[Vision2020] Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy

[Paul Rumelhart]

Why didn't they start trying to codify this *before* the first drone 
strike, instead of waiting until Romney was possibly about to take over?

There is so much wrong here, I don't know where to begin.  Why didn't 
our constitutional scholar of a president question this "signature" 
assassination thing?  Why didn't he question the idea of assassination 
as a military tool, to begin with?

Oh, and I loved this bit:

"The draft rule book for drone strikes that has been passed among 
agencies over the last several months is so highly classified, officials 
said, that it is hand-carried from office to office rather than sent by 
e-mail."

So much for his promises of an open and transparent government.

Paul

On 11/25/2012 08:12 AM, Art Deco wrote:
> The New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> November 24, 2012
>
>
>   Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy
>
>
>             By SCOTT SHANE
>             <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/scott_shane/index.html>
>
> WASHINGTON --- Facing the possibility that President Obama 
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
> might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in 
> the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the 
> targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones 
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/unmanned_aerial_vehicles/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>, 
> so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, 
> according to two administration officials.
>
> The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 
> 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed 
> <http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php> by the Central 
> Intelligence Agency 
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
> and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration 
> is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal 
> uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is 
> justified.
>
> Mr. Obama and his advisers are still debating whether remote-control 
> killing should be a measure of last resort against imminent threats to 
> the United States, or a more flexible tool, available to help allied 
> governments attack their enemies or to prevent militants from 
> controlling territory.
>
> Though publicly the administration presents a united front on the use 
> of drones, behind the scenes there is longstanding tension. The 
> Defense Department and the C.I.A. continue to press for greater 
> latitude to carry out strikes; Justice Department and State Department 
> officials, and the president's counterterrorism adviser, John O. 
> Brennan 
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_o_brennan/index.html?8qa>, 
> have argued for restraint, officials involved in the discussions say.
>
> More broadly, the administration's legal reasoning has not persuaded 
> many other countries that the strikes are acceptable under 
> international law. For years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the 
> United States routinely condemned targeted killings of suspected 
> terrorists by Israel, and most countries still object to such measures.
>
> But since the first targeted killing by the United States in 2002, two 
> administrations have taken the position that the United States is at 
> war with Al Qaeda and its allies and can legally defend itself by 
> striking its enemies wherever they are found.
>
> Partly because United Nations officials know that the United States is 
> setting a legal and ethical precedent for other countries developing 
> armed drones, the U.N. plans to open a unit in Geneva early next year 
> to investigate American drone strikes.
>
> The attempt to write a formal rule book for targeted killing began 
> last summer after news reports on the drone program 
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html>, 
> started under President George W. Bush and expanded by Mr. Obama, 
> revealed some details of the president's role in the shifting 
> procedures for compiling "kill lists" and approving strikes. Though 
> national security officials insist that the process is meticulous and 
> lawful, the president and top aides believe it should be 
> institutionalized, a course of action that seemed particularly urgent 
> when it appeared that Mitt Romney might win the presidency.
>
> "There was concern that the levers might no longer be in our hands," 
> said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. With a 
> continuing debate about the proper limits of drone strikes, Mr. Obama 
> did not want to leave an "amorphous" program to his successor, the 
> official said. The effort, which would have been rushed to completion 
> by January had Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more 
> leisurely pace, the official said.
>
> Mr. Obama himself, in little-noticed remarks, has acknowledged that 
> the legal governance of drone strikes is still a work in progress.
>
> "One of the things we've got to do is put a legal architecture in 
> place, and we need Congressional help in order to do that, to make 
> sure that not only am I reined in but any president's reined in terms 
> of some of the decisions that we're making," Mr. Obama told Jon 
> Stewart in an appearance on "The Daily Show" 
> <http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-october-18-2012/exclusive---barack-obama-extended-interview-pt--1> 
> on Oct. 18.
>
> In an interview with Mark Bowden for a new book on the killing of 
> Osama bin Laden, "The Finish 
