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Military Drone Attacks Are Not 'Hostile'

Posted by Soulskill on from the napalm-hugs-and-frag-grenade-kisses dept.

sanzibar writes "Not satisfied with the legal conclusion of the DOJ, the Obama administration found other in-house lawyers willing to declare a bomb dropped from a drone is not 'hostile'. The strange conclusion has big implications in determining the President's compliance with the law. If drone strikes are in fact hostile and the Libyan campaign continues past Sunday, he may very well be breaking the law."

37 of 892 comments (clear)

  1. Butters knows this one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "You know, you can call a shovel an ice-cream machine, but it's still a shovel, Mom and Dad"

    1. Re:Butters knows this one by couchslug · · Score: 4, Funny

      Given this logic, rape is merely "assault with a friendly weapon".

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  2. Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Pullleeez! If one was used on the US we would absolutely consider it a hostile act.

    1. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by jhoegl · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, doesnt that basically give an open window to terrorists and Iran?
      WTF!

    2. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Furthermore I'd say the US would consider an attack on the drone a hostile act.

    3. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by taxman_10m · · Score: 4, Interesting

      From Wikipedia:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#Historical_events_involving_UAVs

      In October 2002, a few days before the U.S. Senate vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that Saddam Hussein had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by UAV drones that could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack U.S. eastern seaboard cities. Colin Powell suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that they had been transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the U.S.[78] It was later revealed that Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of only a few outdated Czech training drones.[79] At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to whether CIA's conclusions about Iraqi UAVs were accurate. The U.S. Air Force agency most familiar with UAVs denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.[80]

    4. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by Cinder6 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!

      --
      If you can't convince them, convict them.
    5. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by guspasho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It wouldn't be the first time that the US government claims the right to do things it holds are illegal for everyone else. We torture, we "cyberattack", we proliferate nuclear weapons and WMDs, we attack other countries and wage wars of choice, we violate other countries' sovereignty, all things which we prosecute and punish others for through international courts and extraditions, or would hold to be acts of war if done to us, even while we do the same to the rest of the world.

      And we slaughter innocent civilians from those drones almost on a daily basis, and treat it as if it was nothing. The terrorists killed around 3000 innocents, while we've killed something like 300,000, if not far more. To a far greater extent than al Qaeda, we are the terrorists.

    6. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

      Except the US and NATO don't "indiscriminately" kill as they please, they put a ton of planning into every strike and try to conduct operations is with a minimal amount of civilian death and injuries.

      After all, the US and UK have been using inert bombs on radar and light structures for over 12 years, because an explosive would do too much civilian damage.

      Those ignorant of military history think all modern bombing and air strikes look like Sir Harris planned them and that because a B-52 can carry 35 tons of bombs, every time a B-52 is mentioned it must have dropped 35 tons of bombs.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing

      But the vast majority of airstrikes and bombings by the US and NATO since 1992 have been with smart weapons, guided missiles or single small (500 pound or 1000 pound) bombs

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_guided_munition

      In Iraq/Kuwait in 1991 8.8% of air strikes were with PGMs, in the Kosovo War the number is up to 90%, in 2001 Afghanistan it drops back to 55%

      In Libya it looks like about 75-80% PGM, and of course anything from a Predator or Reaper drone is going to be a PGM, either a Hellfire (Laser or Millimeter wave radar) or a small JDAM (GPS and/or laser)

      http://theamericanaudacity.blogspot.com/2011/03/canadas-six-cf-18-hornets-deployed-to.html
      http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-runs-short-on-some-munitions-in-libya/2011/04/15/AF3O7ElD_story.html?hpid=z1
      http://jha.ac/articles/a110.htm
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_guided_munition

    7. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by guspasho · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The "terrorists" (let's be specific, Al Qaeda) have killed way more than 3,000 innocents."

      Sure, they've killed many thousands of innocent Middle-eastern Muslims too, and a few hundred other Americans before and since, but it was the 9/11 dead, and only those 3000-ish, that motivated the US to war. But they've killed thousands, and the US has killed hundreds of thousands. It's orders of magnitude more.

