It's taken them long enough to start asking the tough questions. Too bad someone didn't do that a whole lot sooner.

At long last, the appropriate authority -- the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, Philip Alston -- has spoken. I was wondering when somebody in authority will speak up. Many good people of conscience already have -- Ray MacGovern; Chris Hedges; Naom Chomsky; Tom Engelbert; and a countless number of editorialists and activists and lawmakers in the Muslim world, but they are dismissed as 'terrorist-sympathisers'. The thought probably often cross their minds whether they themselves moght not become the targets of those drones for daring to speak up!

Anyway, I hope that President Obama takes heed (Mac Chrystal and Gates won't, nor Hillary). Otherwise, he may be in line, soon enough, to face war crime charges, along with his predecessor W.

Unfortunately the United States will not heed the wishes of the United Nations. That is for the little countries to do. The U.S. realizes that American Exceptionalism is always the rule that the rest of the world must acknowledge. The motto of this country should be Might Makes Right. Or, as George Carlin once observed, show us a third world country and we will bomb the hell out of it.

You don't have to be an expert to know that sending a robot to drop hellfire missiles on people who may or may not "Hate us for our freedom" is about as justified, understandable, or defensible as the actions of Hannibal the cannibal or Ted Bundy.

What's the difference between suicide bombers and drones except that suicide bombers don't have the technology to keep themselves away from the explosions?

What's the difference between suicide bombers and drones except that suicide bombers don't have the technology to keep themselves away from the explosions?

So what? Obviously, international laws mean nothing to the U.S. If they did, we would never have overthrown Mossadegh in Iran (1953), overthrown Arbenz in Guatemala (1954), violated the Vietnam election agreement in 1956, invaded Vietnam, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Grenada, supplied weapons for the genocides in Indonesia and East Timor, helped overthrow Allende in Chile (Sept. 11, 1973), invaded Afghanistan or Iraq, used depleted uranium and white phosphorous, or tortured people.

International laws are for OTHER countries to obey, not us,

We're the United States. We're not accountable to anyone or anything.

Alston said “Secondly, what precautions the United States is taking to ensure that these weapons are used strictly for purposes consistent with international humanitarian law.”

Huh? is there any conceivable use for drones firing hellfire missiles into civilian populations far removed from active fighting that would be considered ”consistent with international humanitarian law?”

I’m pretty sure that if any other nation (except perhaps Israel) decided to take out someone they thought might possibly be a terrorist (or have once known one or someone who they thought might know one) on US soil (or anywhere else in the world) with a drone (or a remote controlled toy airplane, or by throwing rocks, etc) the US would throw a hissy fit about terrorism and blatant disregard for international law...

How tragic that our country continues to operate with complete disregard for cause and effect. ("Why do they hate us???") We've learned nothing and will pay accordingly.

Do you think this tool would be so hesitant to label these actions as "war crimes" if they weren't being done by the US? For instance, assume Pakistan or Afghanistan were sovereign nations. As part of their sovereignty, they started launching predator drone attacks against neighborhoods in the US where the zombies who operate the US predator drones are thought to live. Similiarly, the US still harbors a man convicted in Venezuela of killing dozens of people in the bombing of a Cuban airliner. Think this tool would hesitate to label Hugo Chavez a war criminal if he killed hundreds of American civilans in the course of a bombing campaign intended to execute the convicted airline bomber? Of course our actions aren't even that "legal": the presumed, alleged targets of "our" drone attacks have been convicted of NOTHING.

The bedrock of law is that it makes no distinction among persons and/or nations. When it comes to international law, that principle has been replaced by the following: if the US does it, it is legal. Remind you of any other famous sayings?

Now that the UN recognizes them as illegal, immoral, war crimes against civilian populations abroad, we should seriously lobby for a law that would explicitly ban Predators from being used in the U.S. --- before this EMPIRE starts using them on our own anti-war, anti-corporatism, anti-banksterism, anti-FEDism, anti-CIAism, and all other domestic anti-Empire protesters.

If the British EMPIRE had Predators Americans would never have initially escaped EMPIRE and created the other form of government --- democracy.

Now that our democracy is on life support, and Dr. Global C.(orporate) Empire is trying like hell to pull the plug, we can not hand him this modern Predator/Hellfire scalpel.

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

The fact that Obama vehemently criticized the recent well-reasoned Goldstone report accusing Israel and the Palestinians of war crimes (emphasis on Israel) gives us a good indication of how the US leadership will react to this new report.

Sadly, the only "ethical" consideration that the US takes into account lately is how to maximize our opponent's casualties with minimal risk to US forces. The drone attacks are merely an extension of that ethos and policy.

Imagine if our country were subjects to even one single drone attack. All hell would break loose. This killing-by-robot is a truly horrific idea that should be stopped immediately.

From what I have read in news reports, these drone attacks have killed many more civilians than combatants....I believe the last time i read the report it was hundreds of civilians to about 30 combatants. This is nothing other than pure terrorist attacks by the US. The Islamic world has every reason to hate the US and to defend itself in what ever way it can from these illegal and morally bankrupt war crimes!!! How far down into the abyss of moral depravity can the US fall? I thought it had reached the bottom with Bush and Cheney, the arch criminals of our times! I guess i was wrong...here comes the Obama!!

Remember this? A cause for war against Iraqi 'terrorists'?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5385.htm
Senators were told Iraqi weapons could hit U.S.

Nelson said claim made during classified briefing

By John McCarthy

12/15/03: (FLORIDA TODAY) U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last year told him and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities.

