Why This? Why Now?

At the top of the front page of this morning's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a reprint of a Washington Post article by Craig Whitlock (“Missteps by U. S. in Africa revealed”) reporting that in 2003, the U. S. had an opportunity to assassinate Mokhtar Belmokhtar, alleged mastermind of last month's attack on an Algerian natural gas facility in which 38 hostages were killed. The attack was “vetoed” by the U. S. ambassador to Mali, Vicki Huddleston.

“I'm really frustrated right now because I think we blew it,” said retired Air Force General Charles Wald, exhibiting perfect 20/20 hindsight. If you read far enough into the article, you find that Ms. Huddleston gave three reasons for blocking the proposed air strike: (1) Belmokhtar had never attacked Americans; (2) ten years ago, he was considered only a “minor figure;” and (3) it was “unclear” whether he was actually in the proposed target area. I'm not a terrorism expert, but those sound like three very good reasons not to bomb somebody. The article, however, presents this as a huge blunder by Ms. Huddleston.

The first thing to note about this article is that it is unlikely to have resulted from an independent investigation by the Post reporter. It is there because somebody leaked it. The Pentagon is proposing to expand American strikes into Africa by unmanned aircraft (drones). The article implies that our only mistake is not doing targeted assassinations of Africans soon enough. This story is a public relations triumph for the Pentagon under any circumstances, but it appears in the context of several recent developments related to American military policy.

• A memo giving a “legal defense” of the American policy of assassinating U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism has been leaked to NBC reporter Michael Isikoff. The defense can be charitably described as inadequate, and raises more questions than it answers. Here is Rachel Maddow interviewing Isikoff. It is well worth watching.
  
  
  
  
• President Obama has claimed the right to unilaterally engage in acts of cyberwarfare (computer sabotage) against American enemies, including the right to carry out preemptive cyberstrikes.
  
  
• The Senate will hold a confirmation hearing Thursday on the President's appointment of John Brennan to head the CIA. Brennan is strongly identified with support for drone strikes against enemy targets. He will almost certainly be questioned about the policy—but probably not very aggressively.

This Just In . . .

The British government has just awarded a $31 million contract to Prox Dynamics of Norway for development of a nano-drone, to be used for surveillance in Afghanistan. The miniature helicopter is four inches long and weighs 16 grams. It is part of a trend toward ever smaller drones.

Use of a nano-drone for surveillance is outrageous enough, but equipping them with powerful nano-bombs is said to be only months away. How long will it be possible to keep these devices out of the hands of private citizens? Will a future U. S. president be assassinated by a nano-drone?

How Do You Spell "Hypocrisy?"

Following the massacre of 12 people in an Aurora, Colorado movie theatre, President Obama condemned the killings, and said, “(T)he federal government stands ready to do everything necessary to bring whoever is responsible for this heinous crime to justice.” Here are the President's complete remarks.

While it is obvious that the defendant should be brought to justice, these remarks are hard to accept coming from a president who has involved the United States in a program of targeted assassination of suspected al-Qaeda members and sympathizers, including American citizens, without due process of law. Using unmanned aircraft, or drones, the program targets several countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. It could be argued that we are not engaged in a legal war with any of those countries, certainly not the last three, and that these are war crimes under international law. The drone program even bears some eerie similarities to the Aurora massacre. It unleashes sudden, violent death, on what often seem to be randomly selected innocent people. It is responsible for the death or maiming of unknown numbers—probably in the thousands—of innocent civilians.

During the eight-year presidency of Dick Cheney, the U. S. became a nation of torturers. Under President Obama, we have become, in Jeremy Scahill's words, “a nation of assassins.” Unlike the ethically-challenged behavior of the Bush administration, the drone program has escalated virtually without criticism from progressives.

Needless to say, the program is entirely futile as a way of fighting terrorism, since it instills deep hatred of the United States in the citizens of these countries. This guarantees that for every terrorist “leader” we kill, hundreds will stand ready to take their place.

The drone assassination program is presented in detail in a May 29 New York Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane. It describes President Obama as personally approving the selection of each target of so-called personality strikes, using biographical sketches on note cards, referred to by his aides as “baseball cards.” It's much easier to get on the other type of kill list—to become the target of a so-called signature strike. If you are a young man, you merely have to fit a vague profile of suspicious behavior. One source joked that a satellite photo of “three guys doing jumping jacks” is sufficient to label a location as a terrorist training camp.

One reason we don't know how many civilian casualties have resulted from the drone attacks is that the administration has developed a self-serving and deceptive definition of enemy combatants: all military-age males are assumed to be guilty “unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” (Of course, no one looks for such evidence.)

How does the Obama administration square the summary execution of American citizens with the Constitution's guarantee of a fair trial? According to the Justice Department, the Fifth Amendment requirement of due process “could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.”

Here is lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald discussing the targeted killing program, and Jeremy Scahill defending his claim that the United States is engaged in “murder.”

For a more thorough discussion of the drone program, I recommend Scahill's 40-minute speech at the Drone Summit in Washington, D. C., in April. Here is part one. You Tube will lead you to the remaining three parts. See also Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050, by Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt.

It is widely speculated that the details of the drone program were leaked to the New York Times by administration sources in order to bolster the President's tough-guy image for the upcoming elections. Apparently, the Obama campaign thinks that Americans consider being a mass murderer an important qualification for the office. However, the article may have unintended consequences.

Becker and Shane make it clear that the President personally supervises every detail of the drone program, including the kill list. In the past, international war crimes tribunals have had difficulty establishing a clear link between the actions of national leaders and atrocities committed on their behalf, since they are usually separated by several layers of bureaucracy. This article supports the claim that President Obama is personally responsible for these assassinations. This could come back to haunt him after he leaves office. As is the case with Henry Kissinger and George W. Bush, Obama may have to refrain from most travel abroad, since he could be arrested at any time and charged with war crimes under international law.