Why Obama's 'Targeted Killing' is Worse than Bush's Torture

[Karmadillo]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/20-7

Published on Friday, January 20, 2012 by The Guardian/UK
Why Obama's 'Targeted Killing' is Worse than Bush's Torture
Both are legally prohibited but speciously justified by the White House. The difference? Obama's policy kills innocent bystanders

by Mary Ellen O'Connell

By June 2004, it was confirmed that the US was using torture at secret detention sites and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was in that month that piles of "torture memos" were released to the public. Torture did not officially end until President Obama took office in January 2009.An unmanned Predator drone of the type operating along the Afhanistan-Pakistan border. (Photo: Rex Features/Sipa Press)

A similar story is emerging with respect to targeted killing. The Obama administration has produced its own infamous memo; like many of the torture memos, it was written by lawyers in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. It concerns something that many consider worse than torture: the memo apparently seeks to justify "targeted killing".

Calls have gone out for the release of the memo, but there really is no need. We did need to see the torture memos, but not because anyone with legal expertise on the subject would be enlightened by the analysis – torture is absolutely prohibited. The legal analysis could only be specious. Rather, prior to mid 2004, the use of torture, rendition and secret detention were only rumored. The fact of the memos gave credence to speculation.

In the case of targeted killing, the world can see what is happening. The memo need not be published to confirm the fact. And, as with torture, the memo will not contain a persuasive legal argument respecting the fundamental human rights and humanitarian law at issue.

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[ProSense]

1. Hmmm?

"Both are legally prohibited but speciously justified by the White House. The difference? Obama's policy kills innocent bystanders"

Torture?

Human Rights Watch, 2003:

Based on the limited information available, Human Rights Watch did not criticize the attack on al-Harethi as an extra-judicial execution because his alleged al-Qaeda role arguably made him a combatant, the government apparently lacked control over the area in question, and there evidently was no reasonable law enforcement alternative.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/100299985

That is essentially the President's position.

Still, the illegal invasion of Iraq killed tens of thousands of bystanders. I mean, the OP has got to be the stupidest and most specious argument ever.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Game, set, and match.

Btw, I wholeheartedly approve of the description "specious".

[RC]

4. "specious" How?

When Obama is continuing so many of the last administration's policies? Killing is killing. Targeted killing is murder. Only the methods have changed a bit. This is the stuff of Star Chambers.
We started it. We can not pretend that we are the good guys here.

[Karmadillo]

3. You didn't read the article, did you?

[ProSense]

17. Yes,

"You didn't read the article, did you?"

...and it's complete bullshit. It's a piece designed to give people grasping at straws something to grasp at. I mean, Obama killing one terrorist is worse than Bush torturing people is the most idiotic argument ever. Framing it as impacting bystanders is a failed attempt to create the impression that Bush's actions spared more innocent people than Obama's.

Bush's illegal war in Iraq alone resulted in the death of more 4,000 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million, Iraqis. The article serves only to trivialize torture, which is not a policy of this administration.

• Ordered an end to the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, withdrew
  flawed legal analysis used to justify torture and applied the Army Field Manual on interrogations
  government wide.
  
• Abolished the CIA secret prisons.
  
• Says that “waterboarding is torture” and “contrary to America’s traditions… contrary to our ideals.”
  
• No reports of extraordinary rendition to torture or other cruelty under his administration.
  
• Failed to hold those responsible for past torture and other cruelty accountable; has blocked
  alleged victims of torture from having their day in court.

http://www.aclulibertywatch.org/ALWCandidateReportCard.pdf

Still, grasp away.

[Karmadillo]

19. But that's not the argument she makes. You should read the article before responding.

[DevonRex]

5. Obama is the reincarnation of Stalin

AND Hitler all rolled into one. Every body to get from street! Every body to get from street!

Hang garlic over your front doors! Put sun lamps in every room! Exorcism! We must have an exorcism!



Saying Obama is worse than Bush is hysterical hyperbole.

[Luminous Animal]

6. Another intelligent rebuttal. (My head rolling around laughing.)

[SidDithers]

7. More dreck from commondreams...

Keep trying.

Sid

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. I'm afraid I don't find this at all persuasive, either morally or legally.

