Islam Times - Obama has dramatically expanded targeted assassinations

Islam Times - An interview with Debra Sweet, the director of World Can’t Wait group, about the issue of US President Barack Obama-ordered drone strikes in Yemen, the latest of which has killed a dozen people.

Question: It seems business as usual for the US when it comes to these drone attacks in countries like Pakistan and Yemen. You would hope that things would have gotten better right after Obama’s landmark speech where he promised to be clearer as far as his drone policies go?

Sweet: Well, this was a double-edged promise, wasn’t it? Because what he actually said and did was to expand the categories of targets, not refine them, not restrict them, but to say that there is a much broader category of people -- all associated forces with al-Qaeda for instance -- which is a meaningless term.

    It can literally be anyone the president says it is who can be targeted with this relatively dramatically expanded program of targeted assassination. Yes they are using drones and they are using other means as well.

The main problem here is the US is going across borders to kill without charges, without investigation and in the process killing non-combatants in much larger numbers as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has revealed, than the US will admit.

Q: The question here that is also raised is how does the US even measure its rate of success as far as this drone program goes considering the intelligence is always extremely skewed, now isn’t it?

Sweet: Yes, well, they actually have a practice now in Pakistan of saying that any male over the age of 21 is by definition somebody that they can target because this is a potential enemy for the United States.

    And if you look at it, it is the United States saying that a whole population, a whole people is a potential enemy.

    It is very drastic and it is very alarming for those of us who are struggling mightily against these unjust illegitimate immoral wars that US has launched since 2001.

It’s very alarming and we’re very against what the US is trying to get away with, not only because it is against international law and probably some parts of US law, but it is really just against humanity.