbitrary exec­utions Christof Heyns observed, “If civilian ‘rescuers’ are indeed being intentionally targeted, there is no doubt about the law: those strikes are a war crime;”
-- the proportionality of particular strikes, in light of the higher-end estimates of civilian casualties noted in the Numbers chapter. Recent revelations regarding the Obama administration’s “guilt by association”[47] approach to counting drone-strike casualties, classifying ‘all military-age males’ as ‘combatants’ absent exonerating evidence, reinforce these concerns;

[msanthrope]

53. Kindly tell us the specific strategy you would have used for Awlaki. Why not answer the question?nt

[marions ghost]

54. Because

it's pointless to discuss it. Everybody knows there are other ways to go about this.

You think it's fine to terrorize an entire country just because you can. And hide the "collateral damage" just because you can. And take full advantage of weakened American and International laws on extra-judicial campaigns just because you can.

The "specific strategy for getting Awlaki" you are trying to extract from me-- is a deflection. I said I had no problem with targeting jihadist leaders. Targeting. What we are doing here is engaging in the same old "Nuke Em" pattern of wreaking havoc on a whole country, or large section of it. It is vindictive and intended to send a message to the bad guys. That's worked SO well (NOT). It is a failure as a policy and should be greatly curtailed.

You are trying to give the drone program credibility. I say it is an immoral use of force with dangerous precedents--actually a very negative thing for the morale and safety of OUR country.

You and I are too far apart to have anything but a useless wrangle.

[msanthrope]

56. If everyone knows there was another way to get Awlaki, then why not simply

write it down for the benefit of those who have not figured this out?

Drone warfare is preferable to boots on the ground, and given the sheer level of terrorist activity coming from that region and directed at the United States and other African states, how else is AQAP dealt with?

AQAP and their allies aren't interested in surrender or in making nice.... current incursions on the African continent make that pretty clear.

Again...how else would you engage with AQAP???

[marions ghost]

61. You like drones

...and I'm sure whatever I say I can't change your mind. So I'll leave you with Professor Jeremy Waldron who gives several arguments for the limiting of drone warfare, worth thinking about:

[msanthrope]

62. I wish drones had been on the table at Tora Bora. Might have saved us the whole Iraq war.

And I prefer drones to American servicemen on the ground. And while Professor Waldron is certainly an interesting voice, and one that should be considered, I would ask him the same question I have asked you:

How would you have brought Awlaki to justice without the use of drone? Or are you disputing that Awlaki needed to be brought to justice at all?

[marions ghost]

63. "Saved us the whole Iraq War..."

Here, have another swig of the koolaid. Don't you know that war was the POINT, not ending the war? Mission not accomplished was far more lucrative. And how's that oil grab and stabilization of the region thing workin?

Awlaki was never "brought to justice."

[msanthrope]

64. Precisely--I agree with you. That's why drones were not used by Bush at Tora Bora. Far too

efficient a method when Iraq was in their sights.

Awlaki was brought to justice. He had the choice of surrender, or at least of obtaining counsel. He chose poorly.

[marions ghost]

66. Oh yeah drones are the answer

........ hold onto that false sense of security. You'll need it.

So let's not use "brought to justice" when you mean extra-judicially killed. Awlaki was going to be killed. But he was overkilled. And the killers of the innocent in Pakistan and Yemen will never be brought to justice.

I don't like euphemisms like "collateral damage" either.

[marions ghost]

67. So let me also add the question.....

IF you agree with me that the Iraq war was sold to us on a lie--and thrived on lies--

IF you believe that we have roughly the same military and CIA now as under Booshcheney (no reason to think that's much different)--

IF you believe that the Military Industrial Complex & Big Oil have America under their fat thumbs--

WHY would you trust the secret drone program brought to you by the same cast of characters?

Doesn't add up.

[msanthrope]

68. Trust? Hardly...but AQAP must be dealt with. nt

[marions ghost]

69. And so

you don't care how it's done. (Or shall we say attempted. Because there are no guarantees this will solve anything).

Doesn't the Iraq War experience mean anything? You are supporting the same people who sold us that multi-billion dollar disaster, indicating an overly trusting attitude. The warmongers and war industrialists don't deserve trust.

