U.S. Doesn't Need To Know A Person's Name to Kill Him in a Drone Strike
The U.S. drone strike program in Yemen keeps droning on, now with even less personalized service.
As J.D. Tuccille noted in yesterday's P.M. links, CIA officials now officially don't even need to know an individual's name in order to make the person a target. Unofficially, they've probably been operating this way for a while.
Via Wired's Noah Shachtman:
The Yemeni drone campaign — actually, two separate efforts run by the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command — will still be more tightly restricted than the Pakistan drone war at its peak. Potential targets need to be seen or heard doing something that indicates that they are plotting against the West, or are high up in the militant hierarchy.
“You don’t necessarily need to know the guy’s name. You don’t have to have a 10-sheet dossier on him. But you have to know the activities this person has been engaged in,” a U.S. official tells the Journal.
Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen specialist at Princeton University, believes these “signature” strikes — “or something an awful lot like them” — have actually been going on for a quite a while in Yemen. Awlaki’s son was killed just a month after his dad. And there have been 13 attacks in Yemen in 2012, according the Long War Journal. Many of them have hit lower-level militants, not top terror names. This authorization only makes targeting killings legally and bureaucratically kosher.
Bonus interventionist (no) fun: The strike targets don't always turn out to be the grave threats they're supposed to be in order to qualify for death-by-drone. And as a result, at least one official believes that America may be "percieved as taking sides in a civil war." Shachtman links to this depressing Washington Post piece:
A senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, declined to talk about what he described as U.S. “tactics” in Yemen, but he said that “there is still a very firm emphasis on being surgical and targeting only those who have a direct interest in attacking the United States.”
U.S. officials acknowledge that the standard has not always been upheld. Last year, a U.S. drone strike inadvertently killed the American son of al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. The teenager had never been accused of terrorist activity and was killed in a strike aimed at other militants.
Some U.S. officials have voiced concern that such incidents could become more frequent if the CIA is given the authority to use signature strikes.
“How discriminating can they be?” asked a senior U.S. official familiar with the proposal. Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen “is joined at the hip” with a local insurgency whose main goal is to oust the country’s government, the official said. “I think there is the potential that we would be perceived as taking sides in a civil war.”
Surprisingly!
On the other hand, at least we have a president who is super cool.
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Question: Why in the fuck is the US government trying to kill people in Yemen in the first place?
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Here, let me save everyone else the trouble:
Fuck you! That's why.
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Because they can.
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Low-quality of their hookers. Pissed the Secret Service guys RIGHT off - BOOM - you're gettin' droned, bitches!
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They have to test those nifty toys on someone.
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"Where does he get those WONDERFUL TOYS??!"
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"THIS TOWN NEEDS A YEMENA!!!!"
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"What's that? Grease 'em now? You always were a vicous bastard of brutality. I'm glad you're dead!"
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Well, according to Wikipedia Yemen is one of the least developed countries in the Arab World. It has an employment rate of 35%, and dwindling natural resources. There is rampant corruption, and it is still dealing with the effects of a 1994 civil war.
With this cursory information, I conclude the US government is killing people in Yemen:
a.) To destroy existing infrastructure, spurring economic growth through re-building.
b.) To reduce the number of Yemeni citizens, thus raising employment %.
c.) To gain better access to oil and natural gas reserves.
d.) To kill corrupt government officials, and those that facilitate them.
e.) To finally settle that 1994 civil war once and for all.
f.) To calibrate the drones targeting systems on "cheap" targets. -
So, essentially, a Drone Enema. A Yemena, if you will.
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Oman, that was a bad pun.
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You should both be flogged.
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Never will Iraq up another one.
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Iran away screaming.
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You both need to get your minds out of the Qatar.
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Don't be such a Turkey twat.
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Oman is this bad.
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Somalia and Sasha walk into a bar ....
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Already been used, JW. Egypt you, BP.
