Obama's Drones:The policy is assassination

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers

From his first days as commander in chief, the drone has been President Barack Obama’s weapon of choice, used by the military and the CIA to hunt down and kill the people his administration has deemed — through secretive processes, without indictment or trial — worthy of execution. There has been intense focus on the technology of remote killing, but that often serves as a surrogate for what should be a broader examination of the state’s power over life and death.

DRONES ARE A TOOL, not a policy. The policy is assassination. While every president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel, Congress has avoided legislating the issue or even defining the word “assassination.” This has allowed proponents of the drone wars to rebrand assassinations with more palatable characterizations, such as the term du jour, “targeted killings.”


.....It has been widely reported that President Obama directly approves high-value targets for inclusion on the kill list, but the secret ISR study provides new insight into the kill chain, including a detailed chart stretching from electronic and human intelligence gathering all the way to the president’s desk. The same month the ISR study was circulated — May 2013 — Obama signed the policy guidance on the use of force in counterterrorism operations overseas. A senior administration official, who declined to comment on the classified documents, told The Intercept that “those guidelines remain in effect today.”

Including american citizens. The policy is also progressively being implemented domestically with obama's ndaa.

https://www.aclu.org/video/aclu-ccr-lawsuit-american-boy-killed-us-drone-strike

The ACLU and CCR have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's targeted killing of three U.S. citizens in drone strikes far from any armed conflict zone.

In Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta (Al-Awlaki v. Panetta) the groups 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 last year 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 and based on vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts.

Operation Haymaker, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.

"Surgical" airstrikes by drones or manned aircraft are a fantasy of the uninformed. There will generally be unintended consequences but those who give the order to launch such strikes are never held accountable.

Touchdown

Hellfire missiles—the explosives fired from drones—are not always fired at people. In fact, most drone strikes are aimed at phones. The SIM card provides a person’s location—when turned on, a phone can become a deadly proxy for the individual being hunted.

When a night raid or drone strike successfully neutralizes a target’s phone, operators call that a “touchdown.”



Jackpot

When drone operators hit their target, killing the person they intend to kill, that person is called a “jackpot.”

When they miss their target and end up killing someone else, they label that person EKIA, or “enemy killed in action.”

.............Note the “%” column. It is the number of jackpots (JPs) divided by the number of operations. A 70 percent success rate. But it ignores well over a hundred other people killed along the way.

This means that almost 9 out of 10 people killed in these strikes were not the intended targets.

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/31/1416994/-Quick-Hit-Bernie-sanders-would-not-stop-using-drones-if-elected-President

“The military is easily capable of adapting to change, but they don’t like to stop anything they feel is making their lives easier, or is to their benefit. And this certainly is, in their eyes, a very quick, clean way of doing things. It’s a very slick, efficient way to conduct the war, without having to have the massive ground invasion mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan,” the source said. “But at this point, they have become so addicted to this machine, to this way of doing business, that it seems like it’s going to become harder and harder to pull them away from it the longer they’re allowed to continue operating in this way.”

THE DEATH CYCLE....


https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/firing-blind/

Wordslinger wrote:The drone receives it's targeted signal, a remote operator punches the go button, and because of her cellphone, the grandmother of a taliban or Al Quaida or some other terrorist group gets blown up along with six daughters and 14 kids.

Just mark it down to a mistake ... and move on.

When will my country simply decide to do what's right, instead of acting like the world's leading terrorist?

Buddy, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.....said by Lord somebody....

It's just politically correct warmongering for the green participation ribbon generation and useful idiot leftists.

I saw this on Drudge- Here's what I wrote the author.


Someone is in some deep kimchee with the information released. Glad it’s not me. I think assassination is overkill on how things are termed here. Would you rather base troops infinitely in the desert, constantly in harm’s way or use a method that reduces the chance of American forces becoming casualties? RPAs save lives. They save the nation national treasure that isn’t expended in other means and they help rid our nation of some very nasty people who are bent on destroying our way of life as we know it. I’d love to hear your alternative to not using drones and SOF to accomplish what we need to be done in regard to eliminating threats to the United States.

70+ years ago when my grandfather fought WWII, the media didn’t delve into how the enemy was dispatched. They only cared that none of us were forced to end up speaking German or Japanese as a result of the war. Given the current state of the media, we would have lost that war and been painted as the bad guys, war criminals, or whatever broad brush you paint the military in to sell a story. It’s unfortunate that you denigrate men and women who continue to protect America and American/coalition SOF partners in the Global War on Terrorism. These are people who never get a rest from this conflict. While other folks rotate in and out of the AOR, RPA operators and their support folks live it every day of the week they work without any opportunity for a break- only to be grossly painted as the bad folks here in your article. The leaders too …even the POTUS ( and I am no great supporter of the COWH)….they are giving the American people what they want while we continue to pursue this conflict- less American bodies in flag draped transfer cases, less boots on the ground in some God forsaken hades hole, and elimination of the folks who wish to do harm to us.

"This means that almost 9 out of 10 people killed in these strikes were not the intended targets."

Justifying the murder of innocents by saying it is saving American lives is so convoluted that it makes me want to vomit...You make murder easy and cost free to the military you only assure a great deal more of it. You need to turn in your Christian card at the nearest recruiting center. The military is your god.

Do you know what blasphemy is ?

This is....

This isn't a declared war it's just potshot sniping at mostly innocent people. The pentagon has a new toy and love to play soldier with it. Oh lookie how cool and godlike we are able to rain down HELLFIRE on those insignificant bugs below.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:This isn't a declared war it's just potshot sniping at mostly innocent people. The pentagon has a new toy and love to play soldier with it. Oh lookie how cool and godlike we are able to rain down HELLFIRE on those insignificant bugs below.

Don't blame the military - they can't fart without permission from the political idiots - like their CINC. They are given the ROE and told how to execute the missions assigned.

These drone strikes are pinpricks compared to all out war.

Dresden WWII

HVIs and HVTs often use the proximity of civilians to try and avoid being hit. There does come a time when the ends justify the means and Dirka D Dirka gets a dirt nap. They love discussions like these which Teo loves to bring up, yet offers no solutions to ensuring we kill the folks who are out to change our lifestyle or are responsible for organizing/leading major terror cells. Teo is against "boots on the ground" too. You can't please people like Teo except to not fight wars and we are fighting the GWOT because someone else declared war on us, not vice versa.