A coalition of human rights groups is calling on the Obama administration to make good on an executive order issued this summer that requires the United States to investigate when civilians are harmed in lethal operations abroad, including drone strikes.
In a letter sent to the White House on Thursday, the groups pressed for investigations into several specific attacks that occurred on the president’s watch. The letter calls for public acknowledgement as well as “prompt, thorough, effective, independent, impartial and transparent investigations” into 10 incidents over the last seven years. A dozen groups signed on, including the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Center for Civilians in Conflict.
The letter also calls for the methodology of those investigations to be made public, to include “only those redactions necessary to protect information that is properly classified” and to offer clear explanations for any discrepancies that might arise between the government’s conclusions and those reached by outside parties, including NGOs and journalists.
The executive order that Obama signed requires the government to investigate allegations of civilian casualties caused by U.S. operations, then take responsibility when they occur and provide compensation to the family members of victims.
That order was released alongside a report detailing the government’s estimate of civilians killed in airstrikes outside conventional war zones — part of an effort by the Obama administration to present itself, after years of virtually blanket secrecy in these matters of life and death, as setting a tone of transparency for its successors.
In a recent interview with New York magazine, Obama reflected on the dangers of institutionalizing a regime of secretive borderless warfare executed primarily by drones, and claimed that his administration had done much to rein in “institutional comfort and inertia with what looks like a pretty antiseptic way of disposing of enemies.” He insisted that the decision to pull back the program somewhat “had less to do with what the left or Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International or other organizations were saying and had more to do with me looking at sort of the way in which the number of drone strikes was going up.” But he nonetheless credited “having these nonprofits continue to question and protest” as an influence on reform.
Despite the talk of transparency, the administration still hasn’t responded to many specific, well-documented instances of civilian harm. While estimates vary widely on the total number of civilians killed in Obama-era airstrikes outside conventional war zones — from several hundred to more than 1,000, according the Bureau of Investigative Journalism — the White House has acknowledged just two civilian deaths by name over seven years: those of Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, an American and Italian, respectively, who were kidnapped by militants and then mistakenly killed by a CIA drone strike in Pakistan.
“We understand that since that date the U.S. government has agreed to pay compensation to the family of Giovanni Lo Porto,” the rights groups wrote. “These are welcome initiatives that should be followed in a systematic fashion, which the executive order commits to doing.”
The 10 specific incidents listed in the letter all occurred in two countries — Yemen and Pakistan — and, in total, are alleged to have killed roughly 137 civilians. Most of the operations cited have been widely reported, either by human rights organizations, journalists, or both. While most are suspected to be the result of U.S. drone strikes, one of the attacks, launched on December 9, 2009, was the result of a cruise missile strike fired from a U.S. warship. That attack allegedly killed 14 militants and 41 civilians, including 21 women and children.
In July, shortly after the executive order was issued, Amnesty International invoked it in asking the CIA to respond to the death of Mamana Bibi, an elderly woman, in a strike in Pakistan. The CIA never responded.
Asked about the letter, a spokesperson for the National Security Council said, “We are not in a position to speak to specific operations.”
All the victims have to be considered civilians. There’s no “conventional battlefield” because there’s no war. No declaration, no armed combat, just terrorism by drone against nations that never attacked or threatened us. There isn’t a single justification for killing anyone, therefore there are no legitimate targets for killing–also, there’s been no due process of law to charge anyone with a crime. Every single person killed is legally innocent.
White House has acknowledged just two civilian [murders] by name over seven years: those of Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto
Surely you haven’t forgotten the al-Awlakis?
it is good that they ask Obama for transparency, so, he will refuse it and people will lose beliefs in the government, in that way, new rebels are born :) That’s also for me the main function of the Intercept, to discover the truth, to destroy the illusion of the good government. Politicians are in politics because of the money, they don’t care for the people, therefore, the war is just a business, they don’t care for domestic or foreign victims.
TRANSPARENCY?
Pentagon paid British PR firm $500 million to create fake al-Qaeda recruiting videos wsws.org
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/08/bell-o08.html
Who benefits from a US Military actively fabricating a seemingly expansive omnipresence for those former afghan allies purported to have had command and control over Saudi financed 911 perps?