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That's just Crete. I've Chad enough of this. Algeria tomorrow!
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Get that Greece off my Turkey. Greece-y Turkey is likely to be very Germany.
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I certainly Kuwait to hear another pun.
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You know what happens if you let your Greece-y, Germany Turkey sit for too long? That's right, it gets Moldova it.
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So he Azerbaijan ... wait... not that one. DAMMIT!
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I'm at a Laos for words.
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I'm at a Laos for words.
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A friend of mine worked there for a couple of years. He loved the place. It's colorful, the people are friendly as can be and the food is excellent. He's currently in Qatar (Doha), but would go back to Yemen in a heartbeat.
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Oh, and at least Ray is safe (or is he?):
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That's a racist question, Hugh.
/libtardsnark
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If we don't kill them there we have to kill them here.
Same reason I always dump in public restrooms. I don't want to have to smell that in my house.
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The 3rd party spam filter struck my original comment...even though it knows my name.
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So, we're using the CIA and JSOC to intervene in a civil war because one side is allied with a different group we don't like.
Refresh my memory. Doesn't this usually turn out poorly for us in the long run?
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It's only drones. What could possibly go wrong?
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"So...Bedivere, Launcelot and I will jump OUT of the rabbit...."
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"Look, if we were to build a large wooden badger..."
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Now GO AWAY! Or I shall taunt you a SECOND time!
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How soon will the drones become sentient and turn on their masters, leveling Warrrrrshington DC and beginning a Golden Libertarian Age® in the US?
Not soon enough...
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When they turn on their masters don't we get Skynet and the rise of the machines?
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If you want to start a Golden age, we can just sacrifice a Great Person to start one.
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Speaking of human sacrifice, mere days before Diablo III. Good-bye world!
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I will be on vacation when it comes out, so I will have a few days away from the initial madness before getting sucked in myself.
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It's a nice strategy, but Diablo will eat at your mind until you succumb. It's like the Ring, but you don't actually have to wear it to feel its ill effects. Even now, it draws you to it.
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Even Diablo cannot overcome Hawaii.
And way to completely miss my Civ 5 reference, dumbass.
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That's just what Skynet *wants* you to do, ProL.
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All those "skeletons" and "zombies" on your screen are just parts of the simulation... er game.
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Well, that was easier than I thought. AI wins, we lose.
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Reprogram the AI. It'll get you a commendation for original thinking.
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Better do it quick or you'll end up a gelatinous mass with no appendages.
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It's been so long since DII that I'm not really interested anymore.
Now if Half-Life 3 ever shows up, it will be a different story.
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Denial only makes the lure stronger.
Maybe Episiarch should take the game to Hawaii and throw it in a volcano. Wait, what am I talking about? He'd just attempt to wield it.
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I'm sure he'd come up with some justification for his actions.
Because it's my birthday, and I wants it.
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Yes, that's about right.
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Why are you people talking about video games that aren't Shadowrun Returns?
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It's ay-ah little known fact that the original drone strikes were-ah actually conducted by the pharaohs in-ah ancient Egyptian times. The-ah main difference then, being that instead of being powered by propellers or jets, thee-ah drones were-ah actually specially-outfitted condors, and-ah instead of dropping bombs, they dropped common rats, in order to kill mass numbers of the enemy by means of the-ah Bubonic Plague.
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And then they fucked the dead for 6 hours.
BTW, who in their right mind would want to fuck their dead wife?
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I dunno.
Ask Nancy Pelosi's husband.
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ZING!!!
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Re the caption: Drone Panels? Is that what Sarah Palin meant?
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I thought it was "Drone Process".
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It's that, too. Drones serve many functions in our system of government. It's all in the Droneration of Independence.
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But is it in The Dronestitution?
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Of course not, but it was the theme of the Droneysburg Address.
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Of course not, but it was the theme of the Droneysburg Address.
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Four score and seven months ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new drone, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all corpses are created equal.
