General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDo you know what a 'signature strike' is?
Signature Strikes are drone killings that potentially target all military aged males in a strike zone and they account for the majority of drone killings. That is the official name.
"Signature strikes"—attacks based on patterns of activity—were first authorized by President George W. Bush in 2008 for CIA drone strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan. As reported by David Sanger in his book The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power, the threshold for who could be killed was lowered in 2008 from "high-value targets" (HVTs) or "personality strikes," to what was termed the "reasonable man" standard. Subsequent reporting by Jo Becker and Scott Shane in the New York Times revealed that the Obama administration continued the policy whereby a signature strike "in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants. The Obama administration has also expanded this practice for targeted killings in Yemen in 2012.
The Obama administration has repeatedly refused to acknowledge that it conducts signature strikes, or to explain how the killing of anonymous military-aged males based on their observable behavior meets the principle of distinction in the law of armed conflict (the idea of distinction is to only engage valid military targets). Before President Obama's recent counterterrorism speech, it was reported that the United States was going to either scale back or end signature strikes. However, the president never discussed implementing these options, and when his senior aides were asked about them in a background briefing prior to the speech, they too were unresponsive.
Subsequently, there is no evidence that signature strikes will be reduced or ended based upon anything the Obama administration has recently stated.
http://www.cfr.org/united-states/does-recent-shift-us-drone-policy-impact-signature-strikes/p30885
http://www.salon.com/topic/signature_strikes/
<snip>
President Obama’s Escalation of the Drone Program
When President Bush left office in January 2009, the US had carried out at least 45 drone strikes according to the New America Foundation, or 52 according to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), inside Pakistan.[33] Since then, President Obama has reportedly carried out more than five times that number: 292 strikes in just over three and a half years.[34] This dramatic escalation in the US use of drones to carry out targeted killings has brought with it escalating tensions between the US and Pakistan, as well as continued questions about the efficacy and accuracy of such strikes.[35]
“Personality Strikes” and so-called “Signature Strikes”
A key feature of the Obama administration’s use of drones has been a reported expansion in the use of “signature” strikes. Between 2002 and 2007, the Bush administration reportedly focused targeted killings on “personality” strikes targeting named, allegedly high-value leaders of armed, non-state groups like Salim Sinan al Harethi and Nek Mohammad.[36] Under Obama, the program expanded to include far more “profile” or so-called “signature” strikes based on a “pattern of life” analysis.[37] According to US authorities, these strikes target “groups of men who bear certain signatures, or defining characteristics associated with terrorist activity, but whose identities aren’t known.”[38] Just what those “defining characteristics” are has never been made public. In 2012, the New York Times paraphrased a view shared by several officials that “people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good.”[39] The Times also reported that some in the Obama administration joke that when the CIA sees “three guys doing jumping jacks,” they think it is a terrorist training camp.[40]
<snip>
http://www.livingunderdrones.org/background-and-context/
<snip>
To date, the United States has used drones to execute without trial some 4,700 people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia – all countries against whom it has not declared war. The US’ drones programme is a covert war being carried out by the CIA.
For communities living under drones, life is filled with constant terror. Nobody knows who the next target might be. Armed drones can hand down a death sentence simply because a person exhibited suspicious behaviour. Yet what that behaviour is, the United States refuses to say. Other times, the death sentence comes simply because the person fell within the target demographic: all males aged 18 to 65. According to the United States, these men are not deemed civilians unless they can prove their innocence - posthumously.
The drones, sometimes as many as five or six at a time, constantly circle overhead, terrorising civilian populations, nearly half of whom are children. A recent study carried out in Yemen by clinical and forensic psychologist, Dr Peter Schaapveld, reported severe post-traumatic stress disorder in children living in areas targeted for drone strikes.
<snip>
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/investigations/drones/
I just want to add that the U.S. is about to run into real trouble with the drone killings in Pakistan. The new PM has vowed to take action as have other influential politicians like Imran Khan.
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Catherina
(35,568 posts)Thanks for keep all the right fires burning Cali. 
cali
(114,904 posts)I actually am devoted to apple pie and when I think of flag waving I think of the local town parades here on Memorial Day and July 4th.
