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UN 'to Seek' End to CIA Drone Raids
A senior United Nations official is planning to call on the US to end aerial drone attacks by the Central Intelligence Agency against alleged al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan, according to the New York Times.
CIA drone operators, who do not wear the uniforms of conventional soldiers, could theoretically be considered war criminals and subject to prosecution in Pakistani courts. (Air Force photo by Senior Airman Julianne Showalter) The call is expected to come next week, a report in the US
newspaper's website said on Friday.
Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said on Thursday that he will deliver a report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, arguing that the "life and death power" of drones should be executed by regular armed forces rather than intelligence agencies.
Alston's recommendations, which are expected to be delivered in a June 3 report, are not legally binding.
He argues that conventional military forces are more accountable than intelligence agencies for investigating civilian casualties.
"With the defence department you've got maybe not perfect but quite abundant accountability as demonstrated by what happens when a bombing goes wrong in Afghanistan," Alston said.
"The whole process that follows is very open. Whereas if the CIA is doing it, by definition they are not going to answer questions, not provide any information, and not do any follow-up that we know about."
Under international law, soldiers representing conventional militaries are allowed to kill enemy troops in war zones.
'Lawful combatancy'
The government of George Bush, the previous US president, issued a policy manual in 2007 which defined "murder in violation of the laws of war" as killing someone who did not meet "the requirements for lawful combatancy".
These requirements include being part of a regular army or otherwise wearing a uniform.
According to this definition of murder, CIA drone operators, who do not wear the uniforms of conventional soldiers, could theoretically be considered war criminals and subject to prosecution in Pakistani courts.
Paul Weiss, a CIA spokeswoman, said that the "agency's operations take place in a framework of both law and government oversite".
"It would be wrong to suggest the CIA is not accountable," he said, although she refused to discuss or confirm specific activities.
By some accounts, drone attacks - which reportedly commence at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia - have increased during president Barack Obama's time in office.
The Long War Journal, a blog that uses open-source information to track US operations in the Middle East, tallied five US aerial attacks in Pakistan in 2007 and 36 in 2008.
In 2009, Obama's first year in office, aerial attacks increased 47 per cent to 53, with unmanned drones responsible for most strikes.
Source: Agencies- Posted in
54 Comments so far
Show AllYeah, sure... not with the new "war president" now working up at the "Big House"
Don't hold your breath.
illegal, immoral, cowardly
Jill -
"Perhaps the most severe competition in our gorernment today is between the Special Forces in the DOD and the CIA over who runs clandestine operations." - Historian Chalmers Johnson, in interview with journalist Harry Kreisler, 5/6/10 in Counterpunch
Bill from Saginaw
One of the most surprising films that I have recently seen was the 1980s film Above The Law with Steven Seagal. I simply thought it was going to be another one of those blood splattered movies of a rogue cop who decides to take on the local mob boss who, in this film, is supplying the city of Chicago with heroin. It does have that but it also has Seagal's character [who saw how the CIA operated in Vietnam] unexpectedly commenting toward the end of the film that so many, if not all, of America's military incursions have come about because of the direct involvement of the CIA. At the end of the film a district court judge comes to Seagal's house in order to hear what Seagal knows about the CIA and the mob. It was rather startling to hear Seagal's character express that opinion in an American film. One has to wonder if what Seagal's character said in the movie had any effect upon those who were viewing that film. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is, probably not.
- Paul Weiss, a CIA spokeswoman, said that the "agency's operations take place in a framework of both law and government oversite".-
How ignorant and criminal can some people be. What this jackass means is that he does not give a toss about international law as long as he can get authority from the “American executive” to commit murder. The US government feels it is above International law. In fact its own laws are not being applied.
There is no state of war between the US and Pakistan, and even if the government of Pakistan authorised the Americans to use force to help them with an insurgent problem in the Tribal Territories which it does not, no American, not even the president, can authorize the murder of Pakistani civilians or otherwise there.
This idea that America can kill anyone any where because they designate them a terrorist or insurgent and that whoever gets in the way is just collateral damage in a legitimate war activity has no legal basis in international law. It depends entirely on the vague concept of the “war on terror” having no border and arbitrary and ill defined enemies.
