The US is said to be targeting an American in Pakistan for possible execution by drone. Yesterday NPR ran a story on the constitutionality of the operation by Bruce Auster, NPR’s national security correspondent. “With A Citizen In The Crosshairs, Where’s The Line Drawn For Drones?”
Auster’s critic of American policy is Amos Guiora, who bragged about his experience as an Israeli officer directing targeted assassinations in Gaza. Guiora is a law professor at the University of Utah. And, though NPR doesn’t tell you, associated with an Israeli thinktank:
“Research Fellow, International Institute on Counter-Terrorism, The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel, 2008-present.”
This is about the Constitution, Auster says. Can we kill an American who’s gone over to the other side to save the live of Americans?.
Auster: Amos Guiora has an answer. He knows this stuff, not just because he’s a law professor.
Guiora: Served for 20 years in the Israel Defense Forces. While serving as the legal adviser to the Gaza Strip, from 94-97, I was involved in targeted killing decision making.
Auster: His problem with the US process is that the decision to target and kill is made without any review by the courts.
Guiora: I’ve been in the business for 20 years or more, I have no idea what senior operational Al Qaeda leader means. I just don’t know what that means.
Auster: It’s too loose a definition…. Ultimately, Guiora says, the decision to kill an American citizen must rest on a ground that’s a little less slippery.
Here’s Guiora’s resume at the University of Utah. He writes a lot about “targeted” killing.
Why didn’t Auster bring up the State Department’s report on Israel’s assassination program, from 2004. Lots of innocent civilians killed.
During the year, the IDF targeted for killing at least 44 Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorism. In the process, IDF forces killed more bystanders than targeted individuals, including children. IDF forces killed at least 47 bystanders of those targeted and injured a number of others, including bystanders, relatives, or associates. Israel stated that it only targeted individuals believed to be “ticking bombs” on the verge of carrying out terrorist attacks. In practice, however, the IDF targeted some leaders of terrorist organizations generally considered not to be directly engaged in carrying out attacks.
Israeli security forces put large numbers of Palestinian civilian lives in jeopardy by undertaking targeted killings in crowded areas where civilian casualties were likely. For example, on April 9, Israeli forces fired four missiles at a car in a densely populated area of Gaza city in order to kill two suspected terrorists, Sa’ad ad-Din al-Arabeit, 35, and Ashraf al-Halabi, 25. Israeli forces killed five other Palestinians in the effort, including two children, 13-year-old Ahmad Hamsa al-Ashraf, and 16-year-old Samid Hasan Qasem.
Here is James North writing about those targeted killings in Gaza.
In 2003, [Yonatan Shapira] bravely confronted the air force commander, Lt. General Dan Halutz, about what are euphemistically called “targeted assassinations” — Israeli warplanes fired missiles at Hamas leaders in Gaza, also killing innocent bystanders, some of them children.
Yonatan asked General Halutz, What if a Hamas leader were located in Tel Aviv? Would you order our pilots to fire there, risking Israeli bystanders? Halutz said no. So you value Israelis over Palestinians, Yonatan responded. Get someone else to fly your aircraft.
Yonatan Shapira makes up for the bigots.
Shapira is one of those decent Jews who are the only ones who will save Israel from those who are on a suicide mission to bring Israel down on it,s knees.
This is about the Constitution, Auster says.
Then the Israeli experience is irrelevant. Israel’s Basic Laws don’t really function like a Constitution, since they explicitly grandfather pre-existing unconstitutional laws and even allow the Knesset to adopt new ones. There are dozens of laws like that, which discriminate against non-Jews. (pdf) http://adalah.org/Public/files/Discriminatory-Laws-Database/Discriminatory-Bills-19th-Knesset-24-06-2013.pdf
In some cases the Basic Laws contain so many loopholes that the exercise of any right at all by a non-Jew would tend to be an exceptional case, e.g. http://www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/basic4_eng.htm
So you end up with a platitudinous law that says you have a fundamental right to an occupation, human dignity, and liberty, unless of course, the Knesset has adopted another statute which says that you don’t.
QUOTE: “What if a Hamas leader were located in Tel Aviv? Would you order our pilots to fire there, risking Israeli bystanders? Halutz said no.”
Says a lot, if not all. A very useful ironic thing used to be said of people doing self-serving things: it was said that they’d “given themselves permission” to do such and such. And I think the meaning was, no one else gave them permission or would have done so.
Obama (no doubt at the urging of his we-can-do-drones-so-let’s-do-drones” enthusiasts) “gave the USA’s drone-operation permission” to kill anyone they wanted to, and all nearby people known or unknown. For crying out loud, they use “pattern recognition” or “artificial intelligence” computer programs to identify targets, to locate targets (often aiming at a cell-phone and everybody near the cell-phone w/o regard to whether the [let is be assumed, arguendo] Al-Qa’eda person who HAD BEEN USING the cell-phone was still in the target area.
I am a computer programmer. I don’t trust “artificial intelligence” or “pattern recognition” when it is known that they produce crappy results. Look at the USA’s old no-fly list that prevented Edward Kennedy (a US Senator) several times from boarding an airplane. How many other “Edward Kennedys” did it prevent flying? And why did they have a no-fly list at all (unless to punish people) when they had the ability to search the passenger’s baggage and carry-ons? It was “security” madness, and that madness infects this entire system. Why should we suppose that the software that produces drone-assassination-targets is any better than the software that produced the Edward Kennedy no-fly list?
And, no, Obama probably would not drone-attack a target in a hotel in Washington DC. And not because of the so-called constitution of the USA.
RE: “The US is said to be targeting an American in Pakistan for possible execution by drone.” ~ Weiss
AND RE: “His [Guiora’s] problem with the US process is that the decision to target and kill is made without any review by the courts.” ~ Auster
MY COMMENT: Down, down, down we go into the deep, dark abyss; hand in hand with Israel.
SEE: “Obama’s kill list policy compels US support for Israeli attacks on Gaza”, By Glenn Greenwald, guardian.co.uk, 11/15/12
The US was once part of the international consensus against extra-judicial assassinations. Now it is a leader in that tactic.
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/15/israel-gaza-obama-assassinations
“Israeli security forces put large numbers of Palestinian civilian lives in jeopardy by undertaking targeted killings in crowded areas where civilian casualties were likely. For example, on April 9, Israeli forces fired four missiles at a car in a densely populated area of Gaza city in order to kill two suspected terrorists, Sa’ad ad-Din al-Arabeit, 35, and Ashraf al-Halabi, 25. Israeli forces killed five other Palestinians in the effort, including two children, 13-year-old Ahmad Hamsa al-Ashraf, and 16-year-old Samid Hasan Qasem.”
So did the Bush administration officials ( Addington, Yoo) change the status of innocent bystanders (especially all males younger than 16 into “enemy combatants”) via Israel’s examples of defying international law and killing who they please? The Obama administration still operating under those new definitions that those thugs came up with it when it comes to young males killed by U.S. drones http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/2/11/watch_wounds_of_waziristan_features_anti