The drone issue, however, horrifies the hell out of me. And it drives me a little nuts that it's just something DUers don't like to discuss.
Catherina
(35,568 posts)and I would LOVE to go back in time where you watched a parade and didn't associate it with anything ugly.
The drone issue horrifies me as well, these horrible wars where we deprive innocent others of life as if their lives don't matter and if they cared about their lives, they'd get out of the way. I literally see the MIC as a big dark octopus unleashed by the 1% and suffocating this world with one tentacle raining bombs, another tossing GMO seeds, another sucking up the worlds water for profit, the mines, you get the idea
I appreciate all your work too. I know I'm fixated on the NSA right now but all these other fires are related. All of them are intertwined. I really salute you for not losing track 
tblue
(16,350 posts)Facts, truth, life, peace. That's all I care about. I am appalled at the bullying taking place on this site. You two stick to facts without questioning people's motivations. 
Catherina
(35,568 posts)I have to admit that I do question people's motivations but I put all those whose motivations and honesty I question on ignore. 
That way they can't waste my time. Solidarity 
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)were under the impression that "change" meant drastic increases in drone strikes and domestic surveillence. I assume they're more cynical and less trusting in future....and will vote against the party thats lamely trying to rationalize those programs.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)For example the fire-bombing of Tokyo and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Arguing about whether missiles kill a few civilians is useless.
sibelian
(7,804 posts)... I think the subject of the discussion might be more along the lines of.... "what for?"
cali
(114,904 posts)we're not at war with Pakistan of Somalia or Yemen.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)If any of those countries flew a drone over the US and blew up a house with a missile, I'm pretty sure we would consider it an "act of war".
cali
(114,904 posts)FarCenter
(19,429 posts)So the deaths of their civilians is the Pakistani government's problem, not ours.
(But actually, the idea that Pakistan is an ally is a fraud. Pakistan is an Islamic regime, and has been since the war between Islamists and Hindus that resulted in its founding.)
cali
(114,904 posts)He's been gone for 5 years and Pakistan withdrew any consent he gave. YOU are wrong, wrong and even more wrong.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)
MADem
(135,425 posts)is doing (see how the responsibility for their nuclear program is divvied up if you are unclear as to my meaning in this regard). Pakistan continued to actively participate in drone targeting and strikes LONG AFTER Musharraf left the stage.
Further, Pakistan has not "withdrawn consent," in fact, the opposite is true.
Pakistan has, in the past, engaged in a plausible deniability game, where they express "Shock, SHOCK, I tell you" that anyone would be droning over their skies, while on the other hand, they've not only given permission for the activity, but they've pointed out the guys they wanted targeted.
The new Prime Minister can shake his fist and say "No MORE!!!" but he's not fully in charge. If the head honchos in the ISI and the Army want strikes to continue, they likely will--and if the PM tries to gripe about it, those entities will "school" him. He'll either go along and get along, and perhaps push for incremental changes, or the brakes just might fail on his limo...or worse. The intelligence/military arms in that country aren't about to roll over and give up their clout--that's just not happening.
This is how their country runs, so don't shoot the messenger, now.
So....the Big Bad America thing isn't entirely "on" here. When it sounds simplistic and something that any unthinking individual might get OUTRAGED about, there's often more going on than meets the eye.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/05/30/strike-against-pakistani-taliban-ends-drone-cease-fire
"The first thing Sharif will learn is what the real options are," says Carol Christine Fair, professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow with the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point. Pakistan is complicit in these strikes, she says, even though previous governments have denounced involvement and castigated U.S. armed drones.
"The problem for various Pakistani governments and for people trying to understand this issue," she adds, "is [they] don't understand the way in which the Pakistani state operates: It makes various statements publicly, and then undermines those through private action."
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)names, or the crimes that resulted in the death penalty without any charges even?
WW11 was a full scale war, the US initially did not want to get into it, until war was declared by Hitler.
Hitler had a powerful military machine, he was not some rag tag extremist in some remote country.
