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It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.
Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization innocent neighbors dont hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs, said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.
This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obamas trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the single digits and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants.
Just to underscore the level of right-wing extremism which Obama has normalized, consider his deceitful re-definition of the term militant to encompass all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, which I wrote about earlier today. In 2006, the pro-Israel activist Alan Dershowitz created a serious scandal when he argued mostly in order to justify Israeli aggression that civilian causalties are a gray area because many people in close proximity to Terrorists even if not Terrorists themselves are less than innocent (A new phrase should be introduced into the reporting and analysis of current events in the Middle East: the continuum of civilianality . . . . Every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others).
Even more repellent was John Podhoretzs argument in 2006 that the tactical mistake which we made in Iraq was that we didnt kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything, specifically that the real error was that the U.S. permitted the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35. In other words, all military-age males in Sunni areas should have been deemed combatants and thus killed. Podhoretzs argument created all sorts of outrage in progressive circles: John Podhoretz is advocating genocide!
But this is precisely the premise that President Obama himself has now adopted in order to justify civilian deaths and re-classify them as militants. Here is the rationale of Obama officials as described by the NYT: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. Probably up to no good. Thats a direct replica of Dershowitzs argument, and is closely related to Podhoretzs. They count someone as a militant worthy of death based purely on the happenstance of where they are and the proximity theyre in to someone else they suspect is a Bad Person. If such a person is killed by a U.S. missile, then, by definition, they are militants, not civilians even if we dont know the first thing about them, including their name.
Thats official Obama policy. It wont even be reported on most MSNBC shows, and wont even be acknowledged, let alone denounced, by the vast majority of Democrats, including progressives. Thats the Obama legacy.
TAPPER: So are you disputing The New York Times story or the Dan Klaidman excerpt in The Daily Beast today that there have been civilian casualties?
CARNEY: Im not I dont have the assessments of civilian casualties. Im certainly not saying that we live in a world where the effort in a fight against al-Qaida, against people who would, without compunction, murder tens of thousands if not millions of innocents
TAPPER: Im not talking about them. Im talking about the innocent people that the United States kills.
CARNEY: No, no, no. No, but let me that we dont live in a world where it is possible to achieve, you know, no civilian casualties. What Im saying is that we are able to this administration is able to, this our military and our broader national security team is able to pursue al-Qaida in a way that significantly reduces the potential for and the fact of civilian casualties.
TAPPER: Right, with the assumption I mean, this is the question with the assumption that if you are with a terrorist when a terrorist gets killed, the presumption is that you are a terrorist as well and even if we dont even know who you are, right? Isnt that part of the reason youre able to make these assertions?
CARNEY: I dont have I am not going to get into the specifics of the process by which, you know, these decisions are made. What you know is that there are the care taken here is significant, and the tools that are at our disposal are unique and effective in terms of limiting civilian casualties. But beyond that, I cant really go into great detail.
gee, I wonder why no liberal/progressive is coming in here and condemning Obama for making Chenney look like a moderate.
gee, I wonder why no liberal/progressive is coming in here and condemning Obama for making Chenney look like a moderate.
Perhaps their outrage has rendered them momentarily speechless.
gee, I wonder why no liberal/progressive is coming in here and condemning Obama for making Chenney look like a moderate.
The media now knows that "militant" is a term of official propaganda, yet still use it for America's drone victims
Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration, in order to conceal civilian deaths caused by their drone attacks, counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants. Although I wrote at length about the NYTs various revelations, I wrote separately about that specific disclosure, in order to emphasize the implications for media outlets reporting on American drone attacks:
"What kind of self-respecting media outlet would be party to this practice? Heres the New York Times documenting that this is what the term militant means when used by government officials. Any media outlet that continues using it while knowing this is explicitly choosing to be an instrument for state propaganda."
Early this morning, the U.S. fired a missile from a drone in northwest Pakistan its first since the NYT story and killed two people.
gee, I wonder why no liberal/progressive is coming in here and condemning Obama for making Chenney look like a moderate.
gee, I wonder why no liberal/progressive is coming in here and condemning Obama for making Chenney look like a moderate.
He doesn't make Cheney look moderate, and I remain disgusted by this.
I'm tellin' ya', either Obama or Romney is gonna' use this in US Airspace, and on US Citizens.
I'm tellin' ya', either Obama or Romney is gonna' use this in US Airspace, and on US Citizens.
