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The Washington Post is reporting that the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the Obama administration to disclose its legal rationale for killing American citizens with drone strikes.
If I'm reading this correctly, the ruling applies only to drone strikes that kill American citizens like Anwar Al-Awlaki, not the entire broader campaign of drone attacks in Pakistan and other countries. It doesn't require the strikes on Americans to stop, but it does appear to open the door to legal challenges to the justification for such attacks.
The Court's ruling does allow the administration to redact the documents before release. The full 52-page PDF of the ruling is available here.
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White House Ordered to Disclose Drone Memo
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Give your child mental blocks for Christmas.
(Score: 5, Informative) by physicsmajor on Tuesday April 22 2014, @04:48AM
This doesn't separate out American citizens, but it's incredibly poignant how much pain and death we are dealing out that is not being covered. At all. Also, the tremendous amount of collateral damage being inflicted.
http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/ [pitchinteractive.com]
With sources.
Everyone regardless of supposed political leaning should see this.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by rjt on Tuesday April 22 2014, @05:05AM
That's an excellent link. It's interesting that there have been no civilian casualties in almost a year. I wonder if this is this just a feature of the fact that the number of strikes in Pakistan has seemingly decreased, or have they became more accurate in their targeting?
(Score: 4, Informative) by davester666 on Tuesday April 22 2014, @05:55AM
It's more of a 'redefine everybody killed by the drone as being a terrorist and/or supporter of terrorism' thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22 2014, @12:57PM
the sad reality is, that is actually true
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Tuesday April 22 2014, @06:43PM
> It's more of a 'redefine everybody killed by the drone as being a terrorist and/or supporter of terrorism' thing.
That is absolutely true. [huffingtonpost.com] It is also par for the course. I've spent a lot of time consulting for defense contractors and what I learned in the process is that redefining the problem away is standard practice when they don't want to spend the money to really fix things.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Tuesday April 22 2014, @05:58AM
Sadly, what's really been happening is a lack of interest in categorizing the actual casualties.
The vast, vast majority of the "Other" grouping is civilians or children. If they were combatants or terrorists, you bet we'd be trumpeting it from the rooftops. Much easier to bin all the troublesome casualties as "Other," particularly when the press is effectively wholly owned and uninterested in doing their jobs as the fourth estate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22 2014, @02:30PM
Given the source, I interpreted "other" as "intended targets." They list, after all, only "Children" "Civilians" and "Other," with no mention of "Terrorists."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22 2014, @06:15AM
Anything can be spun to accent a particular leaning or angle. IT seems to me that in the one case mentioned in the posting, this is an "amerikan". Go and take out the movie "Not without my daughter". These cherry-pie people have duped and lulled the US into submission to their agenda. Nuff sed... go watch, have a think...
(Score: 3, Informative) by WillAdams on Tuesday April 22 2014, @01:09PM
Or here:
http://notabugsplat.com/ [notabugsplat.com]
We're supposed to be the good guys. Winning hearts and minds didn't work in Vietnam 'cause that conflict wasn't about good vs. evil --- we need to not bother w/ conflicts unless there're clear, unambiguous labels to be applied and we need to avoid force, save as a last resort --- just as Gen. Washington warned us in his farewell address, ``...moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.'' --- Geo. Washington http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.as p [yale.edu]
(Score: 1) by JustNiz on Tuesday April 22 2014, @04:48PM
I'd like to see a similar graph on the actions of the terrorists.
I suspect what this would actually confirm is that a whole lot of innocents are getting killed by both sides, but unlike the terrorists, the drones don't also commit torture, rape, abuse, indoctrination, religious persecution, brainwashing and incarceration. Also unlike terrorists, the drones aren't targeting civilians on purpose.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 22 2014, @05:16PM
"the drones don't also commit torture, rape, abuse, indoctrination, religious persecution, brainwashing and incarceration."
Unfortunately I am not sure which side you're referencing here. Are you talking about Guantanamo Bay such that we're morally better off just killing them outright rather than sending them to camps or ?
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday April 22 2014, @06:16PM
When the TB tie someone up and boil them alive as an example, nobody cares. Is it terrorism? Yes. Is it global terrorism in any way? Nope. Does it help enable the TB to reach a global level. Yes.
When Iraq was having it's pseudo-"civil war" problem it was really just terrorism and power grab. Most Sunni attacks on Shiite were from people not indigenous to Iraq. I'm not pointing fingers or anything, both sides went at it really hard. The Coalition was just in the way. People like to joke about terrorism but that's only because they aren't affected by it. Global terrorism seems to be very very rare. What do you call a city gang when they kill people to send messages? Murderers, yes. But you could also say terrorists. A terrorist doesn't have to be the Hollywood stereotype. A terrorist doesn't even have to kill people. Eco-terrorists typically target industrial facilities and not the people who work at them.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Tuesday April 22 2014, @06:56PM
> Global terrorism seems to be very very rare
Something like 85% of all terrorist acts in Europe are about seperatism and nationalism. [loonwatch.com] I expect that's about what it is for the rest of the world too. Even now, in Iraq, the place is going to shit again precisely because the religious group in power has been icing out the other guys. It is human nature to want self-determination and when they don't get it through politics, people turn to violence in order to share their frustrations. If the iraqi government hadn't decided to forget about all that pesky stuff about being a representative government, they wouldn't be facing all the violence from the people who aren't represented.