This makes America a terrorist state in terms of extrajudicial killing and the people who authorise and execute these activities are war criminals and should be tried, hung or incarcerated at least.
And as far as Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, saying "life and death power" of drones should be executed by regular armed forces rather than intelligence agencies…… Whether murder is committed by the CIA or the uniformed forces is irrelevant, it is still murder. And this killing on the basis of half baked intelligence, when no other means of arrest or detention of targetted "suspects" is used nor due process applied, and normally based on faulty intelligence and causing unacceptable civilian casualties and errors….. all together it is nothing more or less than murder.
Who are the terrorists here?
Right on, Lucitanian.
Right on, right on.
And while we're at it, someone should remind Paul Weiss that Al Capone's operations also took place in a framework of both law and government oversight, a framework that had been corrupted to its core.
Bill from Saginaw
Everything Hitler did was "legal" as well.
(Except, perhaps, his suicide.)
The geopolitical assemblage that currently calls itself the United States of America has now become nothing more than a base of operations and military muscle for the multinational financial and corporate gangsters nominally headquarted within its boundaries. If it were ever anything else, it is now not only a totally lawless rogue terrorist entity, it is no longer a nation state at all and certainly not eligible for membership in the United Nations or any other legitimate assembly of the global community of civilized nations. It lacks even the basic human decency of the most primitive "savage", let alone any characteristic that could plausibly be called civilization.
In fact, for all practical purposes, ordinary (i.e., non-corporate) U.S. citizens are stateless except insofar as they stupidly provide fodder for that aforementioned military muscle along with some semblance of periodic popular legitimacy. They merely enable the colossal effrontery of the terrorist entity to call itself "the greatest democracy on earth" whilst globalizing its full spectrum dominance by force of arms contrary to the wants and wishes of every decent people on the planet, including most of its own.
Who are the terrorists? According to their definition, anyone who resists. Welcome to a rapidly growing club. Please bring your own toothbrush, and drop the polite protest letters in the nearest dumpster. They're totally useless, but some surplus body armor might come in handy.
A conceptually accurate and creatively stated vision of what America has become.
All the more chilling and mortifying as it is objectively and structurally true– and not a description of a dystopian sci-fi fantasy.
If anything is true here, one suspects the greater reality itself is even grimmer yet–safely ensconced in an area as yet unassailable to the darkest and most pessimistic of imaginations.
Such are the evolving 'beauties' of America, always one step ahead of the curve.
Future present and accounted for in the billowing darkness visible.
Well done. Stated with the concomitant moral revulsion equal to the subject at hand.
Thanks. In fact, my moral revulsion seems occasionally to find its way into my guts with very unpleasant results.
I see and appreciate that we think alike (thanks Clovis, Bill d’S, and RV too) but in the light of what we clearly know and understand I cannot help but be thunder struck (perhaps like you VashkarKim) at the complete and utter other-world bubble that Mdm. Sec Hilary R. Clinton must be in to be able to give remarks such as the following on the Obama Administration’s National Security Strategy given at the Brookings Inst. On 27th May.
“We seek to solve problems because we’re committed to global progress that promotes dignity and the opportunity for everyone to live up to their God-given potentials. Values matter to our national security. That should go without saying, but it needs to be not only repeated, but perhaps emblazoned as a set of principles that are guiding us. Democracy, human rights, development are mutually reinforcing and they are deeply connected to our national interests.”
And one can only wonder when the CIA operative in the Arizona desert near Las Vegas somewhere presses the button that launches a deadly missile from the drone in Pakistan, how Mdm. Secretary does that murder of mostly women and children and, rather than any intended target, but rather most often the settling of some adversarial local feud from someone having successfully fed false intelligence to the dumb and ever confusable Americans or their crooked and corrupt agents, just kills some more innocent civilians; I would beg that Mdm. Secretary, to tell me just how, as the missile flies to another compound in the Pakistan night, do those murders answer her question:
“We ask ourselves all the time, have we contributed in a tangible way to global progress that improves security, widens the circle of prosperity, advances universal values, and helps to build a just and sustainable international order?” The hypocrisy is so mind boggling that if one does not break out laughing at the farce one would explode with anger and frustration.