      "your assertion that "we've killed something like 300,000" is an irresponsibly nonspecific charge."

      See the estimates for yourself. In Iraq alone the numbers are astonishing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror#Casualties

      It's impossible to be more specific because the US has refused to bother counting the war dead beyond its own soldiers, which has left us with independent estimates that partisans then assail for also being partisan. It also doesn't help the US' credibility or good will among their victims' families that they don't bother track the number of dead.

      And yes, when it comes to aggressive wars, it is absolutely reasonable to blame the aggressor for all the war dead, even those killed by the enemy, because without the aggressive war none of those people would have died.

      "Moreover, it is silly to compare numbers that way when many (most?) of the deaths it seems you are saying we are responsible for are also the responsibility of those terrorists."

      Do you have an estimate? I can find none on Google. Every number I've ever heard has been in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands, not even tens of thousands.

      But the idea that you could possibly attribute most of the war dead in the US' wars to al Qaeda is utterly ridiculous. al Qaeda numbers in the few hundreds, that's an estimate the US DOD freely admits. While the US has hundreds of thousands of soldiers and spent hundreds of billions of dollars on its wars. The wars are asymmetrical, al Qaeda are few and very ill-equipped. It's just incomprehensible to imagine how they can possibly be responsible for anything even approaching the numbers killed by the US.

      The point I'm trying to make is that the US has responded to a terrorist act of death and destruction by indiscriminately raining down death and destruction a hundred or thousand-fold on innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, and now - or soon - Libyans. It's far, far more death and destruction than can be attributed to al Qaeda on 9/11, or since, or even "the enemy" if you want to include "militants" or "insurgents" - which are basically people who want us to stop killing them and leave their countries. If the US is justified in that, what are those countries, and their allies, justified in doing to the US?

      If they bombed the US with drones would it be okay because it isn't "hostile"?

    8. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by Fjandr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I expect you're one of those that argue dropping bombs are Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrorist acts over a military one.

      Even if you excuse the first bombing, the second has none. You don't save the lives of soldiers by deliberately killing hundreds of thousands of civilians if you wish to keep the moral high ground, and especially not twice in a row without even giving them the opportunity to surrender after the first.

    9. Re:Of Course Drone Attacks Are Hostile by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, our having this discussion is a bit like non-geeks discussing computer topics. They use relevant terms, but not necessarily with their correct meaning. "Real-time" is a term whose misuse often makes me cringe.

      We can't even understand what this argument is about without at least looking at the legal briefs. Clearly the administration isn't claiming that dropping bombs from a drone is a benign or friendly act; they're making the argument that it does not fall into a class of actions defined by some specific law (in this case the War Powers Act I think), and referred to by the shorthand "hostilities" in the text of the law. If the law in question says something like, "A 'hostile action' for the purposes of this act is one in which (a) (b) or (c)," then what we're talking about is whether the Libyan operation qualifies under those terms, regardless of whether it is "hostile" according to the common definition of the word.

      I support the Libyan operation, because it's a rare opportunity to take a state sponsor of terrorism out of the picture at relatively low cost. But I think the operation should be authorized by Congress first. That won't happen because the current congress is all too willing to play with critical national interests for short term electoral advantage. At any other time this would be a no-brainer, but for now it's a non-starter. For that reason I would not be surprised if the Administration is bending the law past the point of breaking in order to get the job done. But it is quite possible that a reasonable argument could be made that an operation in which US personnel aren't placed in harm's way *might* not fall under the definition of "hostilities" laid out in certain laws.

      To know whether the position taken is as ridiculous as it sounds, we'd have to see the actual arguments being made, as opposed to some dumbed down, hand-waving media account.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  3. Yep, not the change I voted for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is even worse than claiming that waterboarding isn't torture. WTF? I can't believe that I donated money to this douche in 2008.

    1. Re:Yep, not the change I voted for by elfprince13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Right, because Obama stopped all of the abuses, and Bush never overthrew dictatorships as part of an international alliance. Oh. Right. Nevermind. That's just that whole selective memory thing again. Silly me.

