[News] The 'Obama doctrine': kill, don't detain
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Apr 12 12:15:21 EDT 2010
The 'Obama doctrine': kill, don't detain
George Bush left a big problem in the shape of
Guantánamo. The solution? Don't capture bad guys, assassinate by drone
Sunday 11 April 2010 18.00 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/11/obama-national-security-drone-guantanamo
In 2001,
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/24/LI2005032401690.html>Charles
Krauthammer first coined the phrase
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine>"Bush
Doctrine", which would later become associated
most significantly with the legal anomaly known
as pre-emptive strike. Understanding the doctrine
with hindsight could lead to a further
understanding of the legacy that the former
administration left the choice to place
concerns of national security over even the most
entrenched norms of due process and the rule of
law. It is, indeed, this doctrine that united
people across the world in their condemnation of Guantánamo Bay.
The ambitious desire to close Guantánamo hailed
the coming of a new era, a feeling implicitly
recognised by the
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/10/obama-nobel-peace-prize-norway>Nobel
peace prize that President Obama received.
Unfortunately, what we witnessed was a false
dawn. The lawyers for the Guantánamo detainees
with whom I am in touch in the US speak of their
dismay as they prepare for Obama to do the one
thing they never expected to send the detainees
back to the military commissions a decision
that will lose Obama all support he once had within the human rights community.
Worse still, a completely new trend has emerged
that, in many ways, is more dangerous than the
trends under Bush. Extrajudicial killings and
targeted assassinations will soon become the main
point of contention that Obama's administration
will need to justify. Although Bush was known for
his support for such policies, the extensive use
of drones under Obama have taken the death count
well beyond anything that has been seen before.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hongju_Koh>Harold
Koh, the legal adviser to the US state
department, explained the justifications behind
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) when addressing
the American Society of International Law's annual meeting on 25 March 2010:
"[I]t is the considered view of this
administration
that targeting practices,
including lethal operations conducted with the
use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), comply
with all applicable law, including the laws of
war
As recent events have shown, al-Qaida has
not abandoned its intent to attack the United
States, and indeed continues to attack us. Thus,
in this ongoing armed conflict, the United States
has the authority under international law, and
the responsibility to its citizens, to use force,
including lethal force, to defend itself,
including by targeting persons such as high-level
al Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks
[T]his administration has carefully reviewed the
rules governing targeting operations to ensure
that these operations are conducted consistently with law of war principles
"[S]ome have argued that the use of lethal force
against specific individuals fails to provide
adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful
extrajudicial killing. But a state that is
engaged in armed conflict or in legitimate
self-defense is not required to provide targets
with legal process before the state may use
lethal force. Our procedures and practices for
identifying lawful targets are extremely robust,
and advanced technologies have helped to make our
targeting even more precise. In my experience,
the principles of distinction and proportionality
that the United States applies are not just
recited at meeting. They are implemented
rigorously throughout the planning and execution
of lethal operations to ensure that such
operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law."
The legal justifications put forward by Koh are
reminiscent of the
<http://blogs.nybooks.com/post/439011858/they-did-authorize-torture-but>arguments
that were used by John Yoo and others in their
bid to lend legitimacy to unlawful practices such
as rendition, arbitrary detention and torture.
The main cause for concern from Koh's statements
is the implication that protective jurisdiction
to which the US feels it is entitled in order to
carry out operations anywhere in the world still
continues under Obama. The laws of war do not
allow for the targeting of individuals outside of
the conflict zone, and yet we now find that
extrajudicial killings are taking place in
countries as far apart as Yemen, the Horn of
Africa and Pakistan. From a legal and moral
perspective, the rationale provided by the State
Department is bankrupt and only reinforces the
stereotype that the US has very little concern for its own principles.
Despite the legalities of what is being
conducted, the actuality of extrajudicial
killings, especially through UAVs is frightening.
The
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/apr/07/wikileaks-collateral-murder-iraq-video>recent
revelations by WikiLeaks on the killing of
civilians by US Apache helicopters in Iraq has
strongly highlighted the opportunities for misuse
surrounding targeting from the air. In the Iraq
case, there were soldiers who were supposed to be
using the equipment to identify so-called
combatants, and yet they still managed to
catastrophically target the wrong people. This
situation is made even worse in the case of UAVs,
where the operators are far removed from the
reality of the conflict and rely on digital
images to see what is taking place on the ground.
Conservative estimates from thinktanks
<http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2009/drone_war_13672>such
as the New American Foundation claim that
civilian causalities from drone attacks are
around one in three, although this figure is
disputed by the Pakistani authorities. According
to Pakistani official statistics, every month an
average of 58 civilians were killed during 2009.
Of the 44 Predator drone attacks that year, only
five targets were correctly identified; the
result was over 700 civilian casualties.
Regardless of the figures used, the case that
extrajudicial killings are justified is extremely
weak, and the number of civilian casualties is
far too high to justify their continued use.
A further twist to the Obama Doctrine is the
breaking of a taboo that the Bush administration
balked at the concept of treating US citizens
outside of the US constitutional process. During
the Bush era, the treatment of detainees such as
John Walker Lindh, Yasser Hamdi and Jose Padilla
showed reluctance by officials to treat their own
nationals in the way it had all those of other
nationalities (by, for instance, sending them to
Guantánamo Bay and other secret prisons). The
policy of discrimination reserved for US citizens
showed that there was a line the US was not willing to cross.
At least, today, we can strike discrimination off
the list of grievances against the current
president. The National Security Council of the
US has now given specific permission to the CIA
to target certain US citizens as part of
counter-terrorism operations. Specifically,
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7564581/Barack-Obama-orders-killing-of-US-cleric-Anwar-al-Awlaki.html>Anwar
al-Awlaki has been singled out for such
treatment, as it has been claimed that he was
directly involved in the planning of the Major
Hasan Nidal killings and the Christmas Day bomber
attacks. Indeed, it is claims such as this that
bring the entire concept of targeted
assassinations into question. The US would like
us to believe that we should simply trust that
they have the relevant evidence and information
to justify such a killing, without bringing the
individual to account before a court.
The assumption that trust should be extended to a
government that has involved itself in
innumerable unlawful and unconscionable practices
since the start of the war on terror is too much
to ask. Whatever goodwill the US government had
after 9/11 was destroyed by the way in which it
prosecuted its wars. Further, the hope that came
with the election of Barack Obama has faded as
his policies have indicated nothing more than a
reconfiguration of the basic tenet of the Bush
Doctrine that the US's national security
interests supersede any consideration of due
process or the rule of law. The only difference
witness the rising civilian body count from drone
attacks being that Obama's doctrine is even more deadly.
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