Her words add insult to injury. Never has the world suffered such a scale of ignominious, asinine, and criminal leadership, causing such painfully devastating consequences. This is continuous disaster capitalism at its worst. The pigs rule the animal farm.
If you have the stomach you can read the entirety of this woman’s hypocritical comments, but I worn you, it is not easy:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/05/142312.htm
Truly nauseating. But it's neither an other-world bubble nor hypocrisy in the ordinary sense. Rather, it reflects widespread total failure to comprehend the semantics of the modern linguistics employed by USA Incorporated and its imperial spokespersons in a world that is all too real.
Hilary is quite right. Values certainly do matter to "our" national security, but like "our U.S. interests", the specific reference that is contained in the imperial "we" must be clearly understood. Those values that currently matter have nothing whatever to do with the interests of ordinary (i.e., non-corporate) U.S. citizens, if they ever did.
With apologies for repetition of one of my earlier postings, here are a few handy definitions to improve the comprehension and survival skills much needed by today's imperial subjects, whether at the center or on the fringes:
__
Democracy: the periodic legitimization by popular vote of the candidates vetted and put forward for high office by USA Incorporated, nominal party affiliations notwithstanding.
Freedom: the unfettered global rights of full spectrum dominance by USA Incorporated, especially the capitalist "free enterprise" right to exploit public resources for private gain regardless of nominal sovereignty or geopolitical boundaries and regardless of any alleged environmental consequences.
People (of, by and for the): an attribute that is enjoyed exclusively by USA Incorportated's legal personhood, any and all aincient rule-of-law charters and constitutions and previous erroneous interpretations thereof notwithstanding.
Terror: any act, demonstration, plan, plot, or conspiracy, whether or not acted upon overtly, to inhibit or diminish the unquestionable rights and freedoms of USA Incorporated (see above), or that may be so attributed and ascribed by USA Incorporated for its own purposes regardless of any actual intent of the planners or actors.
Terror (war against): any utilization by any means of any national, sub-national or international body of military, quasi-military, mercenary, intelligence or counter-intelligence resources, not excluding the first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear powers and without distinction between military and civilian opponents, for the purpose of globalizing the full spectrum dominance of USA Incorporated.
__
NOTE: "USA Incorporated" is used herein solely for convenient reference to the multinational corporate forces, most of which are nominally headquartered within the geopolitical entity currently known as the United States of America, but which in fact have no abiding allegience to any specific nation or citizenship. In particular, no national or citizenship immunity whatever to the implementation of its imperial will should be inferred.
There really are no words for the citations you posted from Hillary Clinton.
Material to induce vomit were the blood not chilled in advance to inhibit the vile expectoration. She is truly even more 'presidential' than Obama himself.
One sees only grinning skulls, punctured, lacerated flesh and blood.
One has to go to writers of genius and visionary mystics to even begin to grasp what this means:
"Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. You acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood, more and more. Blood all the time."
–(Paul Valéry)
And:
"It is not to be thought that the life of darkness is sunk in misery and lost as if in sorrowing. There is no sorrowing. For sorrow is a thing that is swallowed up in death, and death and dying are the very life of the darkness."
–(Jacob Boehme)
Sorrowing? What's that? Just us kids in the panopticon having fun!
Who would have thought that "the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions" would have to spend his valuable time focusing on the US?
It simply means he hasn't been bought off yet. And if he can't be bought off, then it means he hasn't been given an offer he can't refuse.
or a threat he can't ignore.
Let me understand this. The problem with remote controlled death drones is that the wrong people are operating them? If you are wearing one kind of suit you are a lawful executioner but with modified paperwork and a different hat you might be a war criminal? Boy, stuff does get complicated when you're in moral free fall!
vox -
You got it right. Historically and cross culturally, the whole point of dressing soldiers up in special garb, creating a command heirarchy, and training them to obey their commander's orders about who to kill, when, and how was to systematically organize the commission of mass murder.