Do you want this to be how it goes for years and years...? Bug splats and oops, got another kid--

You don't just "deal with it" and get it over with. That is delusional. These people are in it for generations. AQAP will morph again and again. You just have to keep on killing them forever. It never works. We need to ratchet back the drones and work within. Develop renewable energy and mitigate climate change. We need more sensible thinking re. the middle east and the Islamic jihad. I'd like to see some new strategies.

[msanthrope]

70. I do care how. I think that the man who helped send PETN bombs to the US,

who orchestrated the BA bomb plot deserves exactly what he got. Do you dispute that Awlaki got the death he deserved?

[marions ghost]

72. Did his son

deserve what he got? I don't think so.

Did the civilians who got turned into collateral deserve to die?

Judge, Jury and Executioner...efficient, right? Kind of medieval. It's not about whether he deserved to die. It's about the precedent.

You're focused on revenge for this one guy. Not the way to handle the situation.

[msanthrope]

73. His son? No. But he wasn't the target of that operation. Al-Banna was. nt

[marions ghost]

74. Doesn't matter. The son was innocent collateral damage.

But you probably agree with this guy Robert Gibbs, who defended the extrajudicial killing by drone and clearly states that the killing was a OK -- out of a sense of vindictive revenge, not accident:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/

He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also born in America, who was also an American citizen, and who was killed by drone two weeks before his son was, along with another American citizen named Samir Khan. Of course, both Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were, at the very least, traitors to their country -- they had both gone to Yemen and taken up with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Awlaki had proven himself an expert inciter of those with murderous designs against America and Americans: the rare man of words who could be said to have a body count. When he was killed, on September 30, 2011, President Obama made a speech about it; a few months later, when the Obama administration's public-relations campaign about its embrace of what has come to be called "targeted killing" reached its climax in a front-page story in the New York Times that presented the President of the United States as the last word in deciding who lives and who dies, he was quoted as saying that the decision to put Anwar al-Awlaki on the kill list -- and then to kill him -- was "an easy one." But Abdulrahman al-Awlaki wasn't on an American kill list.

Nor was he a member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Nor was he "an inspiration," as his father styled himself, for those determined to draw American blood; nor had he gone "operational," as American authorities said his father had, in drawing up plots against Americans and American interests. He was a boy who hadn't seen his father in two years, since his father had gone into hiding. He was a boy who knew his father was on an American kill list and who snuck out of his family's home in the early morning hours of September 4, 2011, to try to find him. He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all.

How does Team Obama justify killing him?

The answer Gibbs gave is chilling:

ADAMSON: ...It's an American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial. And, he's underage. He's a minor.

GIBBS: I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.

Again, note that this kid wasn't killed in the same drone strike as his father. He was hit by a drone strike elsewhere, and by the time he was killed, his father had already been dead for two weeks. Gibbs nevertheless defends the strike, not by arguing that the kid was a threat, or that killing him was an accident, but by saying that his late father irresponsibly joined al Qaeda terrorists. Killing an American citizen without due process on that logic ought to be grounds for impeachment. Is that the real answer? Or would the Obama Administration like to clarify its reasoning? Any Congress that respected its oversight responsibilities would get to the bottom of this.

[treestar]

87. Notice you did not nor will not get an answer

As to how Awlaki and AQ are to be dealt with.

[msanthrope]

89. I never will...which is why very different people are in charge of things. nt

[MannyGoldstein]

77. Good to know.

Which court signed off on the execution?

[msanthrope]

79. The same court that signed off on the death of Osama bin Laden. nt

[MannyGoldstein]

80. I don't believe any court signed of on executing bin Laden.

Nor do I believe that ben Laden was a citizen.

Are you claiming that the President can execute any citizen at will without judicial permission?

[msanthrope]

81. Now you're catching on. You have a very peculiar mindview...why do you

think American citizens have more rights than others under our laws?

Please explain that.

[MannyGoldstein]

82. Americans don't have full Constitutional rights?

Or non-Americans do?

[msanthrope]

83. You are evading my question. Why can't you answer it? nt

[MannyGoldstein]

84. LOL

Inconvenient question, got it.

Well, the President seems to make the distinction: "I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen – with a drone, or a shotgun – without due process."