And WW11 did not last 12, going on 13 years. If we cant win a war, which we are told is no where near ending because we are still in danger, against a bunch of extremists, THAT is what ought to worry Americans. What if China eg, decided to attack us when we are unable to defend ourselves against some faceless, radicals by now?
Seems we are doing something wrong if this supposed WOT is still going on. Maybe we are just not capable of defending ourselves and if that is the case, maybe we should focus on that rather than killing civilians all over the world.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)Monkie
(1,301 posts)i am against the death penalty, but it is a fact that war crimes resulting in death are a federal crime for which the death penalty is one of the punishments available.
i have also seen some people at DU defends the drone program, which i find more disgusting than the NSA spying on me.
frylock
(34,825 posts)defending the surveillance state. but fear not, for they will flip 180 degrees once president jeb has the keys to the store.
cali
(114,904 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)Monkie
(1,301 posts)i really struggle to understand how someone can openly defend such actions if i dont explain it to myself by seeing it as racist.
not that where i live is completely free from this same hatred.
reusrename
(1,716 posts)When I see those convicted conspirators out loose, overthrowing democratically elected governments, setting up more death squads all over the world, then I am absolutely positive that the death penalty is the only way society can protect itself from war criminals. So yeah, I believe war criminals should be convicted and hanged, but only when we can somehow escape this Orwellian dystopia and return to a rule of law.
Monkie
(1,301 posts)this is the hard question, life without a possibility for parole in some kind of "supermax" style prison would seem the obvious answer.
if you believe in peace and the sanctity of life one would have to execute war criminals and the executioner would have to commit suicide afterwards? and even then someone somewhere would find a way to have someone executed that turns out to be innocent of the crime. early testing for sociopathy and psychopathy?
the hardest questions to answer, so i stick to my beliefs that the death penalty is always wrong.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)And pretend to have some sort of moral legitimacy in the world community.
Then again, I'm sure most of the world looks at the US, Russia and China like 3 Wolves arguing over who get which group of lambs for dinner.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Pakistan-US relations are complex and complicated by continuing drone strikes. Pakistan initially appeared to support US strikes covertly. From 2004 through at least 2007, the Pakistani government claimed responsibility for attacks that had, in fact, been conducted by the US, thus allowing the US to deny any involvement.[54] In 2008, according to cables released by Wikileaks, Pakistan’s Prime Minister reportedly told US Embassy officials, “I don’t care if they [conduct strikes] as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.”[55] In 2009, both Pakistan’s Prime Minister and its Foreign Minister publicly celebrated the drone strike that killed Baitullah Mehsud, the alleged leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistan (TTP), an armed group that launches terrorist attacks within Pakistan.[56]
More info:
At the time of this writing, the US is believed to have conducted 344 total strikes in Pakistan, 52 between June 17, 2004 and January 2, 2009 (under President Bush),[62] and 292 strikes between January 23, 2009 and September 2, 2012 (under President Obama).[63] Those numbers, which TBIJ has pieced together from available media reports,[64] may underestimate the total number of strikes, especially during the early years of the drone program.
Between 2004 and 2007, the Pakistani government under President Musharraf attempted to hide the fact of US strikes (and Pakistan’s role in them) by contending that the strikes were either Pakistani military operations, car bombs, or accidental explosions.[65] Many of those claims were contradicted within days or weeks by anonymous leaks and eyewitness accounts,[66] and by local journalists gathering evidence at the scenes of the attacks.[67] In one unusually well-publicized incident, an official in the Musharraf regime reportedly asserted that the Pakistani military had conducted a strike on a religious school in Bajaur that killed over 80 people, including 69 children.[68] One of Musharraf’s aides reportedly told a Pakistani media source that the government believed “it would be less damaging” to claim it had killed 82 people than it would be to reveal that it had agreed to let the US carry out strikes on Pakistani soil.[69] Musharraf’s administration was reported to admit that the strike had been a US operation only after political backlash from the strike turned out to be much greater than the government had anticipated.[70] Considering the Musharraf government’s apparent efforts to cover up the US’s role in drone strikes, and the fact that drones often target remote or isolated areas, it is possible that other strikes from the 2004-2007 period have yet to be identified.
