The Empire under Obama: UN Human Rights Expert Says US Claims Right to Kill with Impunity

[Karmadillo]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/02-8

Published on Wednesday, June 2, 2010 by Agence France Presse
UN Expert: CIA Drones Claim 'License to Kill' with Impunity

GENEVA — A UN human rights expert on Wednesday urged the United States to sideline the CIA from targeted killings using drones, warning that the practice amounted to "a license to kill without accountability".

UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston. In a new report, Alston has warned that the "prolific" US use of targeted killings, mainly by unmanned aircraft, was setting a damaging example that other countries would follow. (AFP)In a report to the UN Human Rights Council, Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, warned that the "prolific" US use of targeted killings, mainly by unmanned aircraft, was setting a damaging example that other countries would follow.

"I?m particularly concerned that the United States seems oblivious to this fact when it asserts an ever-expanding entitlement for itself to target individuals across the globe," he told the 47-member council.

"But this strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial executions."

Alston's study on targeted killings sharply criticized the legal arguments invoked to justify them, their civilian toll and the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

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[Moochy]

1. "it's a big evil ship, it takes a while to change course!

More of that 'Change you have to believe in to see' :-(

[Moochy]

2. K&R

To make up for my thread killing reply... :kick:

[Greyhound]

3. "the United States seems oblivious" sums it up.

:kick: & R

[Karmadillo]

4. This is Ivory Tower talk. If we have to "protect the right to life," how do we win the Forever War &

save the People of the World from the scourge of terrorism?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Minor Point:: Title and position do not an expert make

Brownie and FEMA come to mind

[Luminous Animal]

6. Philip Alston

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Alston

[johnaries]

7. And a soldier running over a hill shooting at anything that moves is

not "killing without accountability"?

"Targeted assaults" are intended to cut down on "collateral damage", which actually means "innocent civilians". Perhaps they would prefer more innocent civilians be killed?

I understand the ban on "assasination", since that's what started WW1. But this is apples and oranges. One increases human death and misery. The other limits it.