Obama Praises ‘Outstanding’ Intelligence After Killing Hostages

Insists He Isn't Being Cavalier About Killings

One day after admitted that US drones had killed a pair of Western hostages in Pakistan because intelligence sources had no idea who was in the site they were blowing up, President Obama is cheering US intelligence as the most capable in the world.

You do an outstanding job,” Obama said of the US intelligence community, bragging that they had “showed that Syria had chemical weapons,” something they freely admitted, and had “revealed Russian aggression in Ukraine,” something the US continues to insist without providing any evidence.

Obama went on to insist that the US was not being “cavalier” about killing the hostages in a drone strike, suggesting he either isn’t clear on the meaning a cavalier or doesn’t realize how cavalier he sounds.

The White House has conceded that in the strike in question they had no idea who the strike was even aiming at, and that it was part of a broad policy of targeting “suspected al-Qaeda compounds.

Though the White House continues to insist they have a standard on strikes that they need “near certainty” no civilians are present, the simple fact that they routinely carry out strikes with no idea who they’re aiming at shows this is not the case.

Historically, the US has relied on the fact that everyone they kill ends up getting labeled a “suspect” simply because they got hit by the US, and that the overwhelming number of victims are never identified at all.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.