“Greenwald summarizes Obama’s approach to drones as follows:
The centerpiece of his drone assassination program is that he, and he alone, has the power to target people, including American citizens, anywhere they are found in the world and order them executed on his unilateral command, based on his determination that the person to be killed is a terrorist.”
“If this were indeed Obama’s policy, the charges leveled by Greenwald and Greenberg and echoed by many other critics would be justified. But it is not accurate. First, Obama has not claimed the power to kill “terrorists,” but only those fighting on the other side in an armed conflict authorized by Congress against al-Qaeda and organizations allied with it. The power to kill the enemy in an armed conflict is as old as war itself.”
“Second, Obama has not asserted the power to use lethal force “anywhere…in the world,” but only in war zones—where drones are just another weapon—and, outside war zones, only where an enemy fighter poses an imminent threat that cannot otherwise be addressed, usually because the host country is incapable of capturing the fighter. When the host country is capable of arrest and prosecution, according to the administration, killing is not an option. Thus, under Obama, hundreds of persons suspected of engaging in or supporting terrorism have been arrested—in the US, the UK, and many other nations—and brought to trial for their alleged crimes. Obama has never claimed the authority to kill individuals who are outside a war zone and subject to capture.”
“Third, multiple sources, including Greenwald’s own website The Intercept, have reported that Obama hardly chooses targets on his own, but has set up an elaborate process that involves the review and input of many high-level military and government officials before any targeted killing is approved. Obama has insisted on taking ultimate responsibility, as he should, but it is hardly “he, and he alone,” who makes the decision.”
“It is also important to note that Obama’s policy and practice of using drones have evolved significantly over the course of his presidency. His initial years in office were marked by an aggressive expansion of the drone program. In Pakistan, for example, according to the New America Foundation, President Bush oversaw forty-eight drone strikes, killing between 377 and 558 people, whereas President Obama has overseen 355 strikes, killing between 1,907 and 3,067 people. But the number of drone strikes in Pakistan under Obama peaked at 122 in 2010, and has dropped every year since then. There were only ten strikes in Pakistan in 2015, and thus far only three in 2016. The number of strikes has also dropped in Yemen, from a high of forty-seven in 2012 to twenty-four in 2015 and nine thus far this year. In short, President Obama has shown significantly less proclivity to rely on drones in his second term than in his first.”
“One reason for the improved record may be the new standard that Obama announced in May 2013 for drone strikes outside zones of armed conflict. In a speech to the National Defense University, and in a classified Presidential Policy Guidance issued simultaneously, he stated that he would authorize targeted killings beyond war zones only when (1) an individual poses a continuing and imminent threat to US persons; (2) capture is not feasible and no reasonable alternative is available to address the threat; and (3) there is a near certainty that no civilians will be injured or killed.”
“I and others have raised questions about the administration’s elongated definition of “imminence,” and about what makes capture not “feasible,” but if these terms were interpreted strictly, there would be little to criticize, and one would expect to see few strikes and fewer civilian deaths.”
“Thus, Obama’s actual record on drones is mixed. While he employed the tactic aggressively in his first term, he has become much more discriminating since then. There are likely two principal reasons for this. First, over the course of his tenure, and in response to widespread criticism, Obama has become increasingly transparent about the program, albeit fitfully. At the outset, the administration refused even to acknowledge that the targeted killing program existed. Such a policy of secret, unacknowledged killing is not only legally and ethically illegitimate, but counterproductive, because in the face of secrecy people will fear the worst, and evidence of civilian killing is likely to emerge in any case.”
“Precisely because of their special capabilities, drones make the resort to force too tempting. They are cheaper than other forms of force; they put no American lives at risk; and they allow for a kind of superficial plausible deniability. As Stephen Wrage, a US Naval Academy professor, argues, “if there are unusually useable weapons in the arsenal, there will be unusual pressures to use them.” As a result, Gusterson warns, drones enable “a kind of permanent, low-level military action that threatens to erase the boundary between war and peace.””
“The question for President Obama is whether he wants to be remembered as the leader who ushered in the era of permanent, low-level drone warfare. His actions will be looked to for justification by those that follow, here and abroad.”
“As David Reisner, former head of the Israel Defense Forces legal department, has said, “If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it…. International law progresses through violations.””
“The military is familiar with law-of-war questions of necessity, proportionality, and the like; the CIA is not. And the CIA’s default position is secrecy, so leaving drone strikes in its hands will impede efforts at greater transparency.”
“Most importantly, President Obama needs to commit to justifying not only the program’s general guidelines, but its actual implementation: the authority to take another human being’s life must be subject to strict legal limits. Accountability requires at least some degree of formal oversight. In Israel, all targeted killings must be reviewed by the courts after the fact. The European Court of Human Rights is moving in the direction of requiring review of killing even on the battlefield.”
“Secret executions cannot be squared with the rule of law. They are the stuff of death squads, not democracies.”
“As President Obama said in his 2013 NDU speech, “The same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power—or risk abusing it.” He now has the opportunity to impose constraint in a meaningful way.”
“If he fails to take it, his legacy will be as the Nobel Peace Prize winner who pioneered a dramatically dangerous and ethically dubious form of warfare. That’s not the Obama I want to remember.”