WTF, readers?
"US sticks to secrecy as drone strikes surge" by Karen DeYoung | Washington Post, December 25, 2011
WASHINGTON - Since September, at least 60 people have died in 14 reported CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions. The Obama administration has named only one of the dead, hailing the elimination of Janbaz Zadran, a top official in the Haqqani insurgent network, as a counterterrorism victory.Related: Haqqani Ha-Ha
It's not funny anymore.
The identities of the rest remain classified, as does the existence of the drone program itself. Because the names of the dead and the threat they were believed to pose are secret, it is impossible for anyone without access to US intelligence to assess whether the deaths were justified.
The administration has said that its covert, targeted killings with remote-controlled aircraft in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and potentially beyond are proper under both domestic and international law. It has said that the targets are chosen under strict criteria, with rigorous internal oversight.
Yet in carrying out hundreds of strikes over three years - resulting in an estimated 1,350 to 2,250 deaths in Pakistan - it has provided virtually no details to support those assertions.
In outlining its legal reasoning, the administration has cited broad congressional authorizations and presidential approvals, the international laws of war, and the right to self-defense. But it has not offered the American public, uneasy allies, or international authorities any specifics that would make it possible to judge how it is applying those laws.
Sure looks like a dictatorship.
The rapid expansion in the size and scope of the drone campaign as the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been winding down has led to increased criticism from human rights and international law experts, many of whom dispute the legal justification for the program.
The criticism has struck a chord inside an administration that prides itself on respect for international law, and it has intensified an internal debate over how much information can and should be revealed.
“Everybody knows we’re using drones,’’ said a senior US official familiar with the program, one of several who agreed to discuss intelligence matters on the condition of anonymity. “On the other hand, we’re doing it on a pretty systematic and standardized basis. Why don’t we just say what those standards are?’’
In Pakistan, at least 240 CIA drone strikes have been reported since 2009. The CIA and the US military carried out strikes this year in Yemen and Somalia, with at least two US citizens among those killed.
See: AmeriKan Missiles Keep Things All in the Family in Yemen
As armed drones become “an increasingly usual tool of war,’’ said a second official, the public and US allies have a right to ask “who makes these decisions. How are they made? Is there any sort of court or something that reviews them? Should there be?’’
Even outside experts who believe the program is legal find the secrecy increasingly untenable. “I believe this is the right policy, but I don’t think [the administration] understands the degree to which it looks way too discretionary,’’ said American University law professor Kenneth Anderson.
“They’ve based it on the personal legitimacy of Obama - the ‘trust me’ concept,’’ Anderson said. “That’s not a viable concept for a president going forward.’’
Administration advocates of more openness about the drone program are in a minority. Many of them are in the State Department, where some officials argue that the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan is the primary cause of widespread anti-Americanism.
The Pakistani government charges the United States is wantonly killing far more militant foot soldiers and civilians than senior insurgent leaders. With no independent access to the region by journalists or humanitarian organizations there is no way to verify the accuracy or effectiveness of the strikes.
Much of the resistance to increased disclosure has come from the CIA, which has argued that the release of any information about the program, particularly on how targets are chosen and strikes approved, would aid the enemy.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has opposed the declassification of any portion of its opinion justifying the targeted killing of US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen this year.
Awlaki, a propagandist for the Yemen-based Al Qaeda affiliate whom President Obama identified as its “external operations’’ chief, was the first American known to have been the main target of a drone strike. While officials say they did not require special permission to kill him, the administration apparently felt it would be prudent to spell out its legal rationale.
Asked about the Awlaki case at an American Bar Association conference this month, top CIA and Pentagon lawyers declined to address it directly. Those allied with Al Qaeda, including US citizens, are at war with the United States and are legitimate targets, said Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson and his CIA counterpart, Stephen Preston.
Others counter that such blanket assertions serve only to convince critics that wrongdoing is being concealed.
I find the policy to be monstrous and call for it to cease.
