Wednesday, November 07, 2012

America's Drone War: A Moral Black Box

Pakistani drone strike victims

Jason Berry writes in "The Global Post",

In In his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, President Obama cast war as a necessary evil.
Referring to just war theory, a classical underpinning of military ethics, Obama said, “War is justified only when certain conditions were met; if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.”
“For most of history, this concept of ‘just war’ was rarely observed,” he continued, citing the Third Reich and other examples. “Modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.”
Then came Obama’s caveat, and a shape of things to come: “There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”
Technology is the moral black box that lies between those “few small men” in remote geographies of militant Islam, and teams of American military personnel who target them in front of closed-circuit screens, peering into the places of their hunted lives, programming drone attacks like a surreal video game.
The programmers go home to supper, wives and children while the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) rain fire on villages half a world away, obliterating those deemed guilty, sometimes, and, too often, blowing up innocent people caught at the wrong end of time and history.
When Obama wrote his own war doctrine referencing just war theory in the post-9/11 era, he did so as a president who perhaps more than any other leader in American history has relied on the secret killing of individuals to advance his administration’s policy goals. And when Obama wrote those words, he put himself on a continuum of history and of mankind’s thinking about the idea of war that dates back to at least the 4th century.
“The wise man will wage just wars,” wrote St. Augustine (354-430 AD) in The City of God. “For if they were not just, he would not wage them, and would therefore be delivered from all wars.”
Nine centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas drew on Augustine and Aristotle in arguing that war must have a purpose beyond self-gain: peace should be its raison d’etre. In a time when warlords roamed parts of Europe, Aquinas insisted that only the state should wage war.
“Drones are not immoral per se, but how they are used presents serious moral and legal problems,” Professor Tobias L. Winright, a theologian at Saint Louis University and coauthor of After the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition and Post War Justice told GlobalPost. “Is it a last resort? Are we using force without intending to kill civilians?”
Winright references a December 17, 2009 strike in Yemen that killed Saleh Mohammed al-Anbouri, a militant linked to Al-Qaeda. The Navy missile also killed 41 civilians, of whom 22 were children. “Are civilian deaths collateral damage?” continues Winright. “Is the policy doing things to blur the reality?”
“President Obama and his administration have a policy that any male 18 or older can de facto be regarded as a militant. That is making criterion almost a dead letter. Human rights groups see this as a serious dead letter.”
Thomas Powers, author of Intelligence Wars and other books on the CIA, is more blunt.
“Drones are an unreliable and conspicuous way of killing individuals,” he told GlobalPost. “With drones we have no way to tell who we are killing. It’s abrogating a right to ourselves that no organization should have. It’s arbitrary and driven by politics. What seems inevitable today is going to cause you trouble tomorrow. Ask yourself if the United States would accept the right of another country to decide who among Americans they would kill. There are probably people in Arizona allied with drug cartels. Would we allow Mexican forces to use drones against them? Hell, no.”
“Other commanders in chief have presided over wars with far higher casualty counts. But no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals,” wrote Greg Miller of the Washington Post in December

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

интернет знакомства с телефоном
http://www.latexcommunity.com/member.php?action=profile&uid=96351

знакомства с девушками для интернета
http://www.hot108.com/community/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=14427

веб интернет знакомства бесплатно
http://jaguar-shop.com.ua/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=741389

бесплатные интернет знакомства без смс
http://www.invictum.tu1.ru/bbc/tools.php?event=profile&pname=PdaSocSet

бесплатные интернет знакомства фото
http://www.vfrg.ru/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=38576

интернет знакомства анжеро судженск
http://www.cecania.com/forums/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1112838

знакомства фото видео интернет
http://www.kniha-jizd.eu/forum/profile.php?id=1716

интернет знакомства в снежногорске
http://www.naol.ca/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1139850

бесплатные интернет порно знакомства
http://www.kiryatgatim.co.il/index.php?s=894a0f03e479ec0ebcd375411216c0a3&showuser=1214580

интернет знакомства в уфе бесплатно
http://geoforum.ge/web/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=7896

сайт интернет знакомств без смс

Anonymous said...

