Hey b – ditto R’giap; no apologies necessary. Appreciate you keeping the place open and the spotlight focused on some of the many blank spots in the journalistic world.

Posted by: Maxcrat | May 1 2012 0:51 utc | 4

A New Challenge for Our Military: Honest Introspection
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/19/a_new_challenge_for_our_military_honest_introspection

Posted by: Calig | May 1 2012 4:10 utc | 6

@5 Here’s a quick question to mull: how can it be “legal” for the CIA to run its own “drone war” when the CIA is not one of the Armed Forces of the USA?
That would make a CIA pilot an “illegal combatant”, would it not?
Quite how the USA can be “complying with the laws of war” when it is employing “illegal combatants” to fight that war is something that might require significant obfuscation.

Posted by: Johnboy | May 1 2012 11:34 utc | 8

if drone campaigns fall under the “laws of war”, that rules the joystick operators in AZ and whereever to be legit targets for counter attack – whether in their office, burger joint or pto mtg – does it not?

Posted by: b real | May 1 2012 12:10 utc | 10

I keep wondering why the Americans seems to think they have the right to kill people they consider unfriendly to them and when this happens the other way, they are outraged and start their babble about terrorists trying to “destroy our way of life”. So, what would happen if some other nation, say, Iran does the same. That is, flying unmanned drone over New York to kill people who don’t like them. How absurd is this policy and how hypocritical are western nations to think they have “a license to kill”. Shouldn’t the UN debate this policy …i caught myslef saying that and choked, like this would ever happen.

Posted by: ana souri | May 1 2012 13:16 utc | 12

for news about syria
https://www.facebook.com/News.About.Syria
‘West, Zionists seek instability, division in Syria’
April 30, 2012 | Interview with Kevin Barrett
…
Press TV has conducted an interview with Kevin Barrett, author and Islamic Studies expert from Madison, to further discuss the issue. The following is a transcription of the interview.
…
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/238919.html

Posted by: brian | May 1 2012 14:07 utc | 14

The aim is, confusedly, global dominance with the endpoint of a very static, stable society, a completely predictable landscape. (see Orwell…)
To achieve it, you do not wage costly war against another country, with much devastation, to take it over, dominate it, control it, appropriate its resources, and impose a new kind of organization .. Swallow it and remake it to your vision, so to speak.
What you do is corrupt, subvert, control, use contact points, pressure on key persons, etc. – get individual ppl to bend to your will.
You work from the outside while aiming to control the inside thru a top-down scheme, using intimidation, scare-mongering, blackmail, exacting tribute, engaging in shady and illegal deal making, and the like. That may mean stooge Gvmts, Kangaroo courts, supporting human trafficking and other lucrative ventures, yet other destructions, etc.
At a smaller and more local level, Mafias function this way. Some corporate or organizational take-overs are similar in a minor key, as are, yet at another level, ‘associations’ or groups in competition and rifts, power struggles, in dynastic families. The USSR was broken up in this way, say, as a mega ex.
In such a vision or mental landscape, the capacity and will combined with legal impunity to carry out targeted assassinations is vital, as it *appears* to instantly remove from influence or power some X person, and speedily and neatly decapitates (sic) opposing or contrary organizations. > Problem solved!
Such a mind set runs thru the text posted in the top post.
What if the Borgias had drones? Heh, arsenic poisoning is dodgy, can’t count on it at all.

Posted by: Noirette | May 1 2012 16:39 utc | 16

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/01-10
‘Shame on You’: Why I Interrupted Obama Counter-Terrorism Adviser John Brennan
by Medea Benjamin
the Berlin Job interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoiHbcuou0E

Posted by: somebody | May 1 2012 22:00 utc | 18

“the very notion that there is such a thing as “illegal combatants” is in itself a significant legalistic obfuscation.”
No, not really.
After all, it has long been accepted that mercenaries are “illegal combatants”, whereas foreign volunteers are perfectly legal.
But it is important to point this out: GCIII (the protection of Prisoners of War) and GCIV (the protection of civilians) are meant to be book-ends i.e. if you don’t fall under the protection of GCIII then you are entitled to claim the protection of GCIV.
The legalistic obfuscation of Bush and his happy-campers was to claim that “illegal combatants” existed in a legal limbo i.e. neither in GCIII or in GCIV.

Posted by: Johnboy | May 2 2012 1:16 utc | 20

And another one:
http://jurist.org/forum/2012/02/laurie-blank-targeted-strikes.php
Both make mention of a particularly difficult question i.e. if the entire world is a battlefield (and that’s what the “War on Terror” means) then where/who/when are any of us safe from a US drone strike or a shoot-to-kill raid by Seal Team Six?
And if the entire world is a battlefield then shouldn’t the USA be grappling with the legal implications of that?

Posted by: Johnboy | May 2 2012 1:32 utc | 22

Johnboy @ 21
“Combining these distorted self defense laws with the growing popularity of state laws permitting concealed weapons means that, in many states, every American must now be viewed as a human Predator drone, capable of unleashing lethal force without warning at the slightest provocation.”
This would imply every american around the world can be assumed legal targets according to their own rules. The authors of the constitution and the rules of combat knew this, and subverting the law, as the last US regimes has done is very dangerous indeed.

Posted by: Alexander | May 2 2012 10:23 utc | 24