What we have here is an “ongoing false flag media outreach effort” designed to exaggerate Al-Qaedas feigned “self documented” recruiting success while highlighting (manufacturing) a public perception of the unchecked growth of a specific imminent threat actor. In this case Al Qaeda. In the next case to be sure ISIS / ISIL / Daesch.
A false flag attack (Orlando, San Bernadino, Boston, 911, Gulf of Tonkin, Pearl Harbor) is a single event. A snapshot in time. An event staged to achieve a specific social or political effect or in many recent cases to swing draconian surveillance initiatives in every european capitol PDQ ASAP.
One madman wanders the halls of Canadian, French or Swiss legislatures with a gun, or stabs one soldier on the home front yelling “god is great”, or someone beheads one or two people (at 4% the monthly Saudi rate) on youtube, or someone drives a bus into a crowd, assassinates a few cartoonists or plants or mails anthrax to those in key positions to swing votes on the post 911 Patriot Act in their home offices or the Capitol Building…
Shortly after Newsweeks’ “Dark Prophet” (Edward Snowden) went public the initial public outcries by the european and five eyes political classes (Remember all those NSA disclosure related embassy recalls and John Kerry photo ops?) reached their zenith even while they were discovering their own nations intelligence agencies deep complicity in the NSAs wholesale collection of data on their national populations the US Militarys requires for thread modeling and ongoing experiments in predicting both individual human behavior (Search DIAs US Persons criminal database and Posse Comitatus) and in predicting the collective behavior (at scale) of entire human populations in ever multiplying natural and man made threat scenarios.
Once discovered to continue justifying the expansion of the NSAs data collection efforts (even while individual nations commenced soon to be scuttled formal investigations of the NSAs wholesale illegal actions) the NSA and US Military began pointing to each conveniently occurring previous and subsequent attack to make a case for continuing their wholesale collection efforts. Moreover they used these statistically insignificant (bathtubs, bee stings, crashed cars, lightning strikes etc) small scale attacks playing out in the european canadian and australian capitals on almost on cue with their respective legislative schedules to argue for retroactive legislative support. Although these attacks were minor compared to the 911 and anthrax scares in the states the european and five eyes legislative and executive branches responded quite similarly to how our own US Congress had after the 911 and anthrax attacks even with much smaller body counts to justify their actions.
Within less than two years we found the same nations who had so voiciferously protested the NSAs illegal surveillance were now approving their own draconian Patriot Acts targeting every very single one of their law abiding citizens (which they themselves had been protesting their opposition to a scant few months before) right up to and including the Swiss just recently in 2016. The effing unaligned Swiss for Gods sake
Pentagon paid British PR firm $500 million to create fake al-Qaeda recruiting videos wsws.org
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/08/bell-o08.html
TRANSPARENCY?
All you haters ripping on Obama for “breaking” his pledge of transparency are forgetting one thing. He never specified transparent to whom. It is completely open and transparent to anyone with an officially authorized need to know.
Trying to blanket critical thinking with “hater” is so ’09
I believe you are speaking of that hole-filled-in-with-dirt “transparency”?
Sorry, I am old. You are right.
The year 2009 in honor of the inauguration of great transparentator, who also closed Guantanamo and ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama’s administration did not close Guantanamo detention facility. It is still extremely open for business and housing inmates. What sort of reality do you live in? Is the same one where people believe Clinton didn’t sign NAFTA? Because both are easily verifiable as otherwise you nutter.
With all the death and destruction America and its allies have left in their wake, this is incredibly rich in irony:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/07/syria-russia-war-crimes-inquiry-john-kerry
See this here is how it done works in the real world–when a nation from the “West” bombs a MSF hospital (looking at you America), or sells weapons and provides necessary targeting info and refueling capability to Saudi Arabia or Israel to attack civilian infrastructure (which the US does as well) of some nation that is a “strategic interest” of America or one of its allies, or engages in overt “regime change” like in Libya (i.e. aggressive war and a war crime)–well then that’s jussin an ax-ee-dent.
When Russian and Syria do the same things, well that’s a “war crime”.
So what’s that make America’s global torture and kidnapping regime? More ax-ee-dents? “Woopsy Daisies I just done ax-ee-dentally kidnapped and tortured some folks.” No war crime there to see folks, just move along.
