[Prefatory Note: 2020 hardly began when the news reported the shocking MQ9 Reaper Drone assassination of General Qassim Soleimani on Januarary 3rd shortly after he landed at the Baghdad Airport to begin a discreet diplomatic mission to reduce tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. At the time, I felt this was provocative and self-defeating, as well […]
How Intellectuals Cured ‘Tyrannophobia’
American presidents have adopted Hobbesian levels of power.
Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman explains the history and radical ideological and religious underpinnings of this rogue policy tacitly endorsed by the United States.
“The state of Israel has a history of great violence, visited on it by its enemies and in return by Israel’s own intelligence services and military. In “Rise and Kill First,” journalist and author Ronen Bergman writes about the nearly century-long campaign of targeted killing. He joins Nick Schifrin to discuss the secret history of these strikes.” (PBS)
The number of civilians killed by United States drone strikes is at least 500, nearly all of the strikes were a part of the Obama administration’s targeted assassination policy. (Photo: (Image: Lance Page/Truthout; Adapted: Amanda Currier, Nathan Barry/Flickr-CC)
There were ten times more air strikes in the covert war on terror during President Barack Obama’s presidency than under his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Who is your government killing?
The post UK Government Urged To Answer for Policy of Targeted Killing appeared first on The Anti-Media.
By Jameel Jaffer and Brett Max Kaufman | Just Security | June 20, 2015 This week, one government intelligence agency, after patiently and methodically tracking a terrorist leader for months through precise electronic surveillance, successfully targeted him for death by drone. Also this week, a government intelligence agency eliminated a terrorist leader through a drone […]
By Gabe Rottman | ACLU | May 15, 2013
Although the president’s press secretary noted yesterday then-Senator Obama’s support for a federal shield law to protect reporters from having to disclose their sources, he failed to mention how the White House deep-sixed a comprehensive shield bill back in 2009. That bill could have prevented the extraordinary Associated Press subpoena, which was disclosed this week.
Harold Koh, formerly the Obama administration’s top State Department lawyer, has criticized the systematic secrecy surrounding the drone war. The New York Times:
Yesterday would have been uber-diplomat Richard Holbrooke’s 72nd birthday. He died December 13, 2010 while on the job as our top envoy to Afghanistan, and one can’t help thinking that whatever 1960′s idealism still existed in terms of making that country a better place, died with him. At least symbolically.