[msanthrope]

85. Why do you think Osama Bin Laden did not get due process? nt

[MannyGoldstein]

86. I answered your question, please show courtesy and answer mine

Thanks.

[msanthrope]

88. Actually, you didn't answer my question...so I'll repeat it...

you seem to be suggesting that citizens and noncitzens have different rights of due process. To make it easier for you to answer, since both Awlaki and Bin Laden were targeted under tge AUMF of 9/18/2001, why do you seem to be drawing a citizen/noncitizen dichotomy where there is none.

[MannyGoldstein]

90. I assume if the President makes the distinction, there is one

Perhaps you know better than the President?

[msanthrope]

91. Well, you still aren't answering my question, Manny. Why?

FYI..the quote of the President is completely correct. I think you have simply misunderstood it if you think it is not congruent with my argument.

[MannyGoldstein]

92. I am absolutely answering your question

I'm just not cooperating with whatever silly trap you're trying to set.

Sorry.

[msanthrope]

93. No...not only haven't you answered my question, you also have misunderstood

the President.

Given your postings, and please forgive and correct me if I am wrong, you seem to have drawn two erroneous conclusions:

1) That citizens enjoy rights of due process that noncitizens do not. This is incorrect.

2) That "due process" = "trial by jury." This is a fundamental misapprehension.

Please clarify something for me....are you suggesting that Osama Bin Laden was illegally killed?

[MannyGoldstein]

94. So you *are* claiming that the President can execute any citizen at will? nt

No, I'm not claiming bin Laden was illegally killed.

[msanthrope]

95. Not "any" person and not "at will." (I think restricting this discussion to 'citizens' is both

jingoistic and not particularly helpful.)

If you think Bin Laden was lawfully killed, then what is the gravamen that makes Awlaki not lawfully killed?

Is it his citizenship?

[G_j]

25. wow, missed this

thanks!

[marions ghost]

41. OK

[Supersedeas]

58. If it were so justified, why would the Administration need to keep these killings so secret?

They would just explain the justifications, no?

[marions ghost]

60. Right

--They know there is growing concern about the use of drones. Also questions as to how effective the program really is.

Out of sight, out of mind. That's the insidious thing about this kind of extra-judicial warfare which we weren't even supposed to know about for years after it was begun.

Transparency. Otherwise no credibility.

[hughee99]

7. The proper term for people killed in a drone strike is "suspected militants". n/t

[malaise]

13. That doesn't work for me

unless those at the other end are suspected war criminals.

[hughee99]

14. Doesn't work for me either...

Even if they were "suspected militants" when did it become okay to kill "suspects"?

[msanthrope]

22. When we declared war on them. nt

[G_j]

26. that was easy..

[Recursion]

31. Well, yes, actually. That's kind of the point of war.

You kill the people you have declared war on. The AUMF in 2001 was too broad, but it's what we have.

[bullwinkle428]

32. The 2001 AUMF belongs in the dictionary under the definition of "vague".

[Recursion]

33. Take drones out of the mental image here. What if it were a platoon of Marines?

If a platoon of Marines were dispatched to Yemen as part of the War on Terror, what should they do if they see Al-Awlaki? Should they not shoot?

And yes, the AUMF is way too vague and gives the President way too much power. That's why most of us here protested against it.

[msanthrope]

36. Yes. nt

[hughee99]

34. We declared war on who? Militants?

And if we only SUSPECT they are militants, how do we know we've declared war on them.

[msanthrope]

35. It was in all the papers. On September 18, 2001, the AUMF authorizing action

like this was passed.

I'm still waiting for the true progressive in Congress who will submit a bill for the repeal.

[hughee99]

37. I never said it wasn't in accordance with US law, just that it isn't right.

&quot a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."

Basically, the way it's written, it's a blank check to kill anyone, anywhere.

[msanthrope]

38. Well, no--it's not a blank check. We still needed another AUMF to get into Iraq, and various other

incursions (Libya, Syria, Ukraine) require other means.

It is a blank check to go after AlQaeda, and AQ-affiliated groups. I wish Bush had been this proactive in 2001, but that would have meant no justification for Iraq, so of course he dragged his feet.