Nobody hates the Pentagon's cult of the warrior mentality more than I do. But we are all much, much better off if the active duty military reclaims its monopoly upon committing murder in the name of the nation state. It's this James Bond 007 civilian cloak and dagger spook license-to-kill bullshit that is the root of the macabre evil that Predator drones now universally symbolize.
To take the toys away from the boys, first disarm the wannabe warriors from Langley.
Once our spies go back to behaving like spies rather than hit men, then our soldiers can be commanded to go back to behaving like soldiers.
Bill from Saginaw
"Whether murder is committed by the CIA or the uniformed forces is irrelevant, it is still murder. " –(Lucitanian)
–Correct.
"Once our spies go back to behaving like spies rather than hit men, then our soldiers can be commanded to go back to behaving like soldiers." –(Bill from Saginaw)
One should be careful when using the term "ours" in this context. They may indeed be YOUR spies and YOUR soldiers, but they are not mine.
It is better to disabuse yourself of the temptation to speak for others when it comes to talking about the agents of imperial fascism, irregardless of how they are formally delineated in your mind.
When you state that "Nobody hates the Pentagon's cult of the warrior mentality more than I do," your latter assertion dispels and belies the veracity of this, throwing the whole matter under doubt and suspicion.
–(Kim Nguyen)
Whether it is Barack Obama or General McChrystal, the men behind the leaders are still Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger and their Organizations: The Council on Foreign Relations, Tri-Lateral Commission, and The Bilderberg Club all of whom believe in "The New World Order" with the "Supreme Ruler" sorry "Puppet" being "The Charismatic Barack H Obama"....As he was dressed up in Berlin for the campaign and spoke of the need for a "New World Order" and cheered by a hundred thousand Germans!
"Operation Paperclip" was merely the beginning of the transfer of power from Nazi Germany to the United States with 1600 experts in psychological and chemical warfare.....Yes, Nazi Scientists and Psychologists were installed in the Department of Defense and NASA and who knows where they wound up and who their children were.
Yeah, there are degrees of evil, and to say that we should oppose the CIA drone type evil doesn't mean we have given our nihil obstat to the military to perform the same atrocities even if that is by some chthonic logic preferable.
Here's what I often think about soldiers. We have never in our lifetimes witnessed our soldiers actually sent out to defend our borders against a hostile invader. Almost in WWII, if it is true that Hitler intended to invade us after they had taken England, did we send real soldiers off to fight a real war. Never in recent history, except for Pearl Harbor, have we had explosives dropped on American soil by a foreign power. Our generation has no experience with soldiery. We tell the kids we send into the military that they are soldiers and patriots and defenders of our freedom, but they are not. They are pirates, because that is how we use them. But if we should ever find ourselves in the position of the nations and cultures we invade, threatened by a comparable or superior power, then real soldiers would step up to the plate, and instead of lamenting their existence, we would rightly honor them. Right now there are no job openings for real soldiers in weird America. Snipers maybe, Drone operators in comfy cubicles in Virginia. Given the kill ratios I'd say the bravery and legitimate soldiery is mostly on the other side.
"Never in recent history, except for Pearl Harbor, have we had explosives dropped on American soil by a foreign power."
In 1941 Hawaii was a not really US territory - i.e. a state, it was a colony, and not a universally recognized one.
It really does. Doesn't it.
I recall reading a recent article (here, I think) in which the U.S. establishment was complaining bitterly about the need to engage in secret operations in Pakistan. The problem, you see, is that the Pakistanis might oppose all the efforts to bring the fruits of "freedom and democracy" to their country if they became fully aware of them.
"Boy, stuff does get complicated when you're in moral free fall!"–(voxclamantis)
–And when you are having fun.
For that is clearly what it has become in the burgeoning galaxy of the American macabre: Fun!
Your statement here is certainly true, but one might add that the solutions become utterly simple.
Predator drones– emblematic and literal embodiments of psychopathic and amoral extra legal murder– are now so deeply imbricated in the very interstices of what is fundamentally–even organically 'American'–that ending their usage is a virtual impossibility.
