The assassination program
by digby
If you read nothing else today, read this huge expose by Jeremy Scahill at the Intercept about the drone war. There’s a new whistleblower. And he/she has provided some very damning documents.
From his first days as commander in chief, the drone has been President Barack Obama’s weapon of choice, used by the military and the CIA to hunt down and kill the people his administration has deemed — through secretive processes, without indictment or trial — worthy of execution. There has been intense focus on the technology of remote killing, but that often serves as a surrogate for what should be a broader examination of the state’s power over life and death.
This has long been a tricky discussion because, as this intro says, the technology has often been the focus and not entirely without some cause. There is something about remote killing that’s different and I think people are genuinely queasy about what this means for warfare and the relationship between governments and people. But in the end, the drone is still a weapon and the real issue underlying all this has been elided: the assassination program.
If I were to guess I’d bet that the American people think it’s just fine, frankly. I can’t imagine they’ll get worked up about the targeting of people halfway around the world who are suspected of engaging in terrorism — or even the people who are unlucky or foolish enough to live in countries where they might be targeted by mistake. After all, we are a nation that can’t do anything about armed gunmen mowing down American 6 year olds in their first grade classrooms. Indeed, gun proliferation advocates insist that’s a perfectly reasonable price to pay so that Americans can have unfettered access to deadly weapons. It’s hard to imagine a majority of Americans thinking that Yemeni and Afghan kids are valuable when they don’t even care about their own.
However, it is to be hoped that experts and commentators will at least ponder whether this assassination program is actually accomplishing what it is supposed to accomplish an whether it is actually making the situation worse.
The moral argument will probably fall on deaf ears — we’re not a very moral country. But the practical argument might make some headway. Maybe.
Update: For a little perspective, read this interview with David Talbot about his new book on the Dulles Brothers. Assassinations have been tools in the arsenal for a very long time.
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