I really, really don't have a problem with AQ being targeted by drones. I have a horrible problem with the collateral consequences--the civilians who the terrorists hide behind.

[hughee99]

39. I don't see anything about AQ in the text.

Just that the it's left to the president to decide who was involved in the 9/11 attacks. If I recall correctly, before Iraq, * was claiming the 2001 AUMF was sufficient and that he didn't need to go back to congress for anything, but congress WANTED to hold a vote on Iraq before the 2002 mid-terms, and since the president knew he had the votes for war anyway, didn't push the issue (that he already had the necessary authority from the 2001 AUMF).

[msanthrope]

43. AQ isn't mentioned in the text. Do you dispute they caused 9/11? nt

[hughee99]

44. Of course not, but the bill is written

In such a way it doesn't limit a president to AQ specific targets. It leaves the determination of who was involved and who may have helped them to the president. If * had said Jamaica was involved, is there anything actually in there to prevent him from invading Kingston?

[msanthrope]

45. Nope. nt

[The Straight Story]

8. It gets worse, this barely registered a peep from most folks:

Yemeni Government Covers Up U.S. Responsibility for Civilian Drone Deaths

Following a 2009 U.S. drone strike on the southern region of al-Majala, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians, Yemen’s then-leader Ali Abdullah Saleh told then-U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David H. Petraeus, “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.” The assurance was made in a U.S. Embassy email, which was later disclosed by WikiLeaks.

http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/yemeni-government-covers-up-us-responsibility-for-civilian-drone-deaths-121229?news=846610

original: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022095489

[Jesus Malverde]

9. You will never see it coming...yuck yuck...ha ha

So hilarious.....

[KoKo]

24. AND: Hillary Clinton on Gaddafi: "We came, We saw, He died"---chuckle, chuckle, chuckle

[Jesus Malverde]

27. 12 seconds that defined her term as Secretary of State

The destruction of Libya is her legacy. The ethnic cleansing of Black Libyans, the de-emancipation of women, a government that adopts sharia, years later the country is still at war and failing.

Hillary Clinton Struggles to Define a Legacy in Progress

It was a simple question to someone accustomed to much tougher ones: What was her proudest achievement as secretary of state? But for a moment, Hillary Rodham Clinton, appearing recently before a friendly audience at a women’s forum in Manhattan, seemed flustered.

Mrs. Clinton played an energetic role in virtually every foreign policy issue of President Obama’s first term, advocating generally hawkish views internally while using her celebrity to try to restore America’s global standing after the hit it took during the George W. Bush administration.

But her halting answer suggests a problem that Mrs. Clinton could confront as she recounts her record in Mr. Obama’s cabinet before a possible run for president in 2016: Much of what she labored over so conscientiously is either unfinished business or has gone awry in his second term.

From Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the grinding civil war in Syria to the latest impasse in the Middle East peace process, the turbulent world has frustrated Mr. Obama, and is now defying Mrs. Clinton’s attempts to articulate a tangible diplomatic legacy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/us/politics/unfinished-business-complicates-clintons-diplomatic-legacy.html?_r=0

[RandiFan1290]

48. What a fucking ghoul

[Jefferson23]

10. Policy, malaise:

snip*The White House has deflected questions about a series of drone strikes which are believed to have killed dozens of Al Qaeda militants, including three local chiefs, in Yemen at the weekend.

Yemen's drone wars

Yemen finds itself firmly in the drone crosshairs of the great power of the modern age, Pax Americana, writes Mark Corcoran.

The two-day operation - carried out jointly with the United States - reportedly killed more than 60 militants, making it one of the biggest attacks on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in recent years.

The raids on bases in the rugged mountains of Abyan province on Sunday were among the "most severe" against the jihadist network in Yemen, the country's interior ministry said on its website.

Witnesses say soldiers landed from helicopters soon after the air strikes and appeared to take some of the bodies of those killed.

Yemen's interior ministry said the raids lasted for several hours, adding that "terrorists of Arab and foreign nationalities are among the dead and are in the process of being identified".

It also named three local Al Qaeda chiefs killed in the strikes as Mohammed Salem al-Masheebi, Fawaz Hussein al-Mihrak and Saleh Saeed al-Mehrak.

Mapping the drone war

The New America Foundation maps drone and aircraft strikes carried out by the US in Yemen. (Link redirects to external site).

