CIA DOUBLE TAP DRONE STRIKES ARE WAR CRIMES

CIA "Double Tap" Drone Strikes Indicate President Obama  Misleads American Public On His Drone Strategy.

In his May 23 2013 address at  the Defense University on drone warfare the President assured the American public that his use of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) was legal and that his government has taken scrupulous care to avoid civilians casualties.  But past studies by Stamford and New York Universities and more recently a study by Amnesty International (See my previous blog) indicate he mislead the public.  The tactics used by the CIA, and apparently supported by Mr. Obama, are designed not to simply kill insurgents "allied with Al Qaeda" as he claims, but to terrorize entire civilian populations which may harbor these extremists.  That is a war crime and one reason why he can not come clean with the American public.

The earlier studies and more recent ones document that about one-third of all casualties are innocent civilians.   That does not seem to square with the President's description of "precision, surgical strikes".  So there is more here than meets the casual eye.  What that "more" is has been touched upon by both the Stamford study and the recent  Amnesty International report which document the prevalence of what are termed "double tap" strikes which intentionally target first responders and civilians.  Such a tactic is a war crime....no question.

The use of "double tap" strikes suggest that the actual purpose and intent of the drone campaign is not simply "neutralizing" bad guys but to cow and  terrorize the civilians who may tend to support the militant insurgency.  Apparently that is OK with the President as long as it remains a secret....but if it comes out in the open ( as at present) he and all those who are complicit in this campaign are potentially subject to war crimes charges.  In these attacks, a first strike by a drone hellfire missile is followed a few minutes later by a second ( or even a third missile)  which kills near by residents, or relatives who had responded  to help the wounded, or find elderly or  children buried in the rubble. Often police, doctors and other first responders are killed in this manner.   The "double tap" strike is of course a heinous war crime, designed not to surgically kill the bad guys..but to  sow terror and are no different than the car or truck bomb used by the other side. (see: "Outrage at CIA's deadly double tap drone attacks", in  "The Independent", by Jerome Taylor, 25 September, 2012)

The attempt to use terror by invading armies, and others to quell insurgency is as old as the hills. From Julius Caesar in Gaul , the Nazis in occupied France, to Lt Calley in Mai Lai, Vietnam, and now Obama in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, when fighting a native insurgency the military (and sometimes their civilian leaders) believe they are in a battle for "the minds and hearts" of the natives. To win that battle they seek to terrorize the locals and so deny the insurgents (Gauls, Free French partisans, Viet Cong, Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc. ) sustenance and safe harbor. Obama's drone strikes in Pakistan are DESIGNED to kill indiscriminately so as to elicit terror. It explains why the civilian deaths are so high...one third of the total. Drones are a form of terrorism as brutal and inhumane as the car bombs the other side uses. The President's claim that the strikes are "surgical" and designed to "neutralize" our enemies with limited civilian casualties is a perversion of the truth. The revelation about "double tap" drone strikes is a shattering revelation which exposes the drone warfare strategy as a terrorist attacks similar to those used by less sophisticated car and satchel bombers. The second series of bombs from the drone takes out women and children, and innocent bystanders who in any normal society rush to the aid of the stricken. That is what our CIA is doing on a regular basis in Pakistan---killing, maiming and terrorizing whole villages all civilians---grandmothers! parents! children! Think about it...and oppose this horror and perversion of American values-- or become one with with the jack booted perpetrators of Oradour-sur-Glane.

Get the picture?

rjk