Raw Story reports on the UN investigation of the legality of U.S. drone strikes. This sentence in the story lept out at me:
"US officials have claimed the administration is in the midst of completing a targeted killing rule book"
The
link and more below the fold.
More from the story:
"Emerson hopes the UN inquiry will provide the Obama administration with an opportunity to make its case publicly."
Whoa! I didn't realize it had come to this. I thought the drone strikes were limited to high-value terrorists and on the decline. But this development means that it is becoming permanent policy.
Thankfully, the ACLU seems to be on the case:
"The Obama administration is currently the target of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights over the deaths of three American citizens killed by US drones in Yemen. On Thursday the ACLU expressed hope that the inquiry would reign in the administration’s targeted killing campaign."
While I understand why it would be politically tough for Obama to renounce this policy because he'd be accused of being soft on terrorism, or worse, in cahoots with terrorists. And I understand that the strikes in Yemen were of a known al Queda sympathizer, and his son. BUT to make a policy of targeted killings the norm is fraught with all kinds of problems -- legal, humanitarian, you name it. Civilians gets killed. Innocents may be mistaken for militants.
Am I missing something here? Your thoughts....