The world as its battlefield

4 May 2012 10:04 pm

The entire American position is, however, riddled with problems. First, what Mr. Brennan has said does not tally even with what is known about U.S. drone use. A reliable estimate is that there have been 250 attacks, with 2,000 deaths resulting, including hundreds of civilians in all age-groups; even U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, both civilians, were killed by a drone in Yemen in 2011 without prior judicial review in their own country. Secondly, the claim to precise definition of targets is at best dubious. As Princeton University’s Gregory Johnsen notes, those members of al-Qaeda who had no prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and who have refused to participate in the group’s activities in Yemen might not be exempted; the purported criteria for the attacks have not been made public. In addition, what the U.S. considers unwillingness on the part of another country might well be justified reliance on national sovereignty; the Pakistan parliament has denounced drone attacks there as a violation of its sovereignty and called for an end to them. The U.S., by making its own rules and disclosing them belatedly and only in general terms, has turned itself, as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says, into judge, jury, and executioner. It has made the whole world its own battlefield, with itself as the sole judge of legitimate battle.
The Hindu