    2. Re:Yep, not the change I voted for by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Let's see if any Democratic group has the stones to mount a primary challenge. I'm not really impressed by any of the Republican candidates. See if you can get Hillary to give it another go.

      Hilary Clinton vs Sarah Palin at the next election would be hilarious and an unbeatable demonstration that America has totally jumped the shark.

  4. "Not hostile" by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The use of explosives by anyone on this forum would be considered "hostile" and would land them in jail. They can label it whatever they want, but you drop a bomb somewhere, you better expect a "hostile" reply.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:"Not hostile" by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's the natural continuation of the long-existing slippery slope. First they stopped the use of the term "war" (to remind, the US has last officially used the term "war" in 1942 - neither Korea nor Vietnam nor Afghanistan nor Iraq were "wars"). The next logical step is to excise any mention of violence whatsoever. Conveniently, this also removes the need to authorize it.

      In the long term, though, I suspect that this moment - and not all the other Obama's blunders - will end up in history as the marking moment of his presidency. Even Bush asked (and received) authorization to use force from the Congress - albeit with a lot of deception and outright lies. Obama pretty much says he doesn't care for one, and it's his way or the highway.

      Frankly, waging war in explicit denial of the parliament would be grounds for immediate impeachment in pretty much any other country. How does that normally work in US?

  5. It doesn't matter. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is a coercive, destructive, military act, 100% consistent with what our Founding Fathers meant when they wrote "war". Therefore I don't give a crap whether somebody re-defines it as "hostile" or "friendly" or a "love tap". It's illegal as hell.

    1. Re:It doesn't matter. by Pyrion · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bush got congressional authorization. Obama thinks he doesn't have to. That's the key difference.

      --
      "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
    2. Re:It doesn't matter. by snl2587 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bush got congressional authorization by lying to Congress. Obama thinks he doesn't have to. That's the key difference.

      FTFY

    3. Re:It doesn't matter. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I don't give a crap" is not a logical non-sequitur. Further, the Constitution already gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the President. And further yet, the "War Powers Act" does not trump the Constitution, it merely clarifies Congress' policies regarding the waging of war.

      The President's power over our military is generally considered to be limited to the power to repel invasion, without Congress' prior approval. However, this is neither a repulsion of an invasion, or a War declared by Congress. Therefore it is an illegal act, regardless of how "hostile" it is, or not. Nor does the President have any Constitutional authority to re-define the law.

      Therefore, the President has committed an illegal act. And there is no non-sequitur in that chain of logic.

  6. Set an iron-clad precedent by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At some point we're going to get another irrationally warmongering hawk president. Can we get an iron-clad precedent set that in matters that matter the president isn't above the law, and can't just run around making stuff up?

    It's too bad that would have to happen with this president and not the previous one, who happened to be Houdini of inventing BS from thin air. Free-speech zones. WMD. Blocking Scientific Papers. Etc. But we can't just agree to ignore the law for presidents we like.

    --
    The ______ Agenda
    1. Re:Set an iron-clad precedent by guspasho · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "But we can't just agree to ignore the law for presidents we like."

      I voted for Obama because he said he would end the presidential lawlessness, end the wars, end the abuse of "state secrets" to block justice through the courts, close Guantanamo Bay and end the 4th and 5th Amendment violations that it represented, and protect whistleblowers. But since he was elected he has done the exact opposite, attempting to assassinate US citizens simply by declaring them enemies of the state with no process whatsoever, escalating the wars and even claiming the power to start more wars without consulting Congress, increased the abuse of state secrets to even prevent cases from being heard, refused to do anything about Guantanamo Bay and even opened up the greater black hole at Bagram, prosecuting whistleblowers to a far greater extent than any previous president ever did, and trying to prosecute Wikileaks under the Espionage Act. All of this is the exact opposite of what he said he would do when we elected him.