They should change our country’s name to the United States of Monumental Fucking Levels of Hypocrisy, Self-Delusion and Cognitive Dissonance. But my guess is chanting USMFLHSDCD is too complicated for the average American by comparison to “USA, USA, USA!”
Just so I don’t forget, the USA and its allies are the good guys and the Russians and Syrians are the bad guys? Got it.
The arrogance and hypocrisy of US policies, laws and deeds are gut busting laffable.
This transparency request is worth sending to President Obama if only to establish for the record that the undersigned asked nicely before resorting to the bludgeon of a lawsuit. A judge will appreciate that an attempt was made. For all other purposes the request is worthless, because President Obama’s transparency commitments are wholly fraudulent.
Absolutely, except possibly not the judge appreciating part. That’s only a maybe, depending on whether the judge is also anti-transparency.
Only the deaths of our “allies” are considered significant by this administration–and even then subversive allies (traitors) don’t count. Until we vote in (and hire) a government that doesn’t abide by this ethos, the nation is in serious trouble, ethically, politically–in just about every way.
It’s not a priority. Their biggest concern right now is passing the TPP, the most despised and unpopular trade deal we’ve ever had. The story of the Obama administration has repeatedly been to pay lip service to the concerns of the people and then turn around and do the opposite.
I remember attending the inauguration back in 2008, shortly after which Obama announced he would focus on transparency in contrast to the Bush/Cheney years of lies and secrecy. The last 8 years haven’t really played out that way, to put it mildly.
As the “most transparent administration ever” has pointed out, only two civilians have been drone-struck in the Obama years. The rest of the victims were former, present, and future terrorists.
Many things bother me about the drone attacks but one that always sticks in my mind, I believe, is the fact that anyone in the vicinity of a drone attack that is 12 years or older is automatically deemed a “terrorist”. That surely keeps civilian deaths quite low and I believe is an “exceptional” way of thinking towards other living and breathing human beings – judge, jury and executioner.
The drone program is actually a recruitment policy so that future “terrorists” are constantly groomed so that perpetual war becomes a way of life and $$$$ for the MIC and its government cohorts.
I was trying to find that quote from the testimony of the 17 year old Yemeni boy a few years back where I believe he said something to the effect of “What Al Qaida failed to do with years of attempted recruitment, the US achieved with a single drone strike” – I thought that was pretty powerful when I first heard it. I think the US is playing a very dirty game in the Middle East which has nothing to do with “people” but rather about interests – as many wars, coups etc. seem to be about.
The NSC spokesman responded out of both sides their mouth. NOBODY would be in a better “position” to speak to specifics – if the administration was sincere about transparency in drone operations.
Drone murders in countries we’re not at war with is terrorism, a war crime and intentionally create future enemies / hostility. THAT creates greater opportunities for imperialism and resource exploitation.
I couldn’t agree more. Drone murders in countries that we are not at war with is terrorism, is a war crime and is unacceptable.
True and well said. And let’s not forget, there’s never been any declaration of war on any front whatsoever. Every one of these attacks is terrorism, against anyone, anywhere.
Wasi, 100% accurate, in today united states murder for profit and profit above all else.
I would trust Bill Cosby to pour a drink, then to believe anything Obomba says about anything.
The only civilian death compensated was of a western and the two victims acknowledged were also western.
The reality is that all the others were sub human, 3rd world citizens. Hence no acknowledgement by name or compensation. Forget acknowledgement they were collateral damage, cattle at best. There will be no further information coming forth. It’s done and dusted. Fugetaboutit.
You are clearly far too sophisticated for the rubes writing for the Intercept who naively imagine that they are involved in an effort to make things better.
ha! ha ha! You are so above it.
(come to think of it though, if you were really that cool you wouldn’t need to show up to let us know, either. So maybe you are kind of faking it?)
Obviously he is referring to the U.S. government’s total lack of response to any victims other than the two–surprise, surprise– white people who were murdered. But you’re too sophisticated to see that, aren’t you.
Cynicism is reactionary.
cynicism is a preservative for the self, a warning to others, and a shadow, a reflection, of such other cynics who act to bring harm to other people in their own peculiar and twisted and vile cynical outbursts, like the murder of Palestinians.