Our team’s fieldwork in Pakistan documented at least one incident that might fit this pattern. We interviewed 15 Waziris, including four survivors and four more who visited the strike site within hours or days of the attack, who described to us what they believed to have been a drone strike that took place on June 10, 2006.[71] The attack took place in the early morning of June 10 on a workers’ bunkhouse in a chromite mining camp in the mountains near Datta Khel. In the bunkhouse, a large group of young miners and woodcutters were asleep. Missiles killed 22 and badly injured four. The press described the incident as a helicopter gunship attack carried out by the Pakistani military,[72] based on statements by Pakistani officials claiming responsibility.[73] The survivors and those killed were asleep before the first explosion and knocked unconscious shortly thereafter. In light of the classification by media sources (helicopter strike), the lack of available physical evidence given the remoteness of the location, the lack of eyewitness testimony to the source of the strike, and the significant passage of time since the attack, our research team could not determine whether this incident was a US drone strike or Pakistani helicopter strike, and so chose not to include this event as a drone strike.[74] Nonetheless, given the extensive loss of life, this incident should investigated thoroughly by competent authorities.
http://livingunderdrones.org/numbers/
No one has any idea how many drones strikes occured under Bush because they lied about everything.
Monkie
(1,301 posts)have you no shame?
"oh, the bush droned more innocent babies than obama did excuse?
have you no shame?"
...wasn't an "excuse." Those are facts, and I take it from the bullshit response that being presented with them annoys you.
Tough.
Monkie
(1,301 posts)sometimes it is best to just be quiet when something is said that gets in the way of worshiping your perfect hero, and dead children is one of them.
you dont count dead children and compare them to say one person is better than the other, regardless of how much you worship one of them, that is why i said, have you no shame, these were dead children you used to try to score points.
is it because they are not american babies? they were human.
please give a reasonable explanation why you thought it was a good idea to point out that bush droned more babies than obama.
i am waiting.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"no it sickens me that you would use dead babies as a means to worship your hero"
...I really don't give a shit what "sickens" you. Obviously, you have issues.
"please give a reasonable explanation why you thought it was a good idea to point out that bush droned more babies than obama.
i am waiting."
Twist and spin the intent of the post, and keep being sick, again, I don't give a shit.
Monkie
(1,301 posts)you really wont stop will you, when is the last time you had a good look in the mirror.
if there is anything left of your soul you could always have a good look at what you just did and do some "walking back".
unlike some i see no shame in admitting when one is wrong and saying sorry, it is the right thing to do, and in the long run saves one from becoming something one used to despise.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Monkie
(1,301 posts)i am really curious as to what spin that person can put on this, i really am.
but they are not the first supporter of the NSA that i have caught out in heartless statements about the droning of innocent people.
"not in this case, i want a answer"
...I want an "answer" too.
"but they are not the first supporter of the NSA that i have caught out in heartless statements about the droning of innocent people."
Why are you feigning outrage, twisting the intent of what I posted and building straw men?
How many "heartless statements about the droning of innocent people" have you encountered since returning to the board?
http://election.democraticunderground.com/10022985622
Monkie
(1,301 posts)what kind of moral equivalency are you trying to reach here.
the droning of innocent people is wrong, 1 dead baby or 10 dead babies.
it is a fact that many babies died due to drone attacks.
you link to a very angry thread i started that had 188 recommends, what is your point with that?
you can dig through all the posts i have made here, i know others have already looking for "dirt" on me, but you wont find me advocating violence, you will see me say i love all people regardless of race creed or colour, and that includes our muslim brothers and sisters. when i say i love all people that is generally speaking of course, there are individuals that i could never feel any love for.
Drivel.
Monkie
(1,301 posts)i wont let this rest you know.
this is the point you are avoiding answering, you can spam links, selectively quote, you can bump and rec your own threads that are otherwise ignored, but answer a simple question as to why you had to point out that bush droned more people obama?
do you have a valid excuse for that?
cali
(114,904 posts)Logical
(22,457 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)there's no debate about that. And Musharraf has been gone for years.
