U.N. Official Set to Ask U.S. to End C.I.A. Drone Strikes

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

U.N. Official Set to Ask U.S. to End C.I.A. Drone Strikes
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: May 27, 2010

WASHINGTON — A senior United Nations official is expected to call on the United States next week to stop Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes against people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, complicating the Obama administration’s growing reliance on that tactic in Pakistan.

Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Thursday that he would deliver a report on June 3 to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva declaring that the “life and death power” of drones should be entrusted to regular armed forces, not intelligence agencies. He contrasted how the military and the C.I.A. responded to allegations that strikes had killed civilians by mistake.

“With the Defense Department you’ve got maybe not perfect but quite abundant accountability as demonstrated by what happens when a bombing goes wrong in Afghanistan,” he said in an interview. “The whole process that follows is very open. Whereas if the C.I.A. is doing it, by definition they are not going to answer questions, not provide any information, and not do any follow-up that we know about.”

Mr. Alston’s views are not legally binding, and his report will not assert that the operation of combat drones by nonmilitary personnel is a war crime, he said. But the mounting international concern over drones comes as the Obama administration legal team has been quietly struggling over how to justify such counterterrorism efforts while obeying the laws of war.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28drones.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[defendandprotect]

1. Please someone let's splinter this criminal CIA into a thousand pieces and

toss it to the wind . . . as JFk was getting ready to do!

A bunch of Nazis!

[Pavulon]

3. Read history, JFK buried Diem and others like him.

every administration has used them to carry out US interests abroad.

[Peace Patriot]

4. I suggest James Douglass' "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters"

for an account of the CIA's and Henry Cabot Lodge's DISOBEDIENCE of JFK's orders on Vietnam. This was one of several reasons why JFK said that he intended to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces."

Extremely well-documented, well-written and well-focused book. Highly recommended.

[The abyss]

6. Peace Patriot

I never got around to thanking you for recommending this book so long ago.

Rather late, I know. Thank you for this book!

Please do well and never back off!

[Peace Patriot]

16. Pavulon is trying to discredit the ONE president who actively fought back against

CIA control. JFK made a lot of mistakes in his transition from "Cold Warrior" to advocate of world peace, and you can focus on those and say that he was just the same as everybody else, or you can actually read the history and the documents and try to understand the demonstrable truth that he CHANGED during the course of his shortened term of office, and ended up the enemy of the CIA in its ceaseless warmongering.

[The abyss]

19. There is no doubt that JFK was…

Part and parcel to the political system as it existed. If he hadn’t been then there was no way he would have been allowed to get close to any political office, let alone the office of the prez. He was anointed and blessed by the machine, the son of rich and powerful, war hero, etc.

He came into the office a warrior, a man on a mission from god (the machine). He became privy to facts that would not allow him to continue on the path that he had been appointed to follow. His serious efforts to change the world as we knew of it, enlighten the public, make peace with the other powers, resulted in full blown panic from the machine.

The system reasserted its authority in Dallas 1963.

[Peace Patriot]

27. You're welcome, Abyss! The book was a watershed experience for me,

in bringing all that history that I lived through, as a very young political activist, into sharp focus, in every way. Douglass assembles all the research and his own original research and essentially solves the mystery of JFK's assassination (--the ClA clearly murdered him, with Douglass able to point the finger as far up the chain as Richard Helms), but Douglass' main point is equally important--WHY. It was JFK's backchannels to Krushchev and Castro, and his use of those channels to end the Cuban Missile Crisis (the generals and the CIA wanted very much to nuke Russia while the US had missile superiority) but more than this--JFK used his secret channels to begin nuclear disarmament and creation of a world in which the two economic systems could compete without war. The war profiteers simply wouldn't put up with this. Three days after JFK was killed, LBJ remarked, "Now they can have their war!" (Vietnam). (Douglass doesn't think that LBJ was involved in the assassination but was involved in the coverup--mainly because he found out very early that the CIA had done it and had lain a false trail to Russia, to force him to annihilate Russia. He "compromised" with the war profiteers by giving them Vietnam.)

One telling point that I would make about Douglass' historical narrative is that he establishes that JFK believed that he could present a program for world peace to the American people in the 1964 election campaign and they would support him. He never had the chance. But when LBJ ran in his place, on a platform of peace, in 1964, he won one of the biggest victories in presidential history. The issue was PEACE. I know this very well since 1964 was my first vote for president. I voted for peace. LBJ was lying, of course. He was already cooking up the huge war escalation that they all wanted, even while he lied about peace to the public. But JFK would not have been lying, if he had lived. He had had a genuine change of heart about the "Cold War" after facing down Armageddon during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Douglass details JFK's political and spiritual journey toward peacemaker. And LBJ's victory as "the peace candidate" proves that JFK's read of the American people was CORRECT. The American people VOTED FOR PEACE! And they did so in the midst of the "Cold War"! They didn't know they were being tricked. They were expressing their true desire. THAT is why JFK was killed. He was going for genuine peace and would have been re-elected with a huge mandate for peace in 1964.

