CIA Drones Gone Wild?

[The Northerner]

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the U.S. government doesn't actually know who it's killing with many of its drone strikes in Pakistan. That suggests the United States may well be violating international law.

As the Journal reports, the bulk of the CIA's drone strikes are "signature strikes," which "target groups of men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren't always known."

The Journal notes that the State Department had some concerns about the CIA's aggressiveness, since it was, not surprisingly, upsetting local Pakistanis. But what the Journal doesn't mention, and what's rarely mentioned in the media's coverage of the drone war, is the legal implications of targeting unknown people merely because they're "believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups." Sure, no court is likely to stop the administration from doing it, as we saw when a D.C. District Court dismissed a lawsuit challenging the CIA's targeting of the U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. But if the U.S. turns out to be blatantly violating the international laws of war, that sets a dangerous precedent -- not only for the United States, but for our enemies.

Under international laws of war, a targeted killing, by drone or otherwise, is only lawful if the target was, at the time of the strike, either "directly participating in hostilities" or performing a "continuous combat function." Alternatively, the U.S. government could kill someone in self-defense if he poses an imminent threat to the United States. If the CIA is killing groups of unidentified individuals merely because it believes they're associated with terrorist groups, however, that doesn't meet the legal requirement.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daphne-eviatar/cia-drones_b_1080310.html

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. But..but..think of the favorable PR in campaign season. K&R

[gratuitous]

2. Just call it what it is: A war crime

Or, if you prefer, a crime against humanity. No sense pussy-footing around about it. I'm so old, I remember when the United States used to prosecute such things, rather than work to become the world's leading practitioner.