интернет знакомства бугульма
http://sw-gamer.ru/index/8-476

видео чаты интернет знакомств
http://www.eea2007.net/user/Renatwap/

порно интернет знакомства
http://tuyensinh.info.vn/forum/member.php?u=12265

интернет знакомства шахты
http://www.skybet888.com/88score/index.php?action=profile;u=145802

интернет знакомства вологда
http://courier-pskov.ru/user/WapSocSet/

интернет знакомства без активации
http://serialbit.ru/user/Renatwap/

интернет знакомства в балаково
http://www.irinansivut.com/foorumi/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1282780

найти сайт интернет знакомств
http://gvgss.org/index.php?subaction=userinfo&user=WapSotsSet

интернет знакомства в санкт петербурге
http://politiki.kiev.ua/user/WapSocSet/

интернет знакомства во владивостоке
http://failof.net/user/Renatwap/

воронеж интернет знакомства без регистрации

Anonymous said...

интернет знакомства в смоленске
http://tw-buddha.com/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=421452

интернет знакомства порно фото
http://www.caljesus.com/foro/member.php?165824-Lusiuyre

интернет знакомства в ставрополе
http://giaphatphcm.com/giapha/diendan/member.php?u=592943

знакомства для виртуального интернета
http://arsenal.kg/user/Lusiuyre/

интернет знакомства без регистрации челябинск
http://metrodog.ru/user/Lusiuyre/

бесплатные реальные знакомства для интернета
http://win-world.ru/user/Lusiuyre/

интернет знакомства владикавказ
http://www.goldenmotors.ru/user/Lusiuyre/

интернет знакомства для взрослых
http://www.barnesos.net/%7Efew/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=74637&sid=2afc525ac65afe21950481983022d2bd

интернет знакомства в россии
http://superddl.hu/forum/member.php?581097-Lusiuyre

интернет знакомства в новочеркасске
http://straighttothebar.com/forums/member.php?466156-Lusiuyre

интернет знакомства без регистрации иркутск

Anonymous said...

интернет знакомства 15 лет
http://www.professionistidellamore.it/forum/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=19848

лабинск интернет знакомства
http://dle-web.ru/user/AlenaTry/

знакомства для интернета в г
http://forum.rodina-ru.com/user978.html

интернет знакомства в уфе бесплатно
http://www.mediamacros.com/forum/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=334479

интернет знакомства нефтекамск
http://www.spotnepal.com/forum/member.php?action=profile&uid=403

интернет знакомства белово
http://directx-free.ru/user/AlenaTry/

ухта интернет знакомства
http://euceso.home.pl/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=34

интернет знакомства реально бесплатно
http://betakey.ru/user/AlenaTry/

интернет знакомства индивидуалки
http://www.stroy-mart.ru/forum/index.php?showuser=152623

сеть интернет знакомств
http://www.xn--e1afbnbkjj4kg.xn--p1ai/user/AlenaTry/

интернет веб знакомства

Anonymous said...

ernvp [url=http://www.drdrebeatscheapsales.com]beats by dre outlet[/url] zrxfku http://www.drdrebeatscheapsales.com venm [url=http://www.drebeatsstudioheadphones.com]cheap beats[/url] twvupl http://www.drebeatsstudioheadphones.com boha [url=http://www.beatsdreheadphonesonsale.com]cheap beats by dre[/url] fhpgac http://www.beatsdreheadphonesonsale.com adapx [url=http://www.dreheadphonesonsales.com]beats by dre outlet[/url] fdkdul http://www.dreheadphonesonsales.com lhach [url=http://www.drdrebeatssales.com]beats by dre sale[/url] ljydj http://www.drdrebeatssales.com oiywy [url=http://www.focsa.org.au/myreview/beatsbydre.phtml]beats by dre sale[/url] hugfy http://www.focsa.org.au/myreview/beatsbydre.phtml sku

Anonymous said...

zcbqh [url=http://www.drdrebeatscheapsales.com]beats by dre sale[/url] aozett http://www.drdrebeatscheapsales.com ahpk [url=http://www.drebeatsstudioheadphones.com]beats by dre sale[/url] powwhb http://www.drebeatsstudioheadphones.com ezdx [url=http://www.beatsdreheadphonesonsale.com]beats headphone[/url] zacxkv http://www.beatsdreheadphonesonsale.com ywopq [url=http://www.dreheadphonesonsales.com]beats by dre outlet[/url] xndwtx http://www.dreheadphonesonsales.com kkxto [url=http://www.drdrebeatssales.com]beats by dre sale[/url] upkrl http://www.drdrebeatssales.com ywlln [url=http://www.focsa.org.au/myreview/beatsbydre.phtml]cheap beats[/url] imphk http://www.focsa.org.au/myreview/beatsbydre.phtml xrs

Anonymous said...

Zixpgs [url=http://hermeskelly.finniwolf.com][b]hemres online[/b][/url] hermes myth http://hermeskelly.finniwolf.com Dgoxfd Qojqwa hermes bag