(NEW YORK) MintPress – Congress is mad as hell … and wants some answers.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) led a House Judiciary Committee discussion on Thursday that demanded more transparency over how the Obama administration is using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, to carry out the targeted killing of suspected terrorists.
The deployment of drones has become an increasingly widespread tactic in America’s war on terror, but so far, Obama has said little about the program, other than to defend it.
Earlier this year, he told a questioner at an online forum, “Drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists trying to go in and harm Americans.”
Prior to those comments, the president had not even acknowledged the drone program existed.
The fact that the operations are carried out by the CIA rather than the U.S. military allows the administration to evade questions. Most of what is known about drones has come from intelligence leaks to the media.
“This is the first real discussion this committee has had on the topic of drone strikes,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).
After the hearing on Thursday, Kucinich issued a statement announcing a proposed resolution that would require the Obama administration to provide the legal basis for the drone strikes.
“Despite the committee’s decision to report the resolution unfavorably, the committee engaged in a timely and important debate on the use of drones abroad and the violation of the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens that are targeted abroad,” he said.
“Our policies create a dangerous legal precedent that other nations will emulate. As the combat drone program continues to be expanded, it is critical that Congress weigh in.”
Collateral damage
Despite what Obama said earlier this year, there is evidence of civilian casualties.
One of the most controversial tactics is what is known as the “double tap,” which involves bombing a target multiple times in relatively quick succession, meaning that the second strike often hits first responders.
A New York University student, Josh Begley, has been tweeting every reported U.S. drone strike since 2002, and the feed, featured on @dronestream, documents incidents in which drones have intentionally targeted funerals and civilian rescuers.
On June 18, 2009, he tweeted, “2 drone missiles killed 1 person. When rescuers rushed to the scene, 2 more struck, killing 8 (Pakistan) nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world,” and just five days later he wrote “Up to 80 more people were killed when several US drones targeted a funeral (Pakistan) aljazeera.com/news/asia/2009.”
An entry on Jan 6, 2010 read, “Shortly after the first strike, as the rescue efforts were underway, the death toll rose to 15 (Pakistan) aljazeera.com/news/asia/2010.”
And on Apreil 16, 2010 Begley tweeted, “Missiles fired from US drones killed 4 in Tolkhel, hitting a car and people rushing in to help (Pakistan) google.com/hostednews/afp.”
In February, an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) also revealed that the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals.
The findings, published in the Sunday Times in February, showed that at that time, between 282 and 535 civilians had been credibly reported as killed, including more than 60 children, since Obama had taken office.
The three-month investigation, which included eyewitness reports, also found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims and more than 20 civilians had been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners.
The TBIJ also has an ongoing investigation into what it calls the “Covert Drone War,” and it keeps all of the latest data on its website.
Legal views
The CIA is not covered by laws of war or the Geneva Convention, but its tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.
Naz Modirzadeh, associate director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at Harvard University, said killing people at a rescue site may have no justification under the law.
“Not to mince words here, if it is not in a situation of armed conflict, unless it falls into the very narrow area of imminent threat then it is an extrajudicial execution,” she said
“We don’t even need to get to the nuance of who’s who, and are people there for rescue or not. Because each death is illegal. Each death is a murder in that case.”
Christof Heyns, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, claimed that if there are “secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping (the injured) after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime.”
Heyns also said an international legal framework is urgently needed to govern their use.
“Our concern is how far does it go – will the whole world be a theatre of war?’ he asked. “Drones in principle allow collateral damage to be minimised but because they can be used without danger to a country’s own troops they tend to be used more widely. One doesn’t want to use the term ticking bomb but it’s extremely seductive.”
Not surprisingly, there has been no response to any of this from the White House.
“My concern is not why drones are used, or when drones are used but the legal authority for the use of drones,” added Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) after the House Judiciary Committee meeting. “I hope the committee will use this opportunity to take the issue up.”