Seahawks08 wrote:You do know that Obama decided to count any person as a militant if they were in the area of a drone strike and were of a certain age, don't you? Unbelievable, but true.
And you do know that we were giving money to an "informant" who actually knew nothing and yet he called in a random drone strike that killed a group of civilians? You just can't make that stuff up!
What are your sources? I would like to read up on these. I'll also do a google search in the meantime.
First one is easy:
"It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."
This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes." 
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world ... d=all&_r=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Since these strikes are often in remote regions with no official investigators, there conveniently is little effort to to find, "explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."
The second one, involving a shopkeeper that claimed he had inside information, which he didn't, and helped direct a strike that killed only civilians in a public area, even elicited an apology from our defense folks, but hasn't changed our tactics. It made the mainstream news briefly, and I provided a link probably about a year ago, but has been buried in the latest shuffle of Google hits. But, here are a couple other articles referring to similar incidences.
"The “reliability and vetting of local informants and foreign cooperating government personnel” is questionable. Informants are reportedly paid “$300-$1000 or more” and there are multiple stories suggesting, “Families and rival groups use locator chips to have their enemies targeted and to settle personal vendettas.” Local informants may offer “sketchy” information, leading to drone operators firing on people without confirming their identity.
A drone can zoom in to pinpoint a target, but if it loses the “wider picture of the area—like viewing a small amount of liquid through a soda straw, instead of the entire glass,” then “the soda straw effect creates a risk that civilians may move into the vicinity of the strike without being noticed by drone operators.” For example, drone pilot Matt J. Martin targeted a truck in Afghanistan of “insurgents.” Two young boys Martin had not expected appeared after Martin had fired a missile. All he could do is watch as the two boys were killed along with those in the truck."
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/0 ... chnology/h" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Public information about the US experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as in the context of rendition and the Guantanamo detentions, creates cause for concern about the reliability of the intelligence that informs lethal targeting decisions. In April 2011, for example, US forces used a predator drone to fire upon and kill two American soldiers in Afghanistan who had apparently been mistaken for Taliban fighters.[10] In September 2010, US special forces bombed the convoy of Zabet Amanullah, a candidate in parliamentary elections, killing him along with nine fellow election workers; US forces reportedly mistakenly believed Amanullah to be a member of the Taliban.[11] In both Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been documented cases of opportunistic informants providing false tips to settle scores, advance sectarian or political agendas, or to obtain financial reward.[12] For example, in Guantanamo, a reported 86 percent of those imprisoned were turned over to coalition forces in response to a bounty offered by the US.[13] Pakistani and Afghan villagers reported the bounty amount was “[e]nough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life.”[14] For several years, the US government regularly referred to Guantanamo detainees as “the worst of the worst.”[15] Classified as “enemy combatants,” prisoners remained in US custody for significant periods of time, often years, and often without being charged. Yet of the 779 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, 603 have now been released.[16] According to the US government itself, 92% of prisoners in the facility were never Al Qaeda fighters.[17]
What does this mean in the targeted killing context? Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve articulates the implications:
Just as with Guantanamo Bay, the CIA is paying bounties to those who will identify “terrorists.” Five thousand dollars is an enormous sum for a Waziri informant, translating to perhaps £250,000 in London terms. The informant has a calculation to make: is it safer to place a GPS tag on the car of a truly dangerous terrorist, or to call down death on a Nobody (with the beginnings of a beard), reporting that he is a militant? Too many “militants” are just young men with stubble."[18]
http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2012/09/2 ... esolution/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Of course, this is nothing new...we received false intelligence from paid informants in Vietnam, Iraq, our Central American conflicts, our cities - to local and federal law enforcement...you name it.
So, in summary, we use poor intelligence to blow up random targets, and then count any people of military age (remember, military age in Afghanistan is not 18, and how do you identify the age of a young courpse from a satellite immage) as militants.
There was an another account of an "informant" acknowledging that he called in multiple strikes on innocent people, and felt bad about it, but he needed the money. We have been using electronic devices, as small as a cigarette, and others attached to cellphones, that direct misiles to their target. Simply put one in a car, or in a house, say the people are bad guys, and within an hour or so a drone will deliver a strike.
In an interesting twist, there is a case being prosecuted where some soldiers have been accused of killing some detainees. Part of their defense is that they were given instructions to kill anyone of military age. Orders to "kill anyone of military age" sounds Stalinesque and would most certainly be considered some sort of war crime. Betting money should be on the side that those soldiers are lying...but what exactly is the difference between telling a soldier on a mission to kill anyone of military age in the target area versus killing a supposedly identified target while defining and dismissing anyone else killed in the strike area as a militant?
Fun times, indeed.
You do know that Obama decided to count any person as a militant if they were in the area of a drone strike and were of a certain age, don't you? Unbelievable, but true. 
