Hello, Mr Growling Brown Bear,
I'm gratified to see that we disgree on all material points. :D:):D
Regards,
Mike
Concensus or Divergence ?
Witness List
Hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights On “Drone Wars: The Constitutional and Counterterrorism Implications of Targeted Killing”; Tuesday, April 23, 2013, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226, 4:00 p.m.
General James Cartwright, United States Marine Corp (Ret.), Washington, DC.
Farea Al-Muslimi, Sana’a, Yemen
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Studies Program, New America Foundation, Washington, DC.
Rosa Brooks, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC
Colonel Martha McSally, United States Air Force (Ret.), Tucson, AZ
Ilya Somin, Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law, Arlington, VA.
You have a choice between the USG clip and the C-SPAN clip (both over 2 hours).
Regards
Mike
David, thank you for the link
Neither al-Muslimi's testimony nor his two blog posts concerning drones were surprising to me - nor, should they be, to anyone else who has followed the Pew International polls of the Muslim countries since 2001. Of course, would the reaction be the same if the drones were really and truly Yemenese, without the US being in the picture at all ? Or, flown by Muslim nations, such as Saudi, Iran and Turkey. I suspect we'll see some evidence on that question in the not so distant future.
One point emphasized in al-Muslimi's testimony was "why not just capture the man ?". That issue has been debated from at least the 1970s; specifically as to drones, but more generally as to the use of lethal force in tomorrow's warfare.
The basic argument by the "capture" proponents is to create a mandatory spectrum of force escalation - e.g., capture without physical force, capture with physical force, light wounding, heavy wounding, killing:
Quote:
During wartime a critical legal question involves the scope of authority to choose whether to kill or capture enemy combatants. An important view, expressed by many contemporary experts, maintains that a combatant can be subject to lethal force wherever the person is found—unless and until the individual offers to surrender. I argue that, in certain well-specified and narrow circumstances, the use of force should instead be governed by a least-restrictive-means (LRM) analysis. That is, I contend that the modern law of armed conflict (LOAC) supports the following maxim: if enemy combatants can be put out of action by capturing them, they should not be injured; if they can be put out of action by injury, they should not be killed; and if they can be put out of action by light injury, grave injury should be avoided. Admittedly, there are all manner of caveats and conditions that will qualify the application of this maxim. However, the general formula—and its key components—should be understood to have a solid foundation in the structure, rules and practices of modern warfare.
from Ryan Goodman on The Power to Kill or Capture Enemy Combatants.
Lawfare links Goodman, and those arguing against his proposition, earlier this year, The Capture-or-Kill Debate #11: Goodman Responds to Ohlin.
I found it interesting that al-Muslimi was on the cutting edge of "modern lawfare" (more so than the other panelists).
Regards
Mike
New Jihadi Magazine Wants Help Against Drones
Link to an article from a new Jihad magazine requesting help against Drone attacks.
http://preview.reutersnext.com/2013/...r-help-against
Ben Emmerson & Peter Bergen
From New America Foundation, Drone Wars: Counterterrorism and Human Rights (May 14, 2013) (video, just over 1-1/2 hours).
Participants
Ben Emmerson, Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, United Nations Commission on Human Rights
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Studies Program, New America Foundation
Regards
Mike
Germany's drones that don't fly: $647m
A tale of incompetence, fraught relations across the Atlantic and millions wasted. Hardly the image we have of German omni-competence:http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-902132.html
The United States’ War on Yemen: Drone Attacks
Added here, with a slightly different explanation on the current Yemen thread.
The link is to a previously unheard of Swiss / Yemeni NGO report for the UN Rapporteur on Human Rights & CT - on drones in the Yemen. It is unusual in gathering eyewitness testimony and providing local contexts, worth reading IMHO:http://en.alkarama.org/documents/ALK...3_Final_EN.pdf
The drone option: recipe for endless war?
A long, partly read review of 'The CIA, a Secret Army and a War at the Ends of the Earth' by Mark Mazzetti, in the London Review of Books, by an American lawyer, Stephen Holmes:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n14/stephen...n-it-for-obama
He ends with:
Quote:
Once Obama concluded that this war will never end, he presumably drew the sensible inference that traditional law-of-war detention is wholly inapplicable to the unconventional conflict in which the US is now engaged. That is when he made his fateful choice: the moment when he turned to the only form of incapacitation appropriate to a war without end. In so doing, he has bequeathed to us not a war that will be easier to contain, but one that is borderless and self-sustaining and that shows not a single discernible sign of burning itself out.
Link to Amazon, which has 113 reviews:http://www.amazon.com/Way-Knife-Secr...=mark+mazzetti