But when White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked whether well-known leaders or bomb makers were among those targeted, he said: "Now I can't speak to specific operations, but we have a strong collaborative relationship as you know with the Yemeni government and work together on various initiatives to counter the shared threat of AQAP."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-22/yemen-says-55-qaeda-suspects-killed-in-sunday-air-raids/5402652

[malaise]

11. Time to show the bodies

No No No!! This is madness

[Dragonfli]

12. They ARE human beings, I am not sure they "count" to those that are unconcerned with their death

Do you expect more from a culture within the security apparatus that refer to those killed as "bug splats"?

I care if that helps, unfortunately I hold no office and without billions in "free" speech, policy makers don't give a rat's ass what I or others that care think.

[marions ghost]

15. Total numbers so far -- how many Americans know this?

http://natsec.newamerica.net/drones/yemen/analysis
-------------------------

Yemen Strike Totals
108
total strikes

775 - 1018
total killed

81 - 87
civilians killed

663 - 881
militants killed

31 - 50
unknown killed

The purpose of this database is to provide as much information as possible about covert U.S. drone and air strikes (e.g. cruise missiles) in Yemen in the absence of any such transparency on the part of the American government. This data was collected from credible news reports and is presented here with the relevant sources.

It was updated with information from the latest Yemen strike, which occurred on April 21, 2014.

Throughout the history of the program, there have been 15 air strikes and 93 drone strikes in Yemen. With the exception of the first lethal drone strike in Yemen in 2002, all of them have been launched during the Obama administration.

[malaise]

16. This has to stop

This is frightening

[marions ghost]

17. Yes it has to stop

This is the bottom line: Civilians killed, children killed, "unknowns" killed, wrongly suspected killed, and literally millions terrorized:

DRONES = IMMORAL, BARBARIC
DRONES = FAILURE
DRONES =

[seveneyes]

18. Here's a story about piles of bodies that gets even less attention

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_SOUTH_SUDAN_VIOLENCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-04-22-17-29-54

[malaise]

23. The pile of bodies in Iraq were also ignored

Shame! Shame! Shame!

[woo me with science]

20. C'mon. Those were peace bombs from a Democrat.

Couldn't be terrorism. Couldn't be.



US Government admits deliberately aiming bombs at children. They have approved the practice. And we have already had ghoulish posts here from the predictable Third Way, attempting apologism for this depravity.

Purposely aiming bombs at children: "It kind of opens our aperture."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021931748

The US Military Approves Bombing Children
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021930268

"Some Afghan kids aren’t bystanders"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021931789

[Jefferson23]

28. From HRW Daily Brief, April 23, 2014

snip* Dozens of people have been killed in a fresh wave of drone and air strikes in Yemen. Yemeni officials said the strikes, carried out over the weekend, were "unprecedented" in their scale and scope, and claimed at least 55 militants, including three "leaders" of al-Qaeda, were killed in the attacks. A recent Human Rights Watch report found targeted airstrikes against alleged terrorists in the country have killed civilians - a direct violation of international law.

https://storify.com/HRW/human-rights-watch-daily-brief-23-april-2014



What Happened When The U.S. Dropped Drones On Al-Qaeda In Yemen This Weekend

http://www.buzzfeed.com/gregorydjohnsen/what-happened-when-the-us-dropped-drones-on-al-qaeda-in-yeme

[malaise]

29. International Law appears to be whatever the West says it is at any given moment

It's disgusting

[marions ghost]

51. A troubling precedent

--and if anyone reading this can't see the reasons why--you can start with this article:

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20130222-rosa-brooks-the-problem-with-the-drone-war-that-no-ones-talking-about.ece

[malaise]

52. From your link

Sovereignty has long been a core concept of the Westphalian international legal order. The basic idea is simple: In the international arena, all states are formally considered equal and possessed of the right to control their own internal affairs free of interference from other states. That’s what we call the principle of nonintervention — and it means, among other things, that it’s generally a big international-law no-no for one state to use force inside the borders of another sovereign state.

