Four dead in air-drone-strikes

It's not quite as catchy as "Four dead in O-hi-o," but, there's a parallel.

Eric "Hitler" Holder

The New York Times informs us that President Barack Obama, aka Dear Leader, had drone strikes of the US kill not only American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, but three other American citizens. Without due process. Without even close to a semi-declared "War on Terror" involving Yemen. Just vague names like "Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."

In a letter to Congressional leaders obtained by The New York Times, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen.

The letter also said that the United States had killed three other Americans: Samir Khan, who was killed in the same strike; Mr. Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was also killed in Yemen; and Jude Mohammed, who was killed in a strike in Pakistan. 

And, given how much Attorney General Eric Holder Hitler has obfuscated in the past, why should we believe this:

“These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States,” Mr. Holder wrote.  

I don't.

Anyway, here's justification Hitler and his boss, Dear Leader, offer:

Holder, in a speech at Northwestern University Law School last year, laid out the administration’s basic legal thinking that American citizens who are deemed to be operational terrorists, who pose an “imminent threat of violent attack” and whose capture is infeasible may be targeted. ...

But Holder’s letter went further in discussing the death of Mr. Awlaki in particular, an operation the administration had previously refused to publicly acknowledge. He said it was not Mr. Awlaki’s words urging violent attacks against Americans that led the United States to target him, but direct actions in planning attacks. ...

Holder alleged that Mr. Awlaki not only “planned” the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009, a claim that has been widely discussed in court documents and elsewhere, but also “played a key role” in an October 2010 plot to bomb cargo planes bound for the United States, including taking “part in the development and testing” of the bombs. 

Fine. Present the information in a court of law. (We know that, in reality, that will never happen.)

This is probably part of what is behind Holder's snooping on the Associated Press. They either have reason to believe, or fear, that something about these other targeted killings were being, or going to be, leaked by somebody.

To refresh, that snooping was about:

Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

The Times' story about the four killings doesn't have dates on the third and fourth killings. So, it's not guaranteed this is part of what the snooping was about, but it stands to reason.

And, of course, these are just the four we know about.

What other American citizens, whether targeted or not, have been killed in drone attacks? And, not just in Yemen or Pakistan in the War on Terror, but, say, in Mexico in the War on Drugs?

A question for Wilsonian idealists

Samantha Power is a strong Wilsonian interventionist within the Obama administration. VERY strong:

Per this story, she's apparently so powerful, and perhaps so worrisome to Team Obama's PR on interventionism, that she wasn't made available for an interview for the story, as this indicates:

Precisely what parts of the unfolding policy (in Libya) Power advocated or opposed aren't clear. She declined a request for an interview, and White House officials declined to comment on her role.

On the political fallout issue, here's her POV:

Power has long argued that politicians shy away from humanitarian intervention because they see too much domestic political risk with little payoff for saving foreign lives. ...

The prevailing political theory in the United States, Power said, is that "you don't get any extra credit for doing the right thing," that U.S. casualties for the sake of humanitarianism cost politicians power and support. "It's up to us on the outside" to change that calculus, she said.

Beyond the domestic political risk, let's take a look at a nut graf:

After the publication of "A Problem From Hell," Power said in a wide-ranging 2002 discussion with Boston interviewer Robert Birnbaum that she believes "there is a moral obligation to do something about gross human rights violations" even if they don't meet the definition of genocide.

But, to do WHAT? And, by what moral calculus do we judge what to do?

Why Bosnia but not Uganda, back in Clinton Administration days? Was it white and European vs. nonwhite and African?

Why Libya and not Yemen today? Is it oil or the lack thereof? Or, with Bahrain, the fact that we have such a military presence there already as to be semi-intimidating without further effort?

Along those lines, if any intervention is done in the name of "international stability," first thing I am going to do is check how much oil that country produces.

And, sorry, Ms. Power, but the U.S. checkbook isn't unlimited. Are you going to dun the rest of the UN every time you decide the U.S. should intervene somewhere? Are you, per a Bob Herbert, going to try to sell the American public on every price tag? Or, like Bush with his two wars, will you not only not ask Congress for declarations of war, but will you try to run every intervention "off budget"?

Remember, the French Revolution started not just because of bad harvests, but because Comte de Vergennes had bankrupted France ... by intervention, intervention in the American Revolution.

Beyond the finances, what about human lives, especially when it becomes clear that air power may make a Roman-style, if temporary, "desert" out of mini-Carthages, but, it won't quell unrest on the ground. Will you try to sell that cost to the American public?

And, again, on what utilitarian calculus? Libya's level of unrest IS just about the same as Yemen's. So, why are we there?

How great a level of civil unrest is "permitted"? Is an "Obama doctrine" forthcoming?

Getcha popcorn ... follow your US wars!

Will Obama withdraw that many troops from Iraq this year? Probably not. Will he put some in Yemen? Maybe. Will he shoot even more Predators at Pakistan? Most certainly.

That and other stuff is all part of Tom Englehardt's Top 10 U.S. 2010 war predictions.