Latest in targeted killing
Just this morning, I was thinking that things have been rather quiet with respect to media coverage of U.S. operations against AQ and AQ affiliates in places like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Well...
Last week, the Stimson Center released its “Report Card on The Recommendations of The Stimson Task Force on U.S. Drone Policy.” The report card unsurprisingly earned headlines like “Obama’s Drone Policy Gets an ‘F,’” mainly because it concludes that the “current U.S.
In his May 2013 speech at National Defense University, President Obama called for new ways to think about drones and the United States’ policy on using these systems in counterterrorism operations. Now, nearly 3 years later, the Obama administration is in danger of leaving a legacy on drones that is long on rhetoric but short on substance.
Recently, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. Air Force had awarded civilian service contracts to include the operation of MQ-9 Reaper drones.
The five-year targeted killing FOIA litigation by the ACLU and New York Times suffered a setback yesterday when the Second Circuit unsealed an opinion affirming an SDNY ruling from October 2014 allowing DOJ to withhold several OLC documents related to lethal targeting.
Stephanie Carvin (Carleton University, Canada, and friend to several of us at Lawfare) and Michael John Williams (NYU) are international relations scholars who focus on national and international security. They each write about strategy, but in strikingly broad and interdisciplinary ways.
Few things have been more emblematic of the military and, indeed, political aspects of the Obama War Powers legacy than drones. As many have noted, the use of this weapons system has vastly increased during the Obama Administration, particularly in areas outside of active combat zones directly involving U.S. forces.
The Intercept’s “Drone Papers” leaker “believes the public has a right to know how the U.S. government decides to assassinate people.” Maybe so—or maybe public safety and the need for secrecy trump the public’s curiosity. Unfortunately, the leaker has unilaterally decided for all of us. One person with a thumb drive again trumps the democratic process.
Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
By Scott Shane
Published by Tim Duggan Books (2015)
Nearly three years ago, testifying before a congressional hearing, I observed that “the [Anwar] Al-Awlaki case will be someday the subject of a truly wonderful book. It’s a very complicated and interesting history.”
I'm not certain this adds value, but I've decided to give Storify a shot. My first shot at it uses the platform to pull together my posts on the ongoing development of the statutory regime for oversight of kill/capture ops conducted by the military outside of theaters of major ongoing hostilities, along with some accompanying commentary from others and links to news articles and the statute itself. Not particularly different from my regular post here at Lawfare a few hours ago, but a different packaging. My sense is this will be useful in some contexts much more than others.