One might as well believe that America will voluntarily dissolve itself into beneficent oblivion, ceasing to exist for the sake of all humanity in an act of long overdue contrition.
That is not coming to a theater near you anytime soon.
Nor is the 'solution'. As simple as it may be.
A fascist interregnum in America to last generations...
I think that is a very profound idea - that what we are actually doing is having fun. Why would, say, the Israelis and Palestinians, persist in their insane, repetitive feud if everybody wasn't, at some level, having a great time? Invaders and martyrs, good Buddhists all, are both following their bliss.
I don't expect a voluntary dissolution of the American idea. But I do believe that it is only an idea, like the Soviet Union or the World Trade Center, and that we will someday wake up to find that, like a forgotten thought, it is gone. A resolution rather than a solution. Things are moving along at a pretty good clip. I'd bet on rapid, unexpected change over permanence any time.
change is the only constant.
The 'solution' I am talking about here is not that America will voluntarily, out of choice, resolve to end its 'being.' That is impossible. Nor can it reformed from within. That too, is not going to happen.
It must be compelled to close up shop and brought to heel on terms unfavorable to its 'being.' There are no benign forms of cancer; there are no beneficent forms of the plague that cannot be dealt with except by something equally implacable.
At presently America openly seeks a trans–generational fascist interregnum of virtual permanence by institutionalizing total war. There are no countervailing forces– visible or invisible, apparent or gestating, present or in the near future– to negate that reality. The 'magic wand' exorcising the demons will not appear and suddenly make things right. There will be an interregnum and a protracted one.
The "rapid, unexpected change" of which you speak, catastrophic as it may well be, will not preclude the apotheosized fascism from coming to fruition in America, for fascism is being designed to survive in the dregs and the aftermath of cataclysm and social implosion.
As far as the "fun" thing with the drones the reference is to the advanced form of moral debasement that the drone represents. As with fascism, it represents a totalization, a distillation of a culture. It is not an anomaly, but a living trope.
One can only be reminded here of the classic analysis of sadism in Proust ,as 'game' or 'art.' Where pleasure is transmogrified into cruelty, only so it can revert back to pleasure (fun)– so it can then itself be viewed as evil in the eyes of the perpetrator.
"Perhaps she would not have thought that evil was a state so rare, so extraordinary, so disorienting, and to which it was so restful to emigrate, if she had been able to discern in herself, as in everyone else, that the indifference to the sufferings one causes which, whatever other names one gives it, is the terrible and lasting form assumed by cruelty."
–(Marcel Proust, "Swann's Way," Trans. Lydia Davis, p.p. 162-169, Penguin Books).
Finally, at least they have broached the topic of cold/calculated murder by flying robots, controlled by who knows who?--against who knows who? instigated by who knows who, and reported or not by who knows who.
MURDER BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STINK THE SAME--LET'S TRACE THE BLAME AND NAME THE NAME--THIS AIN'T NO GAME
I wouldn't count on the US doing anything that infringes on the MIC, no matter how many bodies are stacked up. besdies, our "representatives" have allowed Zionisits to take over our government and destroy our economy. I'm confident the US response to the UN will be the same as the Zionists in Israel. A big FU.
I expect nothing less.
Bring America Back !!!!
****How dare the United Nations try and save the USA from itself...!!!!
****We all know that the Drone Zone is part and parcel of Prez Obama's Crusade to Tora Bora, trying to find the right cave where the Dragon-man bin Laden hides, and plots, and calls to take credit for terrorisms. Caves have really great telephone and computer hookups, you know !!
****King George and Prince Dick just did not attack the correct caves of the Grande Boogieman, so Saviour Barak
must forge onward with his drones vs dragons game. His fielty pledged to Zion demands no less of the Saviour !!
And, don't forget to notice how Obama's planned so-called
troop withdrawals are timed to co-incide with his re-election campaign....when Johnny comes marching home !
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED !
Barry might be looking for Osama bin Forgotten in the mountains around Tora Bora, but my guess is that Osama has shaved his whiskers, bought several $3,000 suits and is living a life of luxury at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Maui. He is dining on lavish meals of lamb and dates while dancing virgins titilate his senses.