The principle of sovereignty might appear to pose substantial problems for U.S. drone policy: How can the U.S. lawfully use force to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan, or Somalia, or Yemen, or — hypothetically — in other states in the future? Obviously, the U.S. does not have Security Council authorization for drone strikes in those states, so the justification has to rest either on consent or on some theory of self-defense. Thus, the Justice white paper blithely asserts that targeted killings don’t violate another state’s sovereignty as long as that state either consents or is “unwilling or unable to suppress the threat posed by the individual being targeted.”

That sounds superficially plausible, but since the U.S. views itself as the sole arbiter of what constitutes an imminent threat and whether a state is “unwilling or unable” to suppress that threat, the logic is in fact circular.

It goes like this: The U.S. — using its own infinitely malleable definition of imminent — decides that Person X, residing in sovereign State Y, poses a threat to the U.S. and requires killing. Once the U.S. decides that Person X needs to become deceased, the principle of sovereignty presents no barriers, because either (1) State Y will consent to the U.S. use of force inside its borders, in which case the use of force presents no problem (except for Person X, of course), or (2) State Y will not consent to the U.S. use of force inside its borders, in which case — by definition! — the U.S. will deem State Y to be “unwilling or unable to suppress the threat” posed by Person X and the use of force again presents no problem.

[marions ghost]

55. yep the weasel language

gives them Carte Blanche. And people don't see how this backfires on us, never mind being an indefensible policy position to begin with?

[malaise]

57. Which is why although I have no love for Putin

I cannot fault his response

[Jesus Malverde]

30. As I understand it, the people we are droning in Yemen

are a threat to the Saudi royal family, based in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia is a repressive, religious monarchy, if anyone ever deserved to be overthrown and replaced with a secular democratic government it's those guys. I say "guys" because as we all know, women in Saudi Arabia have no rights.

[marions ghost]

47. Good Morning America --

[malaise]

49. Thanks for this

[marions ghost]

50. Thanks for your OP

[Jefferson23]

59. If the goal is to create more terrorists, then go ahead and support these drone attacks.

The idea that we have to do this is bullshit.

Great Op, we need to keep having this conversation..one day there will be another
Republican in the WH and they will go even further with this technology than what
we see now..which is repugnant enough.

[Jefferson23]

65. Appeals Court Rules Government Can't Have It Both Ways on Targeted Killing

04/21/2014



Targeted Killings

By Brett Max Kaufman, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 4:49pm

In an important opinion issued today in the ACLU's ongoing litigation surrounding the government's targeted killing program, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit roundly rejected the government's extreme claims of official secrecy over information about the program. In ordering the release of a 2010 legal memorandum by the Office of Legal Counsel analyzing the potential targeted killing of an American citizen, as well as other information about records the government has previously refused to describe at all, the Second Circuit became the first court to order the release of a document related to the government's targeted killing program. It also became the second federal appeals court in the last 13 months to hold that the government has pushed its secrecy claims surrounding the targeted killing program past their breaking point.

In today's opinion, the Second Circuit panel held that the government's repeated public assurances that the targeted killing program is lawful, and its disclosure of a "white paper" that summarized its legal conclusions, had waived its right under the Freedom of Information Act to keep secret its legal analysis authorizing the killing of U.S. citizens. This is a victory for common sense, and a reminder that the courts have an important role to play in scrutinizing government claims about national security. As the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer, who argued the case before the Second Circuit panel in October 2013, said today, "This is a resounding rejection of the government's effort to use secrecy and selective disclosure to manipulate public opinion about the targeted killing program."

In January 2013, the district court agreed with the government that it could keep secret all of its documents related to the targeted killing program. But even as it denied the ACLU's claims, the district court expressed extreme misgivings about the result, referencing Alice in Wonderland before writing:

I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/appeals-court-rules-government-cant-have-it-both-ways-targeted-killing

[Jefferson23]

71. * snip Have courts ignored presidential overreach?

Is America really giving President Obama the authority to be judge and executioner? According to U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, President Obama is well within his executive authority to order the death of American’s deemed a national security threat.

The American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) contends; “In Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta (sometimes called Al-Awlaki v. Panetta) the ACLU and CCR charge that the U.S. government’s killings of U.S. citizens Anwar Al-Aulaqi, Samir Khan, and 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi in Yemen in 2011 violated the Constitution’s fundamental guarantee against the deprivation of life without due process of law. The killings were part of a broader program of ‘targeted killing’ by the United States outside the context of armed conflict. The program is based on vague legal standards, a closed executive decision-making process, and evidence never presented to the courts, even after the killing.

