[News] The 'Obama doctrine': kill, don't detain

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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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