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<h2>Obama to approve drone assassination manual</h2>
<h5> By Patrick Martin <br>
21 January 2013 </h5>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/21/dron-j21.html">http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/21/dron-j21.html</a><br>
<br>
<p>President Obama is about to sign off on a manual that will
institutionalize the process by which the White House orders and
approves killings by remote-controlled drones, according to a report
Sunday.</p>
<p>The so-called counterterrorism “playbook” will define the
circumstances under which the CIA and the military’s Special Forces
Command, the two agencies that operate drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Yemen, Somalia and other parts of the Middle East and Africa, may use
lethal force.</p>
<p>The front-page article in the <em>Washington Post</em> amounts to a
semi-official announcement by the White House and is based on
statements by unnamed government officials. Its publication, on the
same day that Obama officially took the oath of office for his second
term as president, demonstrates the role of his administration as an
instrument of the military-intelligence apparatus.</p>
<p>The US government is so deeply engaged in assassinations all over
the world that top officials believe a manual is required to regularize
the process. According to the <em>Post</em> account, the drafting of
the drone warfare manual has been delayed by infighting between the CIA
and other agencies, with the CIA seeking greater latitude to conduct
missile strikes. These include “signature” strikes, in which the target
is not an identified member of Al Qaeda or some other alleged terrorist
group, but individuals who appear to be engaged in activity that bears
the “signature” of terrorism, such as congregating with weapons, or
loading vehicles with what appear to be explosives.</p>
<p>This means, in practice, targeting for murder people who appear to
be engaged in resistance against US occupations or military actions in
the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Moreover, since most drone
strikes target rural areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other
countries where tribal gatherings are common and weapons are
omnipresent, the demand for “signature” strikes amounts to a license
for the CIA to murder anyone in the population of these territories.</p>
<p>The newspaper reported that the dispute was settled by the CIA
gaining an exemption for wider attacks in Pakistan for a period of at
least one year, more likely two years, and with a possible extension of
even greater duration. The mountainous areas of northwest Pakistan,
along the border with Afghanistan, have been the most frequent target
of drone missile strikes, killing thousands, including hundreds of
women and children.</p>
<p>The <em>Post</em> reports that the drone missile “playbook” will be
submitted to Obama within weeks. The newspaper observes that it “marks
the culmination of a year-long effort by the White House to codify its
counterterrorism policies and create a guide for lethal operations
through Obama’s second term.”</p>
<p>In other words, throughout Obama’s reelection campaign, top White
House officials have been negotiating and concretizing the details of a
secret document that takes as its point of departure the principle that
the president is above the law and can order the death of any
individual on the planet, including American citizens, without any
legal recourse or constraint.</p>
<p>According to the report, “Among the subjects covered in the playbook
are the process for adding names to kill lists, the legal principles
that govern when US citizens can be targeted overseas and the sequence
of approvals required when the CIA or US military conducts drone
strikes outside war zones.”</p>
<p>The Obama administration has refused to disclose what “legal
principles” supposedly give the president the power of life and death
over all humanity. Legal memoranda drafted by the Department of Justice
have been kept secret from the American people, with the administration
prevailing in a series of court hearings where judges have bowed to its
assertion of an absolute right to maintain “state secrets,” regardless
of the provisions of the Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>Even the legal requirements drawn up by the Obama administration,
however, will not actually impose any limits on the CIA and military.
One former official told the <em>Post</em> that the CIA exemption for
Pakistan would be in effect for “less than two years but more than
one,” but added that any final decision “will undoubtedly be predicated
on facts on the ground.”</p>
<p>One purpose of the planted account in the <em>Post</em> is to
bolster the image of White House counterterrorism coordinator John
Brennan, nominated by Obama to head the CIA. Brennan was Obama’s first
choice as CIA director in 2009, but the newly elected president dared
not nominate him because of his role as an advocate of rendition and
torture while a top CIA official during the Bush administration.</p>
<p>The article published Sunday conforms to recent efforts by the White
House to present Brennan as the advocate of moderation and restraint in
the waging of drone warfare. He is described as the driving force of
the “playbook,” his aim being “to impose more consistent and rigorous
controls on counterterrorism programs that were largely ad-hoc in the
aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.”</p>
<p>Insofar as this is anything more than puffery before Brennan’s
nomination hearing next month, the account suggests that Brennan’s role
is like that of the Nazi bureaucrats who wanted order and system in the
operation of the Final Solution, rather than uncontrolled, spasmodic
and therefore inefficient violence.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the US killing machine continues its grisly operations.
Over the weekend, US drone strikes killed at least six, and perhaps as
many as sixteen, in several attacks in southern Yemen. Drone-fired
missiles killed three people Saturday in Maarab province and three more
in a car in the same province Sunday. Another ten were killed in an
explosion at a house in al-Bayda province, said to be an accidental
detonation during bomb-making, but possibly the result of another US
strike, since the US government never comments publicly on drone
operations.</p>
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