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Search: drones

29 Aug

...of drones in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency as distinct activities. The article explains: The CIA carries out two different types of drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan—those against so-called high-value targets, including Mr. Rahman, and “signature” strikes targeting Taliban foot-soldiers who criss-cross the border with Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces there. High-value targets are added to a classified list that the CIA maintains and updates. The agency often doesn’t know the names of the signature targets, but it tracks their movements and activities for hours or days before striking...
29.08.11 | |

17 Mar

Wells Bennett calls my attention to this statement by Marc Ambinder in a recent article in The Week entitled “Five Truths About the Drone War”: The CIA does not “fly” drones. It “owns” drones, but the Air Force flies them. The Air Force coordinates (and deconflicts) their use through the CIA’s Office of Military Affairs, which is run by an Air Force general. The Air Force performs maintenance on them. The Air Force presses the button that releases the missile. There are no CIA civilians piloting remote controlled air vehicles....
17.03.13 | |

23 Apr

...Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law, Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan (2010), available at http://www.livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Stanford-NYU-Living-Under-Drones.pdf [9] The report notes that The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) has reported that, “from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228-1,362 individuals.” Id. at...
23.04.15 | |

20 Dec

...of violations of the laws of war committed by the Libyan rebels as NATO co-belligerents and whether NATO has any attributional responsibility for the actions of these forces, or for negligence in failing to take reasonable steps to restrain these forces. That legal issue is not considered in this post or in the original NYT article.) As readers know, I’m an uncompromising advocate of precision technologies in warfare, including drones and other remotely controlled machines that, by removing the issue of soldiers defending themselves, allow for more careful targeting decisions....
20.12.11 | |

24 May

...supported by massive infrastructure in Afghanistan. And, in relation to the use of drones themselves: it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulte d in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. The speech also states fairly clearly that the decision to use drones in spite of that risk involves Obama weighing the options of alternative means of attack and doing nothing. That discussion is capped off with the not particularly salutary claim that drones are merely the: course of action least likely to result in...
24.05.13 | |

03 Aug

[Gabor Rona is the International Legal Director for Human Rights First and he is responding to a post by Michael W. Lewis] OK, let’s forget about drones for a sec. After all, drones are simply a form of targeting. And targeting in war is a good thing. (Since killing is legal in war under certain circumstances, the alternative to targeted killing is indiscriminate killing, which is a war crime.) Let’s look at existing US targeting policy. First, it is not at all clear that it is restricted to contexts of...
03.08.12 | |

01 Nov

...during the 2nd World War. However, over time as technology advances, the methods by which war and conflict now occur has shifted. In particular, post-9/11 and the subsequent ‘war on terror’, there may not necessarily be a ground occupation with the increased use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or ‘drones’, being used to conduct operations. The war film genre also therefore needs to adapt, with two films standing out – Alex Niccol’s Good Kill (2014) and Gavin Hood’s Eye in the Sky (2015). These films are distinctive in presenting a different...
01.11.24 | |

15 May

...co-blogger Ken Anderson recently summarized a few of the most important aspects in a recent post at the Hoover Institution. He identifies several commonalities among cyberweapons, drones, and killer robots: (i) their ability to operate remotely; (ii) their capacity for extreme precision (at least when compared to earlier weapons); and (iii) the diminished ease of attribution. Of these, I think the problem of attribution is foundational; law will have little to say if legal interpreters and decision-makers do not know how the technology has been deployed, let alone how it...
15.05.15 | |

01 May

in many instances confirm things that had previously been only obliquely referenced in a way that crystallizes the US position on a variety of matters. In contrast to his rather cagey discussion of drones several months ago at Harvard, Brennan conclusively acknowledged that the United States is using drones to conduct targeted killings in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Although he did not include an acknowledgement of the CIA’s drone program, this was a far more forthright discussion of drones and their role in counterinsurgencies than we have seen before. Brennan also...
01.05.12 | |

31 Oct

...no alternative. A case could be made that these conditions have at times been met in Yemen — for example, if there is credible evidence that a targeted individual is planning attacks on the US, the threat is imminent, and he or she is in a place where an arrest operation would be impossible. And if such conditions have been met, a case could also be made that drones are one of the best weapons from the point of view of reducing the likelihood of harm to civilians, since they...
31.10.10 | |

28 Oct

...killing people in violation of international law through its use of unmanned drones on the Afghan border, a U.N. rights investigator said on Tuesday. Philip Alston, a U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, also said the U.S. refusal to respond to U.N. concerns that the use of pilotless drones might result in illegal executions was an “untenable” position. Alston, who is appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, said his concern over drones, or predators, had grown in the past few months as the U.S. military prominently...
28.10.09 | |

27 Mar

...I have seen in print (though I have been informally told) that Pakistani officials want the US to broaden the campaign beyond AQ and Taleban. Will there ever be a legal issue of whether such widening of targets goes beyond the AUMF? Probably not, at least not in the current Democratic president-Democratic Congress, but it is a question. President Obama campaigned on increased use of targeted killing via drones, and his administration thinks this has been an effective policy: President Barack Obama concluded that the drones have been an effective...
27.03.09 | |