Here Be Treasures

Honour

Friday, October 30th, 2009 | politics

The US Administration, led by the man recently given the Nobel Peace Prize, engages in extra-territorial assassinations using their remotely-operated drone planes. This much is common knowledge. But just how many have been killed in Obama’s first 9 months of administration? And what percentage of them are innocent bystanders? Does anyone care?

A report in the New Yorker reveals some uncomfortable truths. Some choice quotes:

John Radsan, a former lawyer in the C.I.A.’s office of general counsel, who is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, in St. Paul, Minnesota, says … “If it’s Osama bin Laden in a house with a four-year-old, most people will say go ahead,” …

I don’t know anyone who thinks like that.

… the recent campaign to kill Baitullah Mehsud offers a sobering case study of the hazards of robotic warfare. It appears to have taken sixteen missile strikes, and fourteen months, before the C.I.A. succeeded in killing him. During this hunt, between two hundred and seven and three hundred and twenty-one additional people were killed, depending on which news accounts you rely upon. It’s all but impossible to get a complete picture of whom the C.I.A. killed during this campaign, which took place largely in Waziristan.

Is it okay to target a funeral?

… and then killed dozens more people—possibly as many as eighty-six—during funeral prayers for the earlier casualties. An account in the Pakistani publication The News described ten of the dead as children.

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