dagblog - Comments for "What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks?"

There's this home page lede:

artappraiser — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:21:49 +0000

In reply to What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks?

There's this home page lede: Congratulations, Lefties, Now the Drone War Will Last Forever, for this article:

Going Clear
Drone critics wanted greater transparency. Careful what you wish for.
By Matthew Waxman, ForeignPolicy.com Op-Ed, March 20, 2013

.....moving operations to the Pentagon may modestly improve transparency and compliance with the law but -- ironically for drone critics -- it may also entrench targeted-killing policy for the long term.....

President Obama: I'm no Dick

artappraiser — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 04:05:14 +0000

In reply to What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks?

President Obama: I'm no Dick Cheney on drones
By Josh Gerstein and Manu Raju, Politico.com, 3/14/13

President Barack Obama’s defense to Democratic senators complaining about how little his administration has told Congress about the legal justifications for his drone policy: Dick Cheney was worse.

That’s part of what two senators in the room recounted of Obama’s response when, near the outset of his closed-door session with the Senate Democratic conference on Tuesday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) confronted the president over the administration’s refusal for two years to show congressional intelligence committees Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel memos justifying the use of lethal force against American terror suspects abroad [....]

In response to Rockefeller’s critique, Obama said he’s not involved in drafting such memos, the senators told POLITICO. He also tried to assure his former colleagues that his administration is more open to oversight than that of President George W. Bush, whom many Democratic senators attacked for secrecy and for expanding executive power in the national security realm.

“This is not Dick Cheney we’re talking about here,” he said, according to Democratic senators who asked not to be named discussing the private meeting.

Two Obama administration officials, who asked not to be named, confirmed Rockefeller raised the drone oversight issue with the president at the session. The White House had no comment on Obama’s alleged reference to the former vice president.[....]

Asked about the exchange on Wednesday, Rockefeller would only say: “I’ll leave it where it is.”[....]

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday morning, Chairman Patrick Leahy suggested he’d recently raised the issue with the president. The Vermont Democrat also reiterated his threat to subpoena one of the classified legal memos if the White House won’t fork it over. Leahy voted against Brennan’s confirmation in what the Judiciary Committee chairman said was a protest over the administration’s refusal to show the relevant memos to his committee, which oversees the Justice Department.

Has charts of both national

artappraiser — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 01:23:16 +0000

In reply to What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks?

Has charts of both national and international opinion:

After Fight Over CIA Director Ends, A Look at Public Opinion on Drones
Pew Research Center, March 7, 2013

Just before the Senate on Thursday voted to confirm John Brennan to head the CIA, his nomination had to overcome one last obstacle – a filibuster of nearly 13 hours led by Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican. Paul had taken the floor amid concerns aired by some on both sides of the aisle about the administration’s use of unmanned drones in targeting terrorists, and whether they might ever be used in such a way in the U.S.

In general, the drone strikes against terrorists abroad are supported by a majority of Americans but they draw widespread opposition in most other countries surveyed.

In a Pew Research Center survey conducted Feb. 7-10, 56% of Americans said they approved of the U.S. conducting missile strikes from drones “to target extremists in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.” About a quarter (26%) of the public disapproved.

However, as some in Congress press the White House to be more transparent about the drone program — just as senators did during Brennan’s confirmation hearings on Feb. 7 — 31% of those surveyed said they were very concerned about whether the drone strikes were being conducted legally. Among those who disapprove of U.S. drone strikes, the number of those very concerned about their legality was 52% [.....]

I'm a little surprised that

Aaron Carine — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:20:29 +0000

In reply to What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks?

I'm a little surprised that Roth would ask what the justification is for attacks in Northwestern Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. We were going after Al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia, and after Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan. This isn't a traditional war, so the battlefield isn't always traditional.

P.S. I think we should have ended the Afghan war before now.

The Global Swarm Drones are

artappraiser — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:54:12 +0000

In reply to What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks?

The Global Swarm
Drones are not only spreading to other countries, they're becoming smaller and smarter
by P.W. Singer, Op-Ed @ ForeignPolicy.com, March 11,2013

"One plan was to use an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry 20kg of TNT to bomb the area, but the plan was rejected because we were ordered to catch him alive." This is what Liu Yuejin, director of China's public security ministry's anti-drug bureau, described of the manhunt for Naw Kham, the ringleader of a large drug trafficking outfit based in the Golden Triangle, who was suspected of killing 13 Chinese sailors. Ultimately, they got him via a cross-border nighttime ambush, the Chinese version of the Abbottabad raid.

This case, however, is useful to think about when talking about the global market for unmanned aerial systems (aka "drones") and where it is headed, a topic that got new energy last week with a New York Times report on the confusion as to whether it was American or Pakistani drones that carried out a controversial airstrike.

Too often in policy and media circles, we discuss a supposed American monopoly on drones that is potentially ending. Or, as Time magazine entitled a story, "Drone Monopoly: Hope You Enjoyed It While It Lasted." The article goes on to say,"It is going to happen; the only question is when."

The answer is: several years ago. [.....]

Author bio. note:

Peter Warren Singer is director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at Brookings and author of the New York Times bestseller Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21^st Century. For further information, visit www.pwsinger.com or follow him on Twitter: @peterwsinger.