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- "Is that who we are?" Obama's Speech on Drones and Preventive and Indefinite Detention
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Two News Items About Drones Requiring No Comment
Two News Items About Drones Requiring No Comment
By Dennis Loo (2/16/13)
From PressTV, February 14, 2013:
“The Pentagon says it is creating the Distinguished Warfare Medal that can be awarded to those US troops who launch assassination drone strikes and direct cyber attacks.
“The outgoing US Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, said on Wednesday that the US drone operators and those who direct cyber attacks would be eligible to receive the medal for their direct impact on a US military operation from afar.
“’I’ve seen firsthand how modern tools, like remotely piloted platforms and cyber systems, have changed the way wars are fought,’ Panetta said.”
From Reuters, February 13, 2013:
“A NATO airstrike killed 10 Afghan civilians, including five children, in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, local officials said, a toll that if confirmed is likely to raise tension between President Hamid Karzai's government and U.S.-led NATO forces.
“The strike, in the Shigal district of Kunar province, was confirmed by NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), though a spokesman said it could not confirm civilian casualties.
"’Foreign forces carried out the attack by themselves without informing us,’ Kunar Governor Fazlullah Wahidi told Reuters.
“Four Taliban fighters were also killed in the strike and five civilians wounded, he said.
“The strike occurred in the village of Chawgam and the 10 dead civilians were from two local families, Wahidi said." (Emphasis added).
Comments
It is perfectly legal iaw IHL for the administration to target the Taliban.
Your Reuters link admits that there were Taliban killed. If they allow the presence of children (which, they do) then you needed to demand that they cease. The critics have friends (e.g. Worthington) sympathetic to the Taliban. Talk to them.
The link does not claim it would have been reasonable to expect drone operators to discern that these were kids. They could have been 17 year-old Taliban recruits for all we know.
After 11+ years, critics of the U.S. side of the war have still not demanded that insurgents wear distinguishing uniforms or badges. It's ridiculous to blame Obama for the critics' disinterest.
That's all beside the fact that, in this same post, with a straight face, you're linking to the Iranian state propaganda site. They care even less about human rights than Al Jazeera.
"Among its most valued warriors, the Pentagon now counts U.S. troops whose operations entail the click of a mouse or the remote piloting of unmanned vehicles. But how does the government bestow honor upon those who do their work thousands of miles from the front lines?
"In what probably was his last move as defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta on Wednesday announced the creation of a new type of medal for troops engaged in cyber-operation s and drone strikes, saying the move “recognizes the changing face of warfare.”
“'I’ve seen firsthand how modern tools, like remotely piloted platforms and cyber-systems, have changed the way wars are fought,' Panetta said during his swan-song news conference at the Pentagon.
“'They’ve given our men and women the ability to engage the enemy and change the course of battle, even from afar.'”
That you can endorse the notion that it's the fault of those who have their children around them while going about their lives when those children are killed is noxious.
By the way, Worthington's not a Taliban symp. He's an opponent of war crimes, however, which you unfortunately are not.
The battle didn't just start that day. The operation had been building for weeks. The public had been warned to stay inside. A frame grab of the video shows those particular men had weapons.
Sadr's minions also appeared here:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/live-from-dnc-its-zombietime-day-1/
No one was willing to ask them to stop fighting and support elections.
Worthington is a senior member of Cageprisoners, whose other leaders are acknowledged to be sympathetic to the Taliban. Worthington himself takes no position, but declines to criticize the Taliban.
I oppose war crimes no matter who does them. I don't falsely accuse people of war crimes, and I strongly oppose the use of children as human shields.
As we went back & forth on a prior article of mine, you refuse to recognize what is obvious - the US is openly targeting children. See that quote I highlighted in http://dennisloo.com/archives/two-confounding-items-in-the-news-regarding-the-murdering-of-children.html.
The claim that civilians are using their kids as human shields is absurd beyond belief. You've no sense of the relationship btw kids & parents: How long wd kids stay w/ parents who were using them as human shields?
This site loops a close up of an RPG clipped from that same Wikileaks video:
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201889.php
That's an obvious RPG-7. There were also AK-47s.
Besides that, as I've said before, Ethan McCord was there. He doesn't believe the attack on the van was necessary, but acknowledges that weapons were found, including RPGs.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/2007-iraq-apache-attack-as-seen-from-the-ground/
In other words, those other civilians you thought were out for a stroll were really insurgents.
Looking for children is not the same thing as actually killing them. They need to look for threats of all kinds. They can never assume that anyone can be trusted.
You're taking a real war crime of the insurgents, acting like it's our fault, and not criticizing the insurgents at all.
And then you scoff that they wouldn't be using them as human shields. In fact, your source mentions their use as human shields.