Imagine living in one of those villages and being awakened by a whoosh, bang, boom.
Btw, the whole effort is based on a steaming crock of lies.
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And what goes up....
"Lull in strikes by US drones aids militants; Pakistani groups increase attacks on security forces" by Eric Schmitt | New York Times, January 08, 2012
WASHINGTON - A nearly two-month lull in US drone strikes in Pakistan has helped embolden Al Qaeda and several Pakistani militant factions to regroup, increase attacks against Pakistani security forces, and threaten intensified strikes against allied forces in Afghanistan, US and Pakistani officials say.
The New York Times and Washington Post need to get their stories straight!
The insurgents are increasingly taking advantage of tensions raised by a US airstrike in November that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers in border outposts, severely straining relations between the two nations.
The CIA, hoping to avoid making matters worse while Pakistan completes a wide-ranging review of its security relationship with the United States, has not conducted a drone strike since mid-November.
GOOD! Less souls for God to sort through!
Diplomats and intelligence analysts say the pause in CIA missile strikes - the longest in Pakistan in more than three years - is offering for now greater freedom of movement to an insurgency that had been splintered by infighting and battered by US drone attacks in recent months.
Yeah, if we don't turn the Pakistan mountains into rubble the "terrorists' will come back.
GOOD! Less souls for God to sort through!
Diplomats and intelligence analysts say the pause in CIA missile strikes - the longest in Pakistan in more than three years - is offering for now greater freedom of movement to an insurgency that had been splintered by infighting and battered by US drone attacks in recent months.
Yeah, if we don't turn the Pakistan mountains into rubble the "terrorists' will come back.
Several feuding factions said last week that they were patching up their differences, at least temporarily, to improve their image after a series of kidnappings and, by some accounts, to focus on fighting Americans in Afghanistan.
Other militant groups continue attacking Pakistani forces. Last week, Taliban insurgents killed 15 security soldiers who had been kidnapped in retaliation for the death of a militant commander.
The spike in violence in the tribal areas - up nearly 10 percent in 2011 from the previous year, according to a new independent report - comes amid reports of negotiations between Pakistan’s government and some local Taliban factions, although the military denies that such talks are taking place.
A logistics operative with the Haqqani terrorist group, which uses sanctuaries in Pakistan to carry out attacks on allied troops in Afghanistan, said militants could still hear drones flying surveillance missions, day and night. “There are still drones, but there is no fear anymore,’’ he said in a ephone interview.
Overall, drone strikes in Pakistan dropped to 64 last year, compared with 117 strikes in 2010, according to The Long War Journal, a website that monitors the attacks....
What more is left to say, readers?
I guess the "truth" is whichever day you read the paper.
Pakistan ordered drone operations at its Shamsi air base closed after that airstrike, but CIA drones flying from bases in Afghanistan continue to fly surveillance missions in tribal areas. The drones would be cleared to fire on a senior militant leader if there were credible intelligence and minimal risk to civilians, US officials said. But for now, Predator and Reaper drones are holding their fire, the longest pause in Pakistan since July 2008.
“It makes sense that a lull in US operations, coupled with ineffective Pakistani efforts, might lead the terrorists to become complacent and try to regroup,’’ one US official said. “We know that Al Qaeda’s leaders were constantly taking the US counterterrorism operations into account, spending considerable time planning their movements and protecting their communications to try to stay alive.’’
I'll bet they do.
A Defense Department official put it more bluntly: “They’re clearly taking advantage of this period. They’re not stupid.’’
No, but that's what the AmeriKan media thinks of the American people.
Several administration officials said yesterday that any lull in drone strikes did not signal a weakening of the country’s counterterrorism efforts, suggesting that strikes could resume soon....
Analysts say the hiatus coincides with and probably has accelerated a flurry of insurgent activity and new strategies....
War on!
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Related: U.S. Drones Dropping Out of the Skies Like Flies
I hope the war-profiteering overcharges were worth it, Americans.