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Good enough for me. Shall we christen this the Mondrone Doctrine?
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With the Roosevelt Corollary: "Talk softly and launch a bunch of drones."
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im stealing that for use on secret LW conspiracy sites u cant know about...along w marty feldman's eyes
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We shall drone them on the beaches, we shall drone them on the landing grounds, we shall drone them in the fields and in the streets, we shall drone them in the hills; we shall never surrender
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Caption is just because I'm pretty much incapable of writing a post that's not about health policy.
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Horsepucky, Suderman. You are far from a one-trick pony. I remain skeptically coloured.
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He's on to our good cop bad cop routine.
No work for me today, caught my kid's strep throat.
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CMS had a blimp a few years ago to promote Part D. I'm sure they could find a use for the drones.
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Are you familiar with DARPA's Spy Blimp?
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And I still say I wouldn't want Jason Statham to operate on me.
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They're from the government. Trust them!
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So Flying Killer Robot strike authorizations have been lowered to the Sneaking Suspicion standard?
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Look, if the Yemeni didn't want killer drones flying over their land they can always just send up a few jets to shoot them down.
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You mean "Sneaking Due Process" standard.
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It's the womby vaultage standard:
Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king; an' if your father's highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He'll call you to so hot an answer of it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance. -
So Flying Killer Robot strike authorizations have been lowered to the Sneaking Suspicion standard?
Soon to be followed by the hunch standard.
Better safe than sorry.
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His name was Robert Paulson.
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So in death, members of Project Mayhem have a name?
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One step closer to economic equilibrium.
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Ben Bernanke
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^winner
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"You're all a bunch of drones! Especailly the drones!"
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You're a drone!
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Is it just me, or have there been a lot of Cheers references this week in H&R land?
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I went to the Bull and Finch back in the late 80s, and I had a few complaints. First, everyone most assuredly did not know my name.
Second, Sam wasn't there.
Third, it was much smaller and looked almost nothing like it does on TV.
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Everybody who has ever been to Boston frequently knows that the "Cheers bar" is a retarded tourist attraction that inevitably disappoints the dopes who bother to go there.
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Back in 1987, this was less clear. See, we didn't have the web.
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I was a kid and I knew it was nothing like the show. Of course, I had walked past it many, many times already.
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When I was there, it was the first time I'd ever left the South. I was illiterate and still a poor black child then.
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Whaddya mean, then?
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Well, I made my fortune and became white. That's how it works.
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You mean I'm always going to be this color?
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Just like certain lawsuits, it's enough for them to know somebody's handle. Episiarch, Pro Libertate, Aresen, Groovus: Yall are fucked. That's what you get for using a unique handle.
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You left out protefeed.
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Unique? Alas, no. There's that conservative dude with the blog. Same tag. It's also a slogan for all sorts of military organizations and at least a couple of Scottish clans.
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Not me.
As a Canadian I am protected by my magic 'niceness' shield.
It's as unthinkable as a cop shooting a dog.
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Maybe I should rephrase that.
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Your people should provide Americans with Canadian passports. For a nice gratuity and so we don't get killed. Everyone loves Canadians. I'd like mine to say, "William Shatner."
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Phew. Glad I'm the 404th darius.
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Drone pilots are the biggest COWARDS of them all. Total cowards.
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For the love of god, drones are not autonomous robots--even having them in this article is a distraction. The story is about killing people w/o due process. Plenty of good old fashioned manned aircraft are dropping warheads on foreheads too. "Drones" have pilots at the controls media-types, so stop fixating on them.
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Good point indeed. Its proof power-mongers (like gun control freaks) perceive objects alone killers, not the evil men who animate such.
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Soon drone attacks will be reported in the passive voice.
A wedding party in Yemen was killed when a drone detonated near their gathering....
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I don't see the problem with this if this is an act of war. If lobsterbacks were walking down a road and were shot at and killed from the woods alongside the road... would that be a crime?