A manageable number of civilians murdered
Obama publicly embraces drone killings
“I want to make sure people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” Obama said in response to the question. “For the most part, they’ve been very precise, precision strikes against al-Qaeda and their affiliates.”
Obama’s remarks are intended for domestic consumption. It is part of a broader move by the administration to publicly endorse and thereby justify and normalize the criminal actions carried out by the US military-intelligence apparatus.
Last December, Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, enshrining in US law the illegal, extra-constitutional practice of condemning to indefinite military detention both citizens and non-citizens alike, without charges or trials and on the sole say-so of the White House.
Newsweek’s Daniel Klaidman reported last week that the Obama administration is planning to have Attorney General Eric Holder deliver a speech advancing the pseudo-legal rationale for the drone missile assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born US citizen killed last September in Yemen. This will entail the public assertion of the president’s power to order the extrajudicial execution of American citizens, without providing any evidence, much less proving it in a court of law.
With all of these actions, the Obama administration is erecting the institutional framework of a police state.
And who is on board and helping to erect the institutional framework of a police state, including justifying the making sure that the number of civilians killed in drone attacks is… manageable(!).. not huge? The hosts of the soirée at which the drone was feted : Google. And the New America Foundation, itself chaired by Google chairman Eric Schmidt.
The NAF has published an apology for drone warfare, presenting the same “manageable number of civilian victims killed” rationale.
There are just two problems with this rationale :
1. No number of predictable deaths of innocents is ‘OK’. Zero is the number of dead civilians accepted as ‘collateral damage’ at the outset of a ‘mission’.
2. The distinction between “civilians” and “non-civilians” is bogus at the core. The people targeted are ‘suspects’… no charges, no trials, no verdicts – just executions.
This is the pit of criminal barbarity… now embraced, defended and extended by the Obama/Google Team.
Philippines unsure if top rebel leader dead
The remains of a top leader of the regional Jemaah Islamiyah group have not been found, the Philippine military said, a day after announcing that he had been killed in a US-backed airstrike.
Troops on the ground were still combing the jungle camp, hit on Thursday, for the body of Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, said regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang on Friday.
Military officials said at least 15 people were killed in the dawn strike on a camp on remote southern Jolo Island, including two other high-level leaders. A military spokesman in Manila, Colonel Marcelo Burgos, initially reported that Marwan was among them.
Just as long as ‘some’ people were killed… it’s ‘all good’ to Obama. Everyone killed is transformed at death into a ‘terrorist suspect’.
Obama is a War Criminal. A very special, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate War Criminal. And ignorance is strength.
Hey, Hey, Obama-fay
How many innocent men, women, and children
Dja kill today?