Btw, Imran Khan's first speech after being sworn in today to the National Assembly was about taking action against U.S. drone strikes.
PM Sharif has called for an immediate end to drone strikes.
Monkie
(1,301 posts)and that is justification for drone strikes? (rhetorical question)
ProSense
(116,464 posts)
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)I am amazed to see anyone defending this technology. If remote operators deciding who lives or dies doesn't creep them out I give up.
WestStar
(202 posts)Like when a snoopy journalist is taken out at 4:30 in the morning on a deserted California street because he might be getting too close to revealing the truth about something.
MADem
(135,425 posts)
Generic Other
(28,979 posts)we'd declare holy war. And we did after 9/11. Our problem is we weren't attacked by any specific country. And that's who we keep lashing out at. All that does is make us more enemies.
I don't suppose it is any consolation to the Pakistanis that 6000 Americans have been killed in the streets of this country since Sandy Hook Elementary. We are fighting a war here too.
Just too many getting killed all around. And for no good reason.
bobduca
(1,763 posts)Saudi Arabia 15
United Arab Emirates 2
Egypt 1
Lebanon 1
Generic Other
(28,979 posts)Invading countries has proven to be the least effective method of trying to contain terrorism. The amount of money it cost w, we would have been better off if we just paid them all to stop attacking us. Probably would have been cheaper. And they might have liked us more.
bobduca
(1,763 posts)It is worth noting that immediately after 9/11 the members of the extended saudi royal family were the only ones in the country allowed to fly as they returned to saudi arabia. And then we attacked Afghanistan, and then Iraq.
and then ... this:
House of Saud
Generic Other
(28,979 posts)That certainly makes it look like we are the tail on the dog of a Saudi prince. Bush is the asshole, hence all the sniffing going on here.
HardTimes99
(2,049 posts)that too many people have died? - Bob Dylan
stupidicus
(2,570 posts)and reminded them of how they differ little from the way Bush similarly confined all boys/men of a similar age to Fallujah before bombing the bejesus outta it.
which they likely whined about
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)When will we shoot? When a reasonable man, any Joe or Jane off the street of good common sense and no axe to grind with all their whits and facilities about them, would they reasonably believe the target to be a clear enemy and shoot? Is that not a description of a reasonable man?
Well, how about this:
A trained pilot who sits day in and day out in his cubicle staring at the screen hunting for targets, always with his finger next to the trigger (button). This is what he has been trained to do, he is the predator in the sky. Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Life or death at his fingertips and trained at great expense to do his job.
Now tell me to which the "Reasonable Man" standard can reasonably be applied and to which it can not.
hay rick
(7,603 posts)but with a death sentence.
K&R.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Known as the "double tap," the tactic involves bombing a target multiple times in relatively quick succession, meaning that the second strike often hits first responders.
A 2007 report by the Homeland Security Institute called double taps a "favorite tactic of Hamas" and the FBI considers it a tactic employed by terrorists.
UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Christof Heyns said that if there are "secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping (the injured) after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime."
The U.S. refuses to discuss the merits of its overtly covert drone program, but the reports featured on @dronestream clearly document that U.S. hellfire missiles have intentionally targeted funerals and civilian rescuers.
More: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-drone-tweets-reveal-double-tap-plan-2012-12
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-drone-tweets-reveal-double-tap-plan-2012-12#ixzz2WiyD1QTF
cali
(114,904 posts)and yes, it's hard to see how they wouldn't be war crimes.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)The Massacre of the Innocents is the biblical narrative of infanticide and gendercide by Herod the Great, the Roman appointed King of the Jews. The historicity of the incident is "an open question that probably can never be definitively decided",[1] but according to the Gospel of Matthew[2] Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the "Vicinity of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)as long as we don't see the bodies of the victims, we are not at war
as long as we don't see flag draped coffins, we are not at war
Drones are perfect, clean, covert and do not require any declaration.
warrprayer
(4,734 posts)