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/books/review/the-finish-the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden-by-mark-bowden.html?pagewanted=all>," 
> Mr. Obama said that "creating a legal structure, processes, with 
> oversight checks on how we use unmanned weapons, is going to be a 
> challenge for me and my successors for some time to come."
>
> The president expressed wariness of the powerful temptation drones 
> pose to policy makers. "There's a remoteness to it that makes it 
> tempting to think that somehow we can, without any mess on our hands, 
> solve vexing security problems," he said.
>
> Despite public remarks by Mr. Obama and his aides on the legal basis 
> for targeted killing, the program remains officially classified. In 
> court, fighting lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union 
> <http://www.aclu.org/> and The New York Times seeking secret legal 
> opinions on targeted killings, the government has refused even to 
> acknowledge the existence of the drone program in Pakistan.
>
> But by many accounts, there has been a significant shift in the nature 
> of the targets. In the early years, most strikes were aimed at ranking 
> leaders of Al Qaeda thought to be plotting to attack the United 
> States. That is the purpose Mr. Obama has emphasized, saying in a CNN 
> interview in September 
> <http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/05/obama-reflects-on-drone-warfare/> 
> that drones were used to prevent "an operational plot against the 
> United States" and counter "terrorist networks that target the United 
> States."
>
> But for at least two years in Pakistan, partly because of the C.I.A.'s 
> success in decimating Al Qaeda's top ranks, most strikes have been 
> directed at militants whose main battle is with the Pakistani 
> authorities or who fight with the Taliban against American troops in 
> Afghanistan 
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/afghanistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>. 
>
>
> In Yemen, some strikes apparently launched by the United States killed 
> militants who were preparing to attack Yemeni military forces. Some of 
> those killed were wearing suicide vests, according to Yemeni news 
> reports.
>
> "Unless they were about to get on a flight to New York to conduct an 
> attack, they were not an imminent threat to the United States," said 
> Micah Zenko 
> <http://www.cfr.org/experts/national-security-conflict-prevention/micah-zenko/b15139>, 
> a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who is a critic of the 
> strikes. "We don't say that we're the counterinsurgency air force of 
> Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, but we are."
>
> Then there is the matter of strikes against people whose identities 
> are unknown. In an online video chat 
> <http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/30/president-obama-hangs-out-america> 
> in January, Mr. Obama spoke of the strikes in Pakistan as "a targeted, 
> focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists." But 
> for several years, first in Pakistan and later in Yemen, in addition 
> to "personality strikes" against named terrorists, the C.I.A. and the 
> military have carried out "signature strikes" against groups of 
> suspected, unknown militants.
>
> Originally that term was used to suggest the specific "signature" of a 
> known high-level terrorist, such as his vehicle parked at a meeting 
> place. But the word evolved to mean the "signature" of militants in 
> general --- for instance, young men toting arms in an area controlled 
> by extremist groups. Such strikes have prompted the greatest conflict 
> inside the Obama administration, with some officials questioning 
> whether killing unidentified fighters is legally justified or worth 
> the local backlash.
>
> Many people inside and outside the government have argued for far 
> greater candor about all of the strikes, saying excessive secrecy has 
> prevented public debate in Congress or a full explanation of their 
> rationale. Experts say the strikes are deeply unpopular both in 
> Pakistan and Yemen, in part because of allegations of large numbers of 
> civilian casualties, which American officials say are exaggerated.
>
> Gregory D. Johnsen, author of "The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda and 
> America's War in Arabia 
> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/dec/06/jihadis-yemen/?pagination=false>," 
> argues that the strike strategy is backfiring in Yemen. "In Yemen, Al 
> Qaeda is actually expanding," Mr. Johnsen said in a recent talk at the 
> Brookings Institution 
> <http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/11/13-yemen>, in part because of 
> the backlash against the strikes.
>
> Shuja Nawaz <http://www.acus.org/users/shuja-nawaz>, a Pakistan-born 
> analyst now at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said the United 
> States should start making public a detailed account of the results of 
> each strike, including any collateral deaths, in part to counter 
> propaganda from jihadist groups. "This is a grand opportunity for the 
> Obama administration to take the drones out of the shadows and to be 
> open about their objectives," he said.
>
> But the administration appears to be a long way from embracing such 
> openness. The draft rule book for drone strikes that has been passed 
> among agencies over the last several months is so highly classified, 
> officials said, that it is hand-carried from office to office rather 
> than sent by e-mail.
>
>
> -- 
> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
> art.deco.studios at gmail.com <mailto:art.deco.studios at gmail.com>
>
>
>
>
>
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