Nelson, D-Tallahassee, said about 75 senators got that news during a classified briefing before last October's congressional vote authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Nelson voted in favor of using military force.

Nelson said he couldn't reveal who in the administration gave the briefing.

The White House directed questions about the matter to the Department of Defense. Defense officials had no comment on Nelson's claim.

Nelson said the senators were told Iraq had both biological and chemical weapons, notably anthrax, and it could deliver them to cities along the Eastern seaboard via unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones.
[...]

The UN Special Rapporteur has articulated the terminology by which it is possible to press for representatives to address a situation of

ARBITRARY EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS

"The onus is really on the United States government to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary extrajudicial executions aren't in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons," he added.

YOU live with the fear of being bombed even if you are innocent!

Every plane you see and hear, just may be the one meant for you!

You change your whole lifestyle just so you don't appear suspect to the drones!

The definition of terrorism is to control thought process through violence.

Everyone needs to get over to Chris Floyds' website and read his most recent entry on this topic:

Depraved Indifference: Drone Wars, Whack Jobs and Imperial
Written by Chris Floyd
Wednesday, 28 October 2009

I have often admired Jane Mayer's reportage. She has helped expose several elements of "the dark side" of America's worldwide Terror War. Her latest article in the New Yorker outlines the CIA's use of "Predator" drones to kill people by remote control in Pakistan. As the magazine notes, the Obama Administration is relying on these covert drone killers more and more, as it escalates America's military attacks in Pakistan -- ostensibly a sovereign nation allied to the United States.

Mayer's article relates a chilling story of suburban killers -- many of them stateside, firing their missiles from comfortable cubicles before heading home for dinner with the family -- operating in a secret program outside all traditional lines of legality and accountability. (Even the extremely low levels of legality and accountability that weakly adhere to the business of wholesale slaughter and destruction known as war.) For example, part of the program has been "outsourced" to private companies, who are killing people -- including hundreds of innocent civilians -- for profit, with American tax money.

The New Yorker's website has now published an interview with Mayer expanding on the original story. It too is chilling -- but not only for the further details of this state murder program. What is equally disturbing is the bloodless consideration of this bloody enterprise, based on the assumption that there is nothing essentially wrong with such an assassination program (with its inevitable "collateral damage"), as long it is more transparent, with the "legal, ethical and political boundaries" of the death squads clearly drawn.

The very first question gives us a glimpse into the bizarre, depraved moral universe of the American establishment:

How has the use of Predator drones by the United States changed the situation in Pakistan?

Well, there’s good news and bad news. According to the C.I.A., they’ve killed more than half of the twenty most wanted Al Qaeda terrorist suspects. The bad news is that they’ve inflamed anti-American sentiment, because they’ve also killed hundreds of civilians.

What is astonishing about this is that the interview doesn't end there, in a roar of outrage from Mayer and her interviewer: "They've killed hundreds of civilians!" Hundreds of Pakistani civilians, men, women and children with no involvement whatsoever in war or terrorism; just ordinary people living their lives as best they can -- just like your neighbor, just like your mother, just like you...or just like the people killed on September 11, whose deaths are used as an eternal justification for war and bloodshed on a global scale by the American state.

But these drone-murdered Pakistanis -- these human beings, these fathers and mothers, these grandparents, these toddlers, these brothers and sisters -- their lives are just statistics to be coldly weighed in the calibrations of imperial policy. The "bad news" about their deaths is not that they were murdered, not that these utterly defenseless men, women and children were blown to shreds without warning, without the slightest chance of escape, by flying robots controlled by unseen hands a world away; no, the "bad news" is that these that these killing might possibly hamper America's "counterinsurgency program":

How does the continued collateral damage from Predator drones square with General Stanley McChrystal’s order to the military to lay off the air strikes in Afghanistan and avoid civilian deaths?

Well, you could argue it either way. There is less collateral damage from a drone strike than there is from an F-16. According to intelligence officials, drones are more surgical in the way they kill—they usually use Hellfire missiles and do less damage than a fighter jet might.

At the same time, the fact that they kill civilians at all raises the same problem that McChrystal is trying to combat, which is that they incite people on the ground against the United States. When you’re trying to win a battle of hearts and minds, trying to win over civilian populations against terrorists, it can be counterproductive.

It can be counterproductive. When you kill hundreds of innocent people, it can be counterproductive. "Say, boys, how's my campaign shaping up these days?" "Well, Mr. Mayor, we're getting some negative feedback in the polls about your habit of machine-gunning people to death on the street every week. We've talked to some of our top PR people, and they say this kind of thing can be counterproductive."

And of course, this little passage also highlights the absurd hero-worship of our major "liberal" media toward the military chieftains who are increasingly dominating American policy, with increasing openness. Once again, as with the simpering hagiography offered up by the New York Times recently, we see the saintly image of noble Stanley McChrystal trying his darndest to avoid civilian casualties -- as he calls for 40,000 more troops (or "warfighters" as the Pentagon likes to call soldiers these days) to pour into the occupied land, spreading through the countryside and cities with bristling ordnance, backed always with close air support to provide "force protection."

...

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1865-depraved-indifference-drone-wars-whack-jobs-and-imperial-terror.html

not hard to imagine drones over my neighborhood...we already have the black helicopters at night...

class has been brought up on a couple of threads recently...I live on top of a ridge that overlooks Puget Sound...neither I nor my immediate neighbors have view properties, but those properties are not more than 1/4-1/2 mile away...it would be difficult to bomb many of the poorer around here without getting a number of the richer, too...

pull the power plug on these drones and their 'masters'...

Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...no more industry, no more electricity...acoustic, agrarian living...local governance...