Search: battlefield robots
28 Apr PTC II to Defence Attorneys: You Are All Criminals
...demonisation of defence attorneys in the US who had the temerity to represent individuals accused of terrorism. Marc Thiessen, for example, (in)famously claimed that “[t]he habeas lawyers were not doing their constitutional duty to defend unpopular criminal defendants. They were using the federal courts as a tool to undermine our military’s ability to keep dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield in a time of war.” Such despicable claims led to significant pushback from both progressives and (to their credit) many conservatives — and rightfully so. Yet now we witness the...23 Feb One more time all together: Obama wants to close Gitmo
...to a $1.7 billion savings. So domestic detention is not only safe, it’s cheaper too. Obama also announced that although military commissions would remain an option for detainees who are captured on the battlefield in active theaters, for all others, Article III courts are the preferred option for terrorism prosecutions. There was little discussion of how to clear the political log jam that remains over the fate of Guantanamo, though the President said that he was “clear-eyed” about the challenges of achieving the result he wanted: “The politics of this...30 Sep Anwar Al-Aulaqi Killed in Drone Strike in Yemen
...predicted by critics of the ICRC’s issuing of the “interpretive guidance”) of believing that if you repeat it often enough, you make it so, again that is not the US government’s view. State practice still matters.) Where? Does it matter that he was in Yemen, and not an “active battlefield” in a conventional hostilities sense?The US government does not accept the idea that the armed conflict with Al Qaeda — or armed conflict generally — is confined as a legal matter to some notion of “theatres of conflict” or “active...02 Jan Juan Cole on the Top 10 Ways the U.S. Supported Saddam
...infamous meetings with Saddam took place here.) During the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. provided Iraq with billions of dollars of credit, helped it arrange to purchase the arms it needed for the war, and gave the Iraqi armed forces critical battlefield intelligence. The U.S. worked to prevent the U.N. from censoring Iraq for its use of chemical weapons against Iran. During the Iran-Iraq war, U.S. officials encouraged its allies — including Israel, which was willing — to provide Iraq with arms. After the Gulf War, the U.S. allowed Saddam to...19 Apr Kony 2012: IHL 2.0: Is There a Role for Social Media in Monitoring and Enforcement?
...and it can facilitate greater scrutiny of the battlefield. Due to its scale and the ability to easily and exponentially reproduce information (as we saw with the massive viewership of the Kony2012 video), social media is useful for quickly and efficiently publicizing events and information which can be used to generate public interest, to bolster advocacy campaigns, and to educate about the law. One emerging social media tool increasingly used during armed conflict and promoted as a new way to “enforce” violations of IHL is “crisis mapping”. It is interesting...09 Dec From False Dichotomies to a Real One: A Response to Shana Tabak by Vasuki Nesiah
...have taken on the “false dichotomies of transitional justice,” they have also highlighted that what is at stake is the extent to which extraordinary violence and violence on the body obscures and normalizes ordinary structural violence. Thus the response cannot be to once again foreground the battlefield in focusing on female combatants as combatants; rather (as Tabak understands) we need to also look at the structural issues that engendered the conflict. This may not be then merely about ameliorative measures for gender sensitive employment opportunities or inclusion of women’s clothing...
19 Apr The Gravity of Russia’s Cyberwar against Ukraine
...Sufficiently Grave Over the past year, the world has witnessed a barrage of Russian cyber-attacks aimed at civilian targets, deployed at an unrelenting pace, and posing a persistent threat to civilians and critical infrastructure in Ukraine. As Russia fails to achieve its desired outcomes on the battlefield, the number and severity of cyber-attacks will continue to escalate. The ICC Prosecutor has a unique opportunity to bring a case that could set meaningful legal precedent and take an essential first step towards protecting civilians against 21st century threats during armed conflicts....17 Mar Is the CIA in the Drone Kill Chain? (Answer: Likely.)
...The Agency has about 40 unmanned aerial vehicles in its worldwide arsenal, about 30 of which are deployed in the Middle East and Africa. Most of these thingies are equipped with sophisticated surveillance gear. A few of them are modified to launch missiles. The Air Force owns many more “lethal” RPVs, but it uses them in the contiguous battlefield of Afghanistan. Wells points out at Lawfare that “if Ambinder is correct, then it is military personnel who do the drone-flying and the button-pushing, and military personnel can invoke a public...06 Jul Sorting Through the Somali Case
...this guy? Presumably it was acting under the statutory AUMF we’ve been discussing so much of late (e.g. here), on the theory that the statute authorizing the President to use force against those persons and organizations he deems responsible for the attacks of 9/11. That such persons or organizations may be captured outside the confines of the Afghan/Pakistan battlefield has long been a (more or less explicit) part of both Bush and Obama administrations’ readings of that statute, a reading informed (in this administration) by the understanding that the international...15 May Book Discussion “Outsourcing War and Peace”: The Rise of Private Military Contractors and the Importance of Public Values
...two decades, the United States has dramatically changed the way in which it projects its power overseas by outsourcing foreign affairs functions to an arguably unprecedented degree. At the high point of the combined conflicts Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Government had hired roughly 260,000 contractors—more contractors than troops—to do everything from support tasks, such as delivering meals to soldiers, cleaning their latrines, and maintaining battlefield weapons systems, to more combat-related functions, such as guarding bases, diplomats, and convoys. At times, contractors even conducted interrogations. And contractors continue to play...