The New York Times editorial page (11/30/12) weighs in on the Obama administration’s drone policies. What the paper wants is more accountability: The government “must stay within formal guidelines based on the rule of law.”
That’s all well and good—but the paper should do a better job of counting the innocents killed by drone attacks. The Times explains that aspect of the story this way:
For eight years, the United States has conducted but never formally acknowledged a program to kill terrorists associated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban away from the battlefield in Afghanistan. Using drones, the Central Intelligence Agency has made 320 strikes in Pakistan since 2004, killing 2,560 or more people, including at least 139 civilians, according to the Long War Journal, a website that tracks counterterrorism operations.
That’s an astonishingly low rate of civilian deaths. And it’s fiercely contested by researchers who have tracked the CIA drone program.
The British Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates the civilian death toll is at least four times greater. Other researchers have reached similar conclusions.
So why would the Times use what would appear to be one of the lowest estimates of the civilian toll? The paper is aware of the Bureau‘s work. In February, the Times reported on their research—but, for the sake of “balance,” allowed an anonymous U.S. government source smear the Bureau as Al Qaeda sympathizers.
The Long War Journal, the Times failed to tell readers, is a project of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, whose advisers include William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Joe Lieberman and Iran/Contra conspirator Robert McFarlane.
In the end, the editorial’s call for the government to give a clearer picture of the drone policy is undercut by the fact that the paper does not seem all that interested in knowing how many innocents that policy has killed.
basta
Clarifying the standards or not, this use of drones is serious business that is laying the groundwork for a massive increase in worldwide insecurity as other countries start to follow the US lead and violate other nation’s airspace for surveillance and assassination. Anyone criticized will easily be able to point to the US precedent to do a host of things. The US should be setting a good example and negotiating an international treaty to prohibit abuse, otherwise we will be negotiating or bombing after drones strike US territory.
I love you little Dem trolls running about hands in the air yelling “what happened to our little Barry”?He was a nice guy.A sweet guy.A clean articulate black man(wait that was Joe Biden”)he would never….could never….launch drone attacks.That is what those dirty woman hating Rs do.Not our wittle Barry.LMAO .See what sitting in on top secret intel gets you?It gets you far far away from the liberal retreat,withdraw,surrender mentality.Obama gets the simple truth that he is the guy manning the castle walls deep into the night.One of the few realities about this job he has seemed to grasp.You folks run about bemoaning these conflicts because you believe we are the sole movers of the horror going on there.The word is deluded.
Ramsey Clark has testified in court that the drone strikes controlled at Hancock airfield are war crimes. All weaponized drones should be banned, everywhere.
Drones are a force forward attack and information gathering device that can be controlled from extreme distances behind the lines.How is that a war crime?
We are currently using drones to kill both assassinate “targets” and murder innocents within the borders of countries with which we are not at war. At the very least our actions violate laws of war intended to protect noncombatants.
The U.S. argues this is all a legal response to 9/11.
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In Pakistan we have used drone strikes to attack those coming to the aid of the victims of an initial drone strike. That’s arguably a war crime.
To call anyone the US claims to be a legitimate target of drones or murder a “terrorist” is falling into the traps of imperialist bullies. Whether we like their ideology (religion) or not, anyone fighting against an illegal occupying force is defending his/her country and therefore is innocent.
I’m sure the Germans called the French resistance “terrorists” or some other name. But labeling someone a “terrorist” does not make them so. The real terrorists are the US mercenaries who are trying to subdue a sovereign nation for geopolitical gain and war-profiteering.
Stop trying to distinguish between “innocent” and “guilty” victims of cynical cowardly drone attacks.
Michael E: using statements like “force forward” doesn’t make a war crime not a war crime. The deliberate targeting of civillians, like the medical personnel who respond to these initial attacks, is a war crime. It isn’t “arguable” at all. Using lethal force in a country you are not in a declared war with, is also a war crime. Nothing has changed legally except the level of warmongering in Washington.
Drones have NEVER been used by this country toward the killing of innocents as the desired target.You go to far with such blatant lies.
So called “double tap” drone attacks where rescuers are targeted have happened.
http://dawn.com/2012/07/07/twenty-die-in-double-drone-attack/
Discussion of the report on drone strikes released in Sept 2012… including documented “double tap” attacks here.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208307/Americas-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-killing-49-people-known-terrorist-Pakistan.html
More drone death data
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/
Hey random Paul.Why dont you just ask “thee most open and honest president ever”if he has ever condoned double tap strikes with an eye toward killing civilians.The question is ridiculous.And Im his harshest critic.Yeah and each drone carries bio war cells that lesson our enemies birth rate.Write that story.Ask him that too
Isn’t funny and strange and telling, Random Paul (and others), that our right-wing numbskull troll backs up the President he normally hates when violence and murder and extra-constitutional acts (the real deal, not the ravings of the Tea-Baggers) are involved? Mr. Obama takes it upon himself to be judge, jury, and executioner and our Constitution-loving Bagger sees no problem at all. Indeed, he cheers the Great Liberal on–pay it forward, troll! We see your true stripes. You’re not interested in anything other than violence and mayhem, and it’s fine if a “liberal” is doing it. You’re a dummy, and a fraud.
When the president that some of us have elected has AND USES a “kill list”–in, particularly, nations with whom we are not at war, he must avail himself of funds provided by us taxpayers, even those who did not vote for him, making us all accessories to murder. Drone bombs should be outlawed like chemical and biological warfare that also kills unknown innocents. And killing “first responders” to the bombs’ victims is especially heinous!