If Obama starts having non-combatants killed, or having people killed when there is a valid non-military alternative, I think the article will have a point.

But I think that targetted killing of people who are effectively at war with you and whom you don't have any opportunity to capture is, both legally and morally, within the rules of war.

I also think the "inefficiency" argument the article tries to make is wishful thinking, and it lowers my opinion of the authors intelligence and objectivity.

[Luminous Animal]

9. Oh yes, killing uncounted innocents in Pakistan... a country we are not at war with...

is a-okay. And killing U.S. citizens and their teenage relatives with secret evidence using secret justification is a-okay.

[Major Nikon]

11. Of course it's far more effective to just ask them nicely to turn themselves in

That's always worked so well in the past.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. "No, but that's a complete move of goalposts" and "Yes" respectively.

Killing innocents is clearly not acceptable. But "is the US doing enough to avoid collateral damage in war" is a completely different question to "is targetted killing an acceptable military strategy". *Untargetted* killing, or failing to take precautions to prevent it, is clearly not acceptable. But that's not what the post I was replying to was about.


American citizenship is entirely irrelevant. Killing enemy combatants who hold American citizenship is no different to killing any other enemy combatant, either morally or legally. *Presence in America* would be relevant - the US should never be assassinating anyone it has the option of arresting - but citizenship is not.

Your comment on secret evidence puzzles me - is there anyone who has been a victim of targetted killing who was not clearly an enemy combatant? Specifically, "he was attending an Al-Quaeda training camp" strikes me as proof beyond reasonable doubt of that.

[Luminous Animal]

16. "he was attending an Al-Quaeda training camp". On what evidence.

[raouldukelives]

10. His hands are tied.

It's not like he can just wave a magic wand and make them vanish. He has to think about military contractors and the massive amounts of money flowing from them into Congress. Not to mention the jobs generated by killing people. Think of the shock to economy if we weren't able to blow up whoever we wanted?
It's time to focus on re-election, not trying to stop a few families from being annihilated. Besides, it reflects well on stocks and we have to try to reach out to those independent liberals who are employed by Acadami.

[bhikkhu]

13. I don't imagine any means of fighting a war would please commondreams

Whether that's "fair" or not depends on what you think about the current wars, I suppose. I don't realistically think Obama has much choice, as the CoC of the US military, but at least he is ramping things down overall - the Iraq war is done, and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan is scheduled for 2014.

...in the meantime, Obama deserves some credit for ending torture as a practice (still hard to wrap my mind around how that ever got started here), and its hard to see how "targeted killing" is worse than what we had in prior wars - which was random killing. Ask the civilians of the Japanese, German, Vietnamese and Cambodian cities we burned down if they would have preferred targeted killing. In any case, war is the problem, and I don't see anyone working harder to bring things to an end than the president.

[ellisonz]

18. I couldn't agree more...

"In any case, war is the problem, and I don't see anyone working harder to bring things to an end than the president." -

[joshcryer]

14. Obama still supports rendition, a point missed by the article.

Obama does targeted killing, plus rendition.

Torture is "forbidden" by US agents is hardly a decent exchange for an unprecedented ramp up of targeted killing.

Targeted killing, though, is perfectly legal under the Third Geneva Convention.

To end targeted killing you have to change the law with regards to unlawful combatants, and make it illegal via law. Bush used his years in the White House to make it a perfectly legal practice.

[JDPriestly]

15. Question for those who support Obama's drone-killings.

Justice is blind. Put a blindfold over your eyes and imagine that the drones are headed toward someone you love, someone working on behalf of the country or a cause you love. Now do you think that the drone strike is justified?

What if some terrorist decided that the US was the enemy? How would you feel if that other country started aiming killer drones in our direction?

The reason for due process and the right to a fair trial is that justice, to be just, must be blind. Justice must treat all accused persons in the same manner. Otherwise it is not justice. It is the arbitrary use of power -- the abuse of power.

I realize this is an abstract concept, but surely you can put yourself in someone else's shoes for once.

If we who have a legitimate government supposedly by laws not by men justify drone killings, what kinds of things can terrorists who make no secret that they govern by men not by laws justify?

What do we have a Bill of Rights for if not to reign in our government and prevent this kind of abuse?

[lonestarnot]

20. OMG