Who decides who gets murdered by drones? They won't tell us. It's classified.

[Neue Regel]

http://news.yahoo.com/drones-target-us-decide-175025040.html

White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets.

The move concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones at the White House.

The process, which is about a month old, means Brennan's staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the list, making a previous military-run review process in place since 2009 less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government targets terrorists.

In describing Brennan's arrangement to The Associated Press, the officials provided the first detailed description of the military's previous review process that set a schedule for killing or capturing terror leaders around the Arab world and beyond. They spoke on condition of anonymity because U.S. officials are not allowed to publicly describe the classified targeting program.

Notice they never refer to the targeted individuals as "people". They're always referred to as "targets", "terror leaders", or "al qaida members"

What could possibly go wrong?

[joelz]

1. This guy had a lot to say about it

Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who represents families of civilians killed in U.S. drone strikes, was finally granted a visa to enter the U.S. this week after a long effort by the State Department to block his visit. He has just arrived in Washington, D.C., to attend the "Drone Summit: Killing and Spying by Remote Control," organized by human rights groups to call attention to the lethal rise in the number of drone strikes under the Obama administration. Obama argues U.S. drone strikes are focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists and have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. "Either President Obama is lying to the nation, or he is too naive, to believe on the reports which CIA is presenting to [him]," responds Akbar. The summit comes as the United States pursues a radical expansion of how it carries out drone strikes inside Yemen. The so-called "signature" strike policy went into effect earlier this month, allowing the U.S. to strike without knowing the identity of targets.

more at http://www.orbooks.com/2012/04/democracy-now-talks-with-author-medea-benjamin-about-drones/

[Neue Regel]

2. Apparently a mayor speaking out of turn is more of an affront to democracy

Questioning the legitimacy of a state-run assassination program that kills innocent civilians more often than it kills its intended targets just isn't that sexy. I wonder what the reaction would be here if George Bush and Dick Cheney were running the drone program?

[quaker bill]

3. Probably the same guys

who decide who gets bombed by piloted aircraft, lit up by cruise missles, blown away by snipers.... you name the means, it is probably the same guys.

[gratuitous]

4. John Brennan and the new American Principles

There was a time when we extolled the Four Freedoms or the Bill of Rights. But now the United States stands for the highest ethical standards, including the hallowed principles of necessity, distinction and proportionality. We don't indiscriminately fire missiles into populated areas to kill every person unlucky enough to be under them; no, we seriously consider whether summary execution is necessary (there's a really, really good reason, even though we can't tell you what it is), that we can distinguish who's about to become pink mist(we're mostly sure that the target of our missile is a very, very bad person, and too bad for anyone around him), and that not too many civilians, innocents, or not very, very bad persons are in the kill zone (but if there are too many collateral casualties, we'll gladly re-classify them as terrorists posthumously).

At least, that's what I gleaned from Brennan's remarks at the Woodrow Wilson Center on May 1, 2012.