The Obama Administration claims that its program of drone assassinations is very precise. However, their own estimates of the number of victims is anything but precise.
Dead or Alive or Maybe
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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It’s sad when you have to go to Al Jazeera to check up on your own government’s lies.
According to their sources – including international human rights groups – the number may be more like 1,100.
One would be too many. Even against “terrorists” the strikes themselves ignore international treaties and our own laws.
The same is true of waterboarding and other forms of torture. So why is nobody being held accountable and hauled before the World Court?
I am reminded of Aesop’s fable about belling the cat. It’s a great idea, sure – but who’s gonna be the one to hang the bell on the cat?
Besides being the fattest cat on the planet, we also make it profitable to be our friend.
Remember When Ford pardoned Nixon? The POTUS job # 1 is to maintain the union. That’s why they all puss out of frying the previous bastard.
It certainly casts profound aspersions/doubt on the alleged robustness of said nation.
The Law is the Law. And under US (and so, a fortiori, under International) Law, every person killed by the US military is a criminal, felonious, enemy combatant.
If they were innocent, and are killed by an Obama drone, that drone was aimed at criminal enemy combatants, and those criminal enemy combatants are guilty of that innocent’s death, NOT the President of the US.
That’s the Law. That’s pure Thrasymachus Justice.
The murder of the innocent has been happening in American wars pretty much ever since Day 1.
Right now, five Dallas police officers are dead due to sniper(s) retaliating for yet another murder of a black man by the police. THAT will get a response from politicians. Not one of them will actually turn to a police chief and say, “If your thugs stopped executing black men, maybe we could get a handle on this situation.” But a couple hundred thousand dead Iraqi civilians? Omelet. Eggs. A couple of politicians expressed outrage and used their positions of power to do absolutely nothing.
Don’t worry. When Hillary is crowned, we’ll see exactly how good the Republicans are at jamming thins up with procedure. And the Dems will cluck and fret very convincingly.
They shot back?!
Wow, didn’t see that one coming…
shocked!!
When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal….
Henri
I meant, of course, that [w]hen the president does it, it’s not illegal….
Henri