-Caveat Lector- http://news.findlaw.com/international/s/20021107/yemenqaedaamericandc.html
http://www.motherjones.com/news/dbriefing/2002/45/we_188_04.html Remote Control Killing Did Washington cross a legal and military Rubicon when an unmanned CIA aircraft killed a suspected al Qaeda operative and several others in a car in northern Yemen? Not according to the State Department. As the BBC reports, officials at Foggy Bottom insist that the US remains opposed to 'targeted killings,' of the sort the Israeli government has engaged in. "'Our policy on targeted killings in the Israeli-Palestinian context has not changed,' US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. Mr Boucher refused to talk about the Yemen attack, but said that Washington's reasons for opposing the targeted killings of Palestinians might not apply in other circumstances." Adrian Hamilton, writing in the London Independent, has no patience for such slippery rationalizing. While Washington may suggest that the war against terror is a new phenomenon requiring new rules of engagement, Hamilton argues that the Bush administration has simply decided that US can exempt itself from the rules the rest of the world must follow. "America under President George Bush has rejected such internationalism. It has turned its back on applying any of the normal rights given to a citizen within its own borders to those it counts as terrorists abroad. Like Ariel Sharon, it believes that unlawful deeds exempt their perpetrators from the protection of the law, that in the "war against terror" any tactic is justified, whatever the "collateral" damage. If we say a man is a terrorist, then that is what he or she is. And if we get it wrong, that's simply a casualty of war." The editorial board of The Washington Post tries to make a case for the killings -- and for the State Department's double standard. While the incident may have all the hallmarks of an assassination, it was actually a military engagement in a global war, the Post declares: "The Yemen operation did not target political or criminal figures, but trained combatants of an organization that has declared war against the United States, that itself has defined the battlefield as global and that recently has landed its own military blows in Yemen." That argument isn't likely to find favor with Sweden's Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh. As the London Guardian reports, Lindh told the Swedish news agency TT that Washington's position is undefensible, declaring: "If the USA is behind this with Yemen's consent, it is nevertheless a summary execution that violates human rights. If the USA has conducted the attack without Yemen's permission it is even worse. Then it is a question of unauthorised use of force." Even the editors of the London Times, who have offered little but praise for Bush's war on terror to date, seem concerned by this new development. The existing legal and political restraints placed on the CIA have "clearly become obsolete," the Times declares, allowing politicians in Washington to entertain the option of "acting as judge and jury within seconds." That option carries grave risks, the paper declares. "Who will have overall command of this new technology? What safeguards are there to stop a hasty commander giving the order to eliminate the target before identification has been confirmed and political sanction obtained? And how much will this technology enable, or even encourage, politicians to ignore the restraints of frontiers and logistics to become involved in military decisions?" Meanwhile, the logic the Bush administration has employed to defend its options is finding a new home in Moscow. As the Moscow Times reports, Russia's Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, has announced that the Kremlin will no longer be restrained by the country's borders or standard rules of engagement in its own fight against terrorism -- which is little more than the continuation of Moscow's protracted war against Chechen separatists. "'All this may be stunning,' Ivanov said. 'But a war has been virtually declared on us. It has neither fronts nor borders nor a visible enemy. But this is a war.'" War Watch has to wonder how the Post will respond to Ivanov's argument. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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