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Obama knew what was up...and his message is still correct


Gil Bang

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Was this in reference to 'Drone or not Drone'?

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Obama’s embrace and vast expansion of drone strikes against militants and terrorists will be an enduring foreign policy legacy. Whereas President George W. Bush authorized approximately 50 drone strikes that killed 296 terrorists and 195 civilians in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, Obama has authorized 506 strikes that have killed 3,040 terrorists and 391 civilians. (Using the average estimates provided by three non-governmental organizations.) A technology developed and matured shortly before 9/11 to kill one individual, Osama bin Laden, became the default tactic for a range of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism missions outside of traditional battlefields.

 

 

More consequential than the growth in drone strikes, is the Obama administration’s efforts to institutionalize and normalize the practice. Three years into office, Obama took the meaningful step of acknowledging supposedly “covert” strikes in Pakistan, something that his predecessor had never done. Subsequently, he and his senior aides provided carefully scripted language that served as the policy framework and legal basis for lethal counterterrorism operations. These purported “reforms” were formalized by President Obama in a May 2013 speech and accompanying presidential policy guidance. However, there is no evidence that most reforms were ever implemented, and officials emphasized that they did not apply to C.I.A. drone strikes in Pakistan, where roughly 40 percent of all nonbattlefield drone strike have since occurred.

 

Edited by Brothahorn
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