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Current U.S. policies on using drones for targeted killing are characterized by ambiguities in interpretations of international law and too many generalities, despite recent efforts by the Obama administration to clarify the policies, a new RAND Corporation report finds.
The report outlines an approach that would provide greater clarity, specificity and consistency in U.S. international legal policies involving the use of long-range armed drones in targeted killing.
"Policymakers in the United States and other countries need to define an overall approach to targeted killing using long-range armed drones that protects civilians and human rights, while also allowing reasonable latitude in the fight against terrorism," said Lynn Davis, the study's lead author and a senior fellow at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "Adopting such an approach would provide a basis for building public support at home and abroad for U.S. policies."
[...] According to the report, the Obama administration's reluctance to pursue international norms has created an environment where countries could employ long-range armed drones in ways that could harm U.S. interests by exacerbating regional tensions and violating human rights through the illegal use of drones to further the agendas of anti-American groups.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bziman on Friday September 09 2016, @01:47PM
We could stop flying into other people's countries and blowing up their stuff and murdering their people.
http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ [brown.edu]
For every American killed by terrorists at home, we've killed a hundred people abroad. Maybe some were bad guys. But more were just trying to defend their way of life from us. And the overwhelming majority weren't fighting at all... They were just innocent noncombatants trying to survive in their own harsh reality.
Enough war already. If you want peace... then wage peace. It is the only way.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gravis on Friday September 09 2016, @03:49PM
You fundamentally do not understand what ISIS wants [theatlantic.com] or what al-Qaida wants. [spiegel.de]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday September 09 2016, @05:19PM
ISIS is a bunch of rednecks who can't control any area where their religious group isn't a majority. But they are good at advertising, and one of the best propaganda tools they use is the news of the infidels killing muslims (second best is the news of ISIS idiots killing Westerners).
If non-muslims didn't need the muslim areas (for land in the west, oil in the middle, and whatever the fuck we did in the east), those groups would just have their little local spats like the friendly Africans still do (it's out of fashion in South America and Europe, at least for a little while).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by shortscreen on Friday September 09 2016, @06:32PM
If the US would stop shipping massive quantities of weapons to the middle east, stop funding the religious-extremist Sauds, and stop attempting to overthrow governments, then groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda would be even less of a threat to us than they already are(n't).
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday September 10 2016, @06:21PM
I agree that we should stop all of the above and put all our effort into shifting to electric so there is no need any country to import oil but that would not stop such group from getting weapons and killing people. Frankly, I don't see any of them as much of a threat and the regional governments should be handling them.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday September 12 2016, @07:29AM
I know that bin-laden was totally successful in what he was trying to accomplish. He got us to cower in fear, seeing a boogie man around every corner. We've got TSA agents feeling up the genitals of children and old women, everyone having to take off their shoes to fly in a plane, roving gangs of TSA agents searching people in bus and train stations, our gov't spies on it's citizens harder than they spy on foreign governments.
And we embrace it. Happily. Because we beg them to keep us safe. Stop the next boogie man.