BTW: It's not necessarily their parents who are using them that way, although that's happened, too. For suicide bombers and human shields, the insurgents generally use other kids, not their own.
Drones attack people who are unaware that they are about to be attacked. The idea that any of them are using children as human shields therefore makes no sense. It's not like a drone is on the ground pointing its missiles at someone & that person then grabs the nearest child to shield themselves. Do you get that you are being misled, willingly or unwillingly, by the US gov't that is making up this story about human shields with regard to drones?
In times past, soldiers could, to some extent, let their guard down when near children. Those rules don't apply here. That's all he's saying.
That is, unless it's really your position that the U.S. military should not defend itself against child soldiers. If you think that, then you need to say so.
Again, you're criticizing the U.S. for the insurgents' war crimes. It's absurd. You cannot support IHL if you do that.
Again, and I'm not going to repeat this but if you continue to post comments like this I will either ignore you or say: "as I said before" - The US illegally, unjustly, and immorally invaded & continue to occupy Iraq. That is the "supreme war crime" as defined by the UN Charter & the Nuremberg Principles. You don't parry that argument by saying that the US invasion & occupation are a "different question."
Re Juan Cole (diff event but same idea):
http://www.juancole.com/2004/11/more-on-marine-mosque-killing-iraqis.html
Had we been invaded by Iran, I would never try to make the case that the supposed illegality of their invasion somehow absolves the U.S. military from fighting iaw the LOAC. The GCs do accept that uniforms aren't possible right away, but not after years.
Furthermore, the Sadr militia was not fighting to restore the old gov't, and they were not fighting for the newly elected gov't. There is nothing legitimate about their insurgency.
It would be as if the U.S. was invaded, and the KKK chose to start an insurgency both against the legitimate U.S. military and against the invaders.
Note also the gunner's disgusting comments abt the reporter who's not dead yet, "asking" him to pick up a gun so he can shoot him again. That's your precious observance of the rules of engagement.
http://www.africexports.co.za/images/press-actical-vest.jpg
They also have matching helmets. If you'll note, the two Reuters stringers were dressed just like insurgents.
Whether their words were disgusting or not, the Apache crewman did not fire until authorized. He respects the laws of war.
As bad as you think he is, he wore a uniform so that the enemy does not confuse him with a civilian. His helicopter had U.S. Army markings. The vehicles he rode in had Army markings so that they won't be confused with civilian vehicles. This is something that Worthington has not demanded of insurgents. It's quite obvious who really cares more about the lives of innocents, and who does not.
They certainly would have mattered a great deal to those children.
Don't you think whether or not I had donned a uniform would have depended upon whether or not I cared about the civilians around me?
If foreign drones ever start killing people in the U.S., they're going to prefer killing civilians anyway. That's the nature of all our enemies.
Even today, most civilian deaths in Afghanistan are caused by America's enemies fully intending to kill civilians, including children. They know that no one will insist that they observe the LOAC.
They're not going to be any different when here.
The US invasion and occupation BROUGHT al-Qaeda to Iraq.
The US is committing a war crime everyday by being in Iraq in the first place.
I will note that, if you remember "mission accomplished" moment that Bush is often criticized for, it represented a day when the war could have ended.
It might have been better if we'd done that, but some critics said "you break it, you bought it." They insisted on an elected government.
The Iraqis had elections in 2005. The war could have ended then, too. The UNSC authorized the U.S. to remain until 2006 and then until the end of 2007. It was extended again until the end of 2008. The Iraqi gov't then extended it until the end of 2011.
The war could have ended at any time along the way. Somebody should have told the insurgents to the support elections from the beginning.
Even if a war was totally unjustified, it would not change the requirement that insurgents either respect the laws of war, or accept that *THEY* have made it far more dangerous for non-combatants.
Note, too, that we were not only talking about Iraq, but also Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. I could argue either one, but you'd have more trouble saying that the U.S. was the aggressor in Afghanistan. And even if you tried, it still wouldn't change the requirement that insurgents respect the LOAC.
You seem to be going out of your way to avoid saying that insurgents should respect the laws of war.
Best wishes.
Very few insurgents, if any, were supporting elements of Saddam Hussein's former government. Many of the locals fear the insurgents and prefer the elected gov't. That makes them aggressors.
Before stopping her blog, this Iraqi woman used to be on Juan Cole's blogroll:
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
She hated the invasion, and hated the Bush administration. She eventually fled Iraq because of the very insurgents that you're now defending.
"For Bradley, Ethan, and the Collateral Murder Victims"
http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php/wikileaks/8165-for-bradley-ethan-and-the-collateral-murder-victims
This is someone that WCW and Wikileaks both chose to regard as worthy of note. He was on the scene. He clearly says that some of those men had weapons, including RPGs.
The group included insurgents, and that makes their killing legal in accordance with the laws of war.
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