The American Bear

Killed but not ‘specifically’ targeted: In its belated acknowledgement that the US has killed four American citizens since 2009, the administration gave us another novel turn of phrase: ‘not specifically targeted.’ This is carefully crafted, but highly opaque wording. The government says that one American, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was ‘specifically targeted and killed.’ The other three, it says, were ‘not specifically targeted’ but no explanation whatsoever is given for their deaths. Were these Americans purposely or knowingly killed in signature strikes? Were they intentional or accidental collateral damage in a strike on some other target? Or killed by mistake? We just don’t know, and this raises significant questions not just about the targeting of Americans, but of the thousands of others killed. What Obama’s New Killing Rules Don’t Tell You

Signature strikes: in or out? Some suggest that the new rules put an end to controversial signature strikes, carried out based on patterns of behavior assumed to indicate militancy. The new rules do rebut reports (sourced originally to anonymous government officials) that ‘all military-aged males in the vicinity of a target are deemed to be combatants.’ Yet there is no clarity at all about what actual ‘signatures’ were used, or might still be in use. Nothing in the new rules requires that the government kill only named targets, and nothing in the rules prohibits behavior-based targeting. On the contrary, senior administration officials, hours before the President’s speech, suggested that signature strikes will continue but perhaps decrease ‘over time.’ What Obama’s New Killing Rules Don’t Tell You

[H]istory may record Obama’s greatest crime against peace as changing the definition of war. According to his unique doctrine, the U.S. cannot be in a state of war, or even “hostilities” with another people or country, unless Americans are killed in the process. Thus, Obama refused to report to the U.S. Congress under the War Powers Act following eight months of bombardment of Libya, claiming no state of war had existed since no Americans had died. By this logic, the U.S. is empowered to bomb anyone, anywhere on the planet at will, without the constraints of national or international law, as long as care is taken to protect the lives of U.S. personnel. Glen Ford

Clearly, the Administration has made some effort to gain a greater understanding of how Abdulrahman was killed than the hemming and hawing official admitted to yesterday. Which suggests ‘not specifically targeted’ might not even rule out ‘targeted in deceitful fashion.’ What “Not Specifically Targeted” Means for Abdulrahman al-Awlaki | emptywheel

Not only have we failed to progress by even a single, faltering step; we have probably regressed. It is inconceivable to Cameron, just as it is inconceivable to any U.S. leader, that the nations brutalized and destroyed by the West have their own “way of life.” Cameron’s statement regarding “betrayal” implies that the slaughters and mayhem perpetrated by the U.S. and Britain have betrayed nothing at all — and on that point, Cameron is certainly correct. Countries determined to dominate the world, as the U.S. and its junior partner are, have and will always turn to wide-scale murder and destruction when other avenues fail to deliver the desired outcome. Some will argue that the West’s reaction to murders like the one yesterday reveals a double standard. That’s not quite accurate. There would seem to be but a single standard: whatever the U.S. and its allies do is right; whoever resists them, in whatever form, for whatever reason, is wrong. If necessary, those who resist must be destroyed. So it is not a new day in any manner. It’s the same goddamned, bloody, sickening day all over again. The Monster in the Mirror

No other country — not one! — seems to think that its security depends on being able to wield lethal force on every single continent. When people are scared, they are … more willing to support various sorts of covert operations, ranging from normal spying to the increasingly far-flung campaign of targeted assassinations and extra-judicial killings that the United States has been conducting for many years now. Never mind that a significant number of innocent foreign civilians have died as a result of these policies or that the net effect of such actions may be to make the problem of terrorism worse over time. It’s impossible to know for certain, of course, because the U.S. government won’t say exactly what it is doing. … In December 1917, in the middle of World War I, British Prime Minister Lloyd George told the editor of the Manchester Guardian that ‘if the people really knew, this war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and can’t know. The correspondents don’t write and the censorship would not pass the truth.’ I sometimes wonder how Americans would react if we really knew everything that our government was doing. Or even just half of it. Stephen Walt, Civil liberties, press freedom, and America’s global role

[Obama’s] words will be little consolation for 8-year-old Nabila, who, on Oct. 24, had just returned from school and was playing in a field outside her house with her siblings and cousins while her grandmother picked flowers. At 2:30 p.m., a Hellfire missile came out of the sky and struck right in front of Nabila. Her grandmother was badly burned and succumbed to her injuries; Nabila survived with severe burns and shrapnel wounds in her shoulder. Nabila doesn’t know who Mr. Obama is, or where the Hellfire missile that killed her grandmother came from. The Forgotten Victims of Obama’s Drone War

Sadaullah Wazir was another victim of hope and change. His house in North Waziristan was targeted on Sept. 7, 2009. The strike killed four members of his family. Sadaullah was 14 years old when it happened. A few days after the attack, he woke up in a Peshawar hospital to the news that both of his legs had to be amputated and he would never be able to walk again. He died last year, without receiving justice or even an apology. Once again, no militant was present or killed. The Forgotten Victims of Obama’s Drone War

[A] few days after [Obama’s first term] inaugural address, a C.I.A.-operated drone dropped Hellfire missiles on Fahim Qureishi’s home in North Waziristan, killing seven of his family members and severely injuring Fahim. He was just 13 years old and left with only one eye, and shrapnel in his stomach. There was no militant present. The Forgotten Victims of Obama’s Drone War