Droning On!

Actually, this one is Bush's fault. After 911, Bush chose to term what had happened as a war on terror. There were two problems with that choice. First, Bin Laden was a Jihadist, not a terrorist. I believe that Bush chose to use the term terrorist because it is generic, in that anyone can be a terrorist. An Arab can be a terrorist; an Irishman can be a terrorist; as Basque can be a terrorist; and so, too, can an American--e.g., Tim McVeigh. Jihadists, on the other hand, by definition are Muslims and Bush didn't want to make it look like we had a problem with the Islamic world. Second, the problem with declaring Bin Laden and company terrorists, was that terrorism is a criminal activity. The use of the term implies that the terrorists ought to be treated as criminals, with all the due process that come with that. Criminals are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Criminals, if at all possible, need to be apprehended in order to try them to determine their guilt. Criminals can't be held indefinitely without trial. And law enforcement officials can't simply tell their officers to shoot people on sight. Bush's choice of terminology thus opened the door to so many problems that have dogged us to this day. Obama, as a Senator, Presidential candidate, and President in his first term did nothing but reinforce Bush's initial and faulty decision. Obama wouldn't even allow his administration to use the phrase global war on terror. Instead we used an even less indicative of reality euphemism--overseas contingency operations. Now the Obama administration seems to have awoken, to some degree at least, to the reality. SECSTATE Clinton spoke of a global war against jihadism in her Congressional testimony. And now Obama seems prepared to step up his drone campaign. Obama's legal reasoning, in my opinion, is sound, if you work from the assumption that we are in a war. Zogby's critique of Obama is spot on, if you work on the assumption that we are fighting global criminality. What Obama needs to do is to make the case for his use of drone in the context of a global war against jihadism. For example, in April 1943 the US intercepted a plane transporting Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. It was a planned assassination of a major Japanese leader. Had we captured Yamamoto after the war, we would have had to try him in a court for crimes, e.g., planning the attack on Pearl Harbor, and had to prove his guilt before punishing him. It would not have been legal to have simply taken him out and shot him. But during the war, it was legal to assassinate him as part of on-going military operations. What if, for the sake of argument, Yamamoto had been born in the US and been, technically, a US citizen? Would his assassination then been illegal? Would FDR have been guilty of murdering a US citizen without due process? No! As long as Yamamoto, despite his US citizenship, had voluntarily chosen to serve the Japanese Imperial forces, despite their being in a state of war with the US, he would have been a legitimate target. Zogby offers the example of the Iranians launching a drone attack against an American official in the region. The problem with that example is that the US and Iran are not at war. If, for example, for whatever reason US naval forces tomorrow struck Kharg Island with a strike by naval aircraft and cruise missiles, then the Iranians would be justified to try to zap one of our officials with a drone strike. If the Israelis do preemptively hit Iranian nuclear sites, yes, the Iranians would be justified in striking against the Israelis, with drones. We didn't hit Yamamoto solely because he was planning operations against us, we hit him because he was planning those operations for an organization that had planned AND executed earlier operations. In other words, it was legal to hit Yamamoto on 18 April 1943; it would have been illegal to have done the same on 18 November 1941. What Obama needs to do is to explain to the American people a wartime rationale for what he is doing. But will he? I doubt it. Because to lay out that rationale he would have to speak the truth about what we are up against, and he, like his predecessor, is extremely reluctant to do so. Obama will take the heat, trusting that his friends in the media and the Congress won't push him too hard. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/obama-and-drones-unkept-p_b_2652514.html