In a release dated February 1, 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) indicated it had filed a lawsuit demanding our government release information about the ongoing and now expanded drone aircraft program,
a program the Union calls the “government’s targeted killing program.” The ACLU is an advocate for civil liberties, founded in 1920 to defend freedom of individual Americans to speak out against war. Its motto is “Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself.”
The complaint says, in part:
Our government’s deliberate and premeditated killing of American terrorism suspects raises profound questions that ought to be the subject of public debate. Unfortunately the Obama administration has released very little information about the practice — its official position is that the targeted killing program is a state secret — and some of the information it has released has been misleading.
…We’re seeking, in addition to the legal memos, the government’s evidentiary basis for strikes that killed three Americans in Yemen in the fall of 2011.
This issue of unmanned war machines indeed may be of significance. In recent days the president seems to be going to some length to discuss the drone program as it pertains to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Additionally, we recall that a few weeks ago an American drone on a surveillance mission was captured and retained by the authorities in Iran.
In late January the president publicly acknowledged drone strikes on Pakistan for the first time. President Obama said, "A pinpoint strike is ‘less intrusive’ of other countries' sovereignty than other military ways to target al Qaeda.” Speaking on a YouTube video, in a story printed in Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language news network, he referred to drone strikes as being “targeted and focused;" aimed at active terrorists in tough terrain remote areas near and between Afghanistan and Pakistani borders .
The president added:
I think that we have to be judicious in how we use drones, but understand that probably our ability to respect the sovereignty of other countries and to limit our incursions into somebody else's territory is enhanced by the fact that we are able to pinpoint strikes on al Qaeda operatives in a place where the capacities of that military in that country may not be able to get them. …For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military actions than the one that we're already engaging in.
A White House senior administration official said,
With hundreds of strikes over the past few years, the program has been one of the biggest open secrets in Pakistan. For years, the Pakistani government has given tacit approval of the strikes while publicly condemning them.
He also said that the president was discussing something widely known, and repeated that the missions are "precise" and "targeted to avoid casualties."
Article comments
1 - Cannonshop
I'm surprised, John, that this hasn't gotten more comments.
Maybe because the ACLU's case is so blatantly obvious, and the wrong guy's in the White House so nobody cares who'd normally be up in arms about it.
So, what the hell, I'll toss in something to think about...
Drones make killing people a much easier decision to make-that's the moral hazard with them. there's no pilot to be shot down and captured, paraded around on teevee screens and put up for a show trial.
Too Easy. Kind of like lobbing cruise missiles in the nineties was, and for the same reason. The danger with Drone warfare, is that it moves the option of killing up on the options-board, because the downsides are too hard for politicians to process.
This, then, represents an ethical problem-in an actual WAR (as in, already started), Drones are a great asset, but in situations like the GWOT, they represent new and exciting ways to deflect blame and consequences while making it SOOOO much easier to order a killing.
With things like NDAA and the PATRIOT ACT, it's even EASIER to just sentence someone to death-by-remote-control.
As a Conservative, I'm going ot have to say that the ACLU's on the right side this time.