A UN investigator has called on the Obama administration to explain under what legal framework its drone war is justified and suggested that “war crimes” may have already been committed.
Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, urged Washington to clarify the basis under international law of the policy, in a report issued to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
“The (US) government should clarify the procedures in place to ensure that any targeted killing complies with international humanitarian law and human rights and indicate the measures or strategies applied to prevent casualties, as well as the measures in place to provide prompt, thorough, effective and independent public investigation of alleged violations,” he said.
Citing reports that the US has conducted follow-up drone strikes aimed at people coming to the strike scene to rescue the injured, Heyns said, if it is true, “those further attacks are a war crime.”
“Current targeting practices weaken the rule of law,” he said. “Killings may be lawful in an armed conflict [such as Afghanistan] but many targeted killings take place far from areas where it’s recognized as being an armed conflict.”
Heyns is not the first UN official to question the Obama administration’s drone war. The UN human rights chief Navi Pillay earlier this month called for a UN investigation into US drone strikes in Pakistan, arguing their questionable legality and that they indiscriminately kill innocent civilians.
“I see the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances as human rights violations,” she said, adding that, “Because these attacks are indiscriminate it is very, very difficult to track the numbers of people who have been killed.”
Obama administration officials told the New York Times recently that they “[count]all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants…unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” Operating on the principle of guilty until proven innocent is an extreme form of Executive Branch overreach.
Citing figures from the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, Heyns said US drone strikes killed at least 957 people in Pakistan in 2010 alone and that thousands total have been killed in over 300 drone strikes there since 2004. The Obama administration has only named a fraction of those killed.
Heyns questioned the administration’s “decisions to kill rather than capture ‘human targets,'” and said the legality of the drone strikes is undermined if “the State in which the killing takes place” has not given consent.
Pakistani Ambassador Zamir Akram also spoke to say that his country consistently maintained that the use of drones was illegal and violated the sovereignty of Pakistan.
“Thousands of innocent people, including women and children, have been murdered in these indiscriminate attacks,” Ambassador Akram said.
Twenty-six members of Congress have also called on the President to provide a legal justification for so-called “signature” drone strikes, which allow individuals to be targeted even when their identities are not known. So far, the administration has been silent in the face of these legal challenges.
If American democracy was working, this would be the opening statement by a Congressional committee chair opening up impeachment hearings.
The sign that American democracy is broke is that this comes from a UN official and that at best there's a tiny fringe left in Congress that actually believes in the Constitution and congressional oversight as a check and balance on executive imperial power.
It looks like the CIA will have to kill al-CIA-duh #2 again in order to show the world and the UN how great and effective drones are in the war on terror. That might get the UN off their back on this "war crime" issue.
PTSD — Bloodguilt
Only in the heat of live combat, when its kill or be killed and your life is facing eminent death unless you fire indiscriminately in the direction of civilians, only then may your conscience be free of bloodguilt for the senseless slaughter of a fellow human.
For a conscience is what saves us from mortal death when were tempted to harm the innocent, as vengeance is generated in the minds of our victim and in the minds of all the innocent people who discover what were up to.
So, PTSD is the mind paralyzing fear that our troops must endure for life when they kill innocent civilians. The fear that all innocent people have a right to hunt them down, to kill them any place and any time, because they are a stench in the nostrils of any innocent person with integrity, surely considered not fit to exist in decent society.
the US congress/government could care less about what the UN thinks about them or what they do….everyone else..cept israel needs to abide by everything they demand
Can it be that the role (US) as judge, jury and executioner be anything but a war crime?
Drone joy-stick goons — Warn them of PTSD — When they kill in cold blood
If someone orders you to slaughter a suspect who is sitting in a car, sleeping with his wife or grieving at a funeral, who looks harmless and a threat to no one, who is so lose to innocent civilians that some are sure to be killed, should not your conscience start screaming,
“Bloody murder, if you can butcher anyone like that, then anyone can and will butcher you like that.”
What PTSD is all about.
Wild west justice — WANTED DEAD IF THEY ARE ALIVE
One would like to think that our wild west was not all that bad, that when a poster put a bounty on a man’s dead body, that greater was the reward if the body was brought back alive.
But, such mercy was not in the cards, for the early west had no prisons, it was either be hanged until you are dead or set free. And just like our Wild west Obama of today, why go through all the hustle of a trial by jury when a bounty hunter can make the voters feel good, “The candy man can and he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good.”
Murderers belong in prison. Lets hope these people are finally held accountable.
Of course they're war crimes! And its been going on for years! Obama and everyone involved in this is a murderer, plain and simple.
Does that include Bush and his cheerleaders? Yeah, I didn't think so…
I can see this pricks at your pride, hence the reflexive defense of your political party tribalism, ("he did it too!") but you assume too much. Of course Bush is a damn murderer! You think anyone that attacks your dear leader must logically be a Bush supporting Republican? Stop trying to defensively point fingers at me just because you feel guilty for backing a murderer. Wake up! There is no damn difference between the parties! It is not Republicans vs. The Democrats. It is all of us vs. the predatory state!
"and suggested that “war crimes” may have already been committed”.
Com on people at UN, amnesty international and human rights and others, really get real. US and NATO conducting daily war crime and is an on going matter for last 20 or so years, and Christof Heyns just find out about it.., that is one of the reasons for people of middle east 78% of them thinking that UN is about US and EU, they are thinking that UN is about protecting Israel, that is why they think that UN is bought by US and EU and Israel to do what they say not what the reality is about.
Well of course the US government insists that drone strikes be classified – they know as well as Christoff Heyns does that drone strikes are war crimes. I think that most US citizens know that they are war crimes too, but would prefer to have their government commit war crimes than protest about them.
Regards, Alex
Can't be. The U.S. does not commit war crimes; only other countries do. Just ask them. They'll tell you. Also like the idea that targeted killings must comply with international humanitarian law and human rights. The U.S. kills with love and compassion.
gee ya think…
what do they mean "may be war crimes?"
The people piloting the drones remotely while sitting in air conditioned offices thousands of miles away are war criminals too. How they live with themselves to beyond me.
Drone operator comes home after a day's work, kisses his wife, and she asks," Hi hon, how was your day?" "OK", he answers, "Blew up a family. What's for dinner?"
Gee…ya think?
Don't start that malarkey!
As if our drone jockeys don't have enough stresses getting home through rush hour traffic and having to go to the Mall at all hours, now somebody has to lay a UN guilt trip on them???
Having to decipher LCD images and hold a life under your thumb …gawd … the responsibility to the taxpayer! And now somebody starts making noises about Nuremburg trilals and jail time?
Jeesh, what's a decent warrior and parental unit to do??