Of course the Amerikkkan government knows this, but there is too much money to be made by continuing the charade of "fighting the terrorists over there."
We always figured he was playing poker with Darth Cheney in an undisclosed location.
Well put!!!
Isn't it ironic that the United Nations is begging the Amerikkkan government, led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Barry Obama, to halt the use of weapons of mass destruction against innocent noncombatants.
When I was a kid in the 1950s and early 1960s (and still had illusions as to Amerikkka's honor and greatness), it was always the evil Russians or other godless commies who were commiting atrocities against the defenseless. Too bad Amerikkka has inherited that role.
According to this definition of murder, UAV drone manufacturs, who do not wear the uniforms of conventional soldiers, could theoretically be considered war criminals and subject to prosecution in Pakistani courts.
WTF! Isn't America the most moral country in the world? Did'nt our president win the Noble Peace Prize for his continual efforts to end violence around the world? What happened to truth, justice, and the American way? What, you're not buying it? Me either.
This is all pretty breathtaking - even vertigo-inducing. A deepening of my depression will soon follow.
So, the UN Special Rapporteur on crimes against humanity is politely asking that this years Nobel peace Prize Laureate quit committing extrajudicial executions.
Madness.
"This is all pretty breathtaking - even vertigo-inducing. A deepening of my depression will soon follow."
–(SaboCat)
–Yes. An irony so spellbinding and grotesque it breaks one down. A veritable Walpurgisnacht.
Hell on earth.
Crushing in its finality as it was designed to be.
One may recover but the scarring is permanent.
"A veritable Walpurgisnacht..."
Walpurgisnacht? You man like this short film, now in need of a even more disturbing seqel starring Obama? (for download - it's safe)
"http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=opensource_movies&collectionid=godsmistake_scarstrangledbanter"
Don't give up SaboCat. We need you. When I get very depressed, I think of all the women all over the world who continue to struggle every day to give their kids a little something to eat. They have less to work with than I do, and they do not let depression disable them. A child's laugh can make it all worthwhile to me.
Joe
Yeah. Cognitive exercises like you suggestion are the key. Jan 21, 2011 will be the 10th anniversary of the day I got home from the Bush inauguration and all my ails started, except for a couple brief trials I have avoided the SSRI's that the doctors dispense like candy.
Will the Nobel Peace Prize ever recover from this travesty?
Would this problem, as the UN spokesdude sees it, be resolved if the CIA issued some in-house uniforms?
I'm certain the bereaved Collaterals would be comforted to know their killers were properly attired.
I think he's pointing to the bizarre bullshit the US is hoisting on the world that turned international law on it's head.
He's playing the same game.
I say ROCK ON!
Can/will someone here explain to me the 'difference' between an unmanned drone killing from the sky and a manned fighter plane or manned bomber killing from the sky?
Both kill unarmed civilians and non-combatants!
Consider the effect of being able to fly slowly and in stealth for hours around your targets while being miles away in complete safety. You can gain intelligence and react on it instantly. Much cheaper and more dangerous than a jet-fighter.
Yes, and over the hours of surveillance, the target-pickers are letting their imaginations go - before long, anyone with a beard and traditional dress entering building becomes a "scheming terrorist" in their minds. Then finally, out of boredom, the "fire" button on the stick is pressed.
This psychological process of an airborne observer imagining that every congregation of males on the ground are "terrorists" was clearly the mechanism going on in the Wikileaks "collateral murder" video that I'm sure most of you have seen.
Another psychological factor, one I've experienced myself when hang gliding, is a sense that when you watch people on the ground from an aircraft, even a quiet, wide-open one, there is a sense of detachment that isn't present when looking at a person a comparable distance away on the ground.
in the case of the fighter plane, at lest the aggressor is subjecting the pilot to a possibility, albeit small of death by shoot-down or accident. But drones are operated by someone on the other side of the planet, sitting in a nice desk chair in front of a PC, sipping their coffee, munching on some cheese-crackers from the vending machine down the hall...