And "why it matters" is all around us now, with this huge war machine that the U.S. has developed, put to the service of corporate resource wars in a perpetual war that we clearly cannot stop.

Me, my friends, my family, my eventual husband (who was a USAF fighter pilot), my teachers and numerous Americans undertook that same journey, that JFK had tried to take ahead of us--rejecting the "anti-communist crusade" of the 1950s, resisting the hysteria of the "forever war" that was building up in the early 1960s, and fervently desiring ANOTHER WAY--a world without nukes, a world without the constant threat of annihilation, a world without proxy wars, a world in which a decent life was possible for all. JFK, for all his flaws, had the creative spark and intelligence to SEE OUT of the "Cold War," and the courage to venture out of it, and he also sensed that the people would be with him as he tried to change those warmongering policies. He was attuned to the American people in a way that nobody, other than FDR, has ever been. And, really, it was "we, the people" who were assassinated that day--our will, our souls, our deepest and best desires. We have never recovered from it, and that is why "it matters."

[Pavulon]

9. Legacy of Ashes also details the event

seems everyone was ok with dumping him, bit upset that he got killed in the process. But the show went on. Again every president has used the CIA to kill people. Current president, JFK (bay of pigs and dozens of other events) were all AUTHORIZED in writing by the POTUS.

That is how the world works.

[ShortnFiery]

10. No, that's a powerful cabal's hegemonic desire to PROMOTE endless war a la 1984.

http://yorick.infinitejest.org:81/1/img/card-predator_yemen.jpg

[Robb]

2. LOL well, Alston *almost* asked the right question. Good for him regardless.

Sounds like he'd be OK with DoD taking over the strikes. Unfortunately, if that happens, the larger moral issue of the strikes themselves won't ever be addressed, merely the technical issue of whether the civilian CIA are lawful combatants.

I expect at this point CIA would be happy to hand over operations to DoD. It's a win for defense, CIA, and Alston, and nothing substantive will change.

[The abyss]

5. How are we any different?

Thank you for posting Judi! Recommend +1.

<>

<http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/photos/zitler_execution+large.jpg>

<>


Long live the resistance!

[proteus_lives]

8. You keep doing the stupid "U.S. are Nazis" posts.

And the only thing you get across is your historical ignorance.

[rockymountaindem]

13. Pathetic, isn't it?

[proteus_lives]

18. It is.

Access to google pictures doesn't make for understanding.

[Yeahyeah]

7. They won't stop,it's a gold mine,baby!Mangled humans?Oh well,ho hum.

[harun]

11. U.N. official wants C.I.A. drone strikes axed

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON - A senior United Nations official is expected to call on the United States next week to stop Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes against people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, complicating the Obama administration’s growing reliance on that tactic in Pakistan.

“With the Defense Department you’ve got maybe not perfect but quite abundant accountability as demonstrated by what happens when a bombing goes wrong in Afghanistan,” he said in an interview. “The whole process that follows is very open. Whereas if the C.I.A. is doing it, by definition they are not going to answer questions, not provide any information, and not do any follow-up that we know about.”

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37393694/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/

---

Transparency is one thing but the action itself is yet another. Flying around and deciding who lives and dies like you are playing a video game will one day be illegal. Everyone now thinks it is cool but you wouldn't think it was cool if you lived where this was happening (and mistakes were being made).

[sinkingfeeling]

12. So do I.

[Peace Patriot]

14. And even if "mistakes" WEREN'T being made....

...who gave the U.S. the right to execute ANYBODY for being "suspected Taliban," "suspected Al Qaeda," "suspected guerrilla fighters," or for merely holding a gun-- or holding a meeting--in defense of their invaded country, or for being suspected of "opposing U.S. interests"? Who chooses who dies? On the basis of what laws, trials, convictions?

People are being murdered because SECRET operatives--and not just CIA but also PRIVATE operatives--have SECRETLY issued SECRET intelligence to target this person or that group or that village, on the basis of what?--on the basis of IMPERFECT, SECRET spying and surveillance and IMPERFECT and potentially self-interested second-hand, third-hand, fourth-hand sources. Not arrested. Not tried. Not convicted. MURDERED.

