The sorry truth about military drones

From Glenn Greenwald, a must-read:

A vitally important and thoroughly documented new report on the impact of Obama?s drone campaign has just been released by researchers at NYU School of Law and Stanford University Law School. Entitled ?Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan?, the report details the terrorizing effects of Obama?s drone assaults as well as the numerous, highly misleading public statements from administration officials about that campaign. The study?s purpose was to conduct an ?independent investigations into whether, and to what extent, drone strikes in Pakistan conformed to international law and caused harm and/or injury to civilians?.

There is much more at the link.? And there is this:

?American progressives cheered loudly when a similar question was posed by Al Gore in a widely celebrated 2006 speech he gave on the Washington mall denouncing the Bush/Cheney assault on civil liberties:

??If the president has the inherent authority to eavesdrop on American citizens without a warrant, imprison American citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can?t he do???

What has always amazed me about that is that, there, Gore was merely decrying Bush?s mere eavesdropping on Americans and his detention of them without judicial review. Yet here Obama is claiming the power to decide who should be killed without a shred of transparency, oversight, or due process ? a power that is being continuously used to kill civilians, including children ? and many of these same progressives now actually cheer for that.

I praise Kevin Drum for his good work on this, but too many others cannot bring themselves to utter much protest or, for that matter, defense, if that is indeed their view.

On foreign policy, here are some related points (too polemic for my tastes but still some good points) and no I am not trying to suggest Romney would be superior on these issues nor am I endorsing any other candidate.

Source: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/09/the-sorry-truth-about-military-drones.html

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