Since 2002, and routinely since 2009, the U.S. government has carried out deliberate and premeditated killings of suspected terrorists overseas. In some cases, including that of Anwar Al-Aulaqi, the targets were placed on ‘kill lists’ maintained by the CIA and the Pentagon. According to news accounts, the targeted killing program has expanded to include “signature strikes” in which the government does not know the identity of individuals, but targets them based on “patterns” of behavior that have never been made public. The New York Times has reported that the government counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”

Under the Obama administration the targeted kill lists (TKLs) have resulted in thousands of deaths, including civilians. Many of the drone strikes take place outside the context of armed conflict zones in countries like Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Sudan, and the Philippines.

Civil liberty organizations point out that the TKLs rely on “vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts.” Perhaps more importantly the assassinations violate fundamental rights afforded to all Americans, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law.

Nasser Al-Aulaqi, Anwar’s father, told the Center for Constitutional Rights, “I am deeply disappointed by the judge’s decision and in the American justice system. What I am asking is simply for the government to account to a court its killings of my American son and grandson, and for the court to decide if those killings were lawful. Like any parent or grandparent would, I want answers from the government when it decides to take life, but all I have got so far is secrecy and a refusal even to explain.”

CCR lead attorney, Maria LaHood, said Judge Collyer’s was concerning. “Judge Collyer effectively convicted Anwar Al-Aulaqi posthumously based on the government’s own say-so, and found that the constitutional rights of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi and Samir Khan weren’t violated because the government didn’t target them. It seems there’s no remedy if the government intended to kill you, and no remedy if it didn’t. This decision is a true travesty of justice for our constitutional democracy, and for all victims of the U.S. government’s unlawful killings. The judge was appointed by George W Bush and has served on the controversial secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court that allows National Intelligence Agency (NSA) to spy on Americans.”

A State Department official also weighed in on the recent court decision concerning Al-Awlaki. “The revocation of a passport is the cancellation of the document and does not affect the citizenship status of the bearer. Generally, U.S. citizens overseas who have their passports revoked may request and obtain a limited validity passport good only for direct return to the U.S.

Anwar Nasser Aulaqi’s passport was revoked on March 25, 2011 pursuant to 22 CFR 51.60(c)(4) and 22 CFR 51.62(a)(1) which read together state that a passport may be revoked when the Secretary determines that the bearer’s activities abroad are causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States.”

The question then becomes is, did Anwar Al-Aulaqi represent an imminent threat?

ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi says no. “This is a deeply troubling decision that treats the government's allegations as proof while refusing to allow those allegations to be tested in court. The court's view that it cannot provide a remedy for extrajudicial killings when the government claims to be at war, even far from any battlefield, is profoundly at odds with the Constitution. It is precisely when individual liberties are under such grave threat that we need the courts to act to defend them. In holding that violations of U.S. citizens' right to life cannot be heard in a federal courtroom, the court abdicated its constitutional role."

Another question left unanswered is how does one get on the TKL list in the first place? And is the only way off death? The answer may be found in four Justice Department secret memos that define and justify the killing U.S. citizens.

The ACLU, along with the New York Times has filed lawsuits against the Obama administration in an effort to obtain the Justice Department’s memos that justify the drone strikes against the U.S. citizens.

It’s hard to imagine President Richard Nixon shutting down further investigations into Watergate by simply calling “national security.”

Stay tuned - these cases are bound to elevate the debate over the legality of the President's Target Kill List, the use of drone strikes outside a declared war zone, the use of national security claims as a bar to the American peoples' right to know what their government is doing, and the relationship of the courts' Article III powers over the legislative and executive branches of government.

The CIA declined to comment on its targeted kill lists.

http://www.examiner.com/article/president-obama-s-targeted-kill-list-takes-a-hit

[malaise]

76. Frightening indeed

[Jefferson23]

78. Exactly, the policy is similar to a gigantic Petri dish, creating more terror, not ending it.

[Octafish]

75. It's all legal.

Evil, too.