It isn't just the "drones"--a particularly horrible manifestation of secret, modern warfare, currently with no accountability. And it isn't just the "collateral damage" (if not DELIBERATE use of terror tactics against combatants and non-combatants alike). It's killing ANYBODY on the SUSPICION that they are "enemies." Bear in mind that the 9/11 attackers (or patsies, as the case may be) were mostly SAUDI ARABIAN and YEMENI. The "dots" connecting that attack to Afghani or Pakistani mountain and border tribes, who have been resisting conquest for 5,000 years, were invented in the first place--and the U.S. is waging a WAR on that basis, killing anybody who doesn't support "U.S. interests"?

This war has absolutely nothing to do with "justice." It is a war for "U.S. interests"--i.e., U.S. imperial domination of the world on behalf of our multinational corporate rulers. It is as crazy--and as much of a quagmire--as the war on Vietnam. It is the kind of war that every objective military and political observer has been warning imperial conquerors against for five thousand years. But is not just unwinnable, it flies in the face of every democratic notion that we ever held sacred. Execution without trial. Guilty until proven innocent. Dare to fight for independence, and you die. Dare to speak anti-U.S. sentiments, and you die. SUSPECTED of same, and you die. Support the local U.S. military imposed tyrant, or you die. And really we must ask, if the Taliban (or SUSPECTED Taliban) are so bad, because they oppress women and spawn terrorists, why is the U.S. not waging this war on Saudi Arabia--THE most oppressive, tyrannical regime on earth?

"Democracy," bah, humbug! "Democracy" ain't in it. "Human rights"? Don't make me laugh. This is a corporate war, by our own corporate tyrants, and the "rules" of corporate warfare are that, if you oppose U.S. corporate rule, or even if you don't, even if you are merely a brainwashed, exploitable unit of profit, you die--whether the slow death of pension looting, credit card gouging, illness profiteering, homelessness, joblessness, and poisoned air, water, soil and food--and oil poisoned oceans, beaches and fisheries--or the fast death of a "drone" bomber remotely operated by a secret judge and jury. You don't count. You are "collateral damage" to the war profiteers and their super-rich, multinational corporate commanders.

[Robb]

21. ...

We're not murdering anybody. Get over yourself.

[Solly Mack]

15. k/r

[hack89]

17. Sounds like he wants the military to run the drones.

sounds reasonable to me.

[ShortnFiery]

20. Killing these tribal peoples is already like shooting fish in a barrel.

Could we do anything MORE to trash our moral reputation in the eyes of the World Community?

Yeah, yeah I get that "War is Hell" but this advantage to pick off INDIVIDUALS with execution orders now for USA Citizens, will sooner rather than later COME BACK to the homeland, i.e., Blow-Back.

How fired up will we be for "drone monitoring" and assaults then? :wow: :scared:

The use of drones for ANYTHING other than observation is just plain EVIL and INHUMANE. Continuing to use this method for military purposes is making Americans LESS SAFE both at home and abroad.

WHEN, not IF, we are hit by another terrorist attack, we should NOT tolerate any American asking, "Why do they hate the USA so much to do THIS?" Especially given the clear collateral damage with this method. If you kill enough women and children, most any other human would HATE the foreign invaders enough to seek revenge.

http://yorick.infinitejest.org:81/1/img/card-predator_yemen.jpg

[Robb]

22. You continue to make shit up, and to sound like a racist.

I asked before and you ran your little "oh, noble savages" and "tribal peoples" self off and hid, so I'll try again: you keep saying you speak for the Afghan people, that you know why they hate us.

Do you know any? Have you spoken to a single Central Asian person in your entire lifetime? Pakistan? Afghanistan? Maybe a Turkmen or Uzbek?

You are not just ignorant, you are ignorant and LOUD.

[ShortnFiery]

23. Slam me for conveying basic common sense and psychology? You know this don't you?

That's why you are so quick with the personal insults fellow keyboard commando. :eyes:

IMO, your behavior is boringly predictable as well as unsound in practice.


You are not just rude, you are rude and MONOTONOUS.

[ShortnFiery]

24. To answer your questions:

"Do you know any? Have you spoken to a single Central Asian person in your entire lifetime? Pakistan? Afghanistan? Maybe a Turkmen or Uzbek?"

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Oh, you don't have to believe me but although I'm a full USA Citizen and have served as an Officer in the US Army, I was born in the Middle East.

Yes, I have a clue.

[Robb]

25. You were born on a US base in the ME.

And "some of your best friends are Pashtun," right?

Your posts on this matter are the worst kind of ignorant racist white-guilt this'll-really-piss-off-daddy horseshit.

I'd be offended if it wasn't all so desperate.

[Cleobulus]

26. He mentioned Human, as in basic human values, but I guess these people...

aren't human to you, are they?