      The only power citizens have to punish presidential lawlessness is to refuse to reelect them, and when possible, elect the candidate who says they will undo the lawless behavior. And when the country did that, the guy we elected broke every one of his election promises and proved to be much, much worse. And Congress, as well as both parties, have proven to be enthusiastic supporters of all of this. Senator Russ Feingold, the only one who really cared about the rule of law, lost reelection last year. When both parties support government lawlessness, in Congress and the White House, when we elect those who promise to stop it and they turn around and expand upon that lawlessness instead, what option do we have?

      The precedent, I'm afraid, has already been set. Nobody who matters supports the rule of law any more; not Congress, and not the courts, nor the mass media, who are all too deferential to presidential power to want to do anything about it, not the parties who both want that power for themselves when they win the White House, and certainly not the executive who reaps the benefits. That sort of unanimity among the branches of government is what establishes precedent for a very long time, generations if not indefinitely.

  7. Re:It's not a law! by zill · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's called the War Powers Resolution for a reason... it was a resolution, of Congress... which does not have the signature of a President... it was not vetoed... or even pocket vetoed... because it was never presented to a President for his signature... preventing any possibility of a veto override.

    As much as I loathe this President... I do have to give him credit for standing up against the WPA... it’s a shame he’s not competent enough to recognize the reality of the WPA and state it... rather than playing these games.

    Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

    It passed the House on July 18, 1973.
    It passed the Senate on July 20, 1973.
    President Nixon vetoed it on October 24, 1973.
    His veto was overridden by the Senate on November 7, 1973. Thus immediately the bill became law, without the need for Nixon's signature.
    And this is a high resolution scan of the final bill.

  8. How is that... by Mark+Atwood · · Score: 5, Funny

    How's that Hope & Change working out for y'all?

  9. rube here by decora · · Score: 4, Insightful

    i heard that Bush's people were harassing journalists, specifically Greg Jackson, a research assistant for Ron Suskind, who was writing Way of the World, a bit if an expose about the pre-Iraq war intelligence.

    they, according to suskind, detained Jackson, took his notes, and confiscated some of his stuff.

    i voted for Obama so that kind of thing would stop.

    and so the war would stop. and so that the assault on civil liberties would stop.

    im a 100% fucking idiot. i am voting for uhm... oh wait, we don't have write-in ballots here, and we barely have 3rd parties allowed on the ballot.

  10. Re:Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss by sideslash · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe you were unaware that "the previous guy" disagreed on this point, and took a very careful view of complying with the "War Powers Resolution". In other words, unlike Obama, Dubya got congressional approval for his war(s). Whatever vague point you were trying to make, your post is factually misleading.

  11. Re:Simple thought experiment... by Tridus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, yes. Remember that the US government is very pro freedom - the freedom of the US government to do whatever it wants and the freedom of everyone else to shut up and like it.

    America, Fuck Yeah!

    --
    -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
  12. Re:It's not a law! by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

    Obama isn't trying to 'stand against' the WPA, he's trying to say it doesn't apply to him. He supported it in the past, and if he said it didn't apply, he would look like a hypocrite.

    The constitution says that only congress may declare war, but from the beginning, the US has engaged in conflicts without declaring war. In fact, congress has only declared war five times. The original words in the constitution draft were that only congress could "make war," but it was changed to say only congress could "declare war," in recognition of the fact that sometimes the president should be allowed to fight without declaring war.

    No one knows where the line between what the president can do and what congress must authorize exists, though. The WPA is nothing more than congress's opinion, because they don't have the right to restrict the president further than the constitution.

    Now, if congress really cared, they could bring the matter up to the Supreme Court, and get an injunction prohibiting the president from further action in Libya. But they haven't, which is how you know their words are nothing more than an attempt to win cheap political points.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  13. its here and now by FudRucker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  14. Legally by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Harold Koh is one of the big lawyers supporting the air strikes for the Administration. He condemns Republicans for going to war without authorization when in academia, but was brought into the Administration with President Obama, and since has changed his tune a bit. It should be interesting to see (1) if a Republican president keeps him on whenever one next gets elected and (2) whether he will return to academia and try to walk back his current position.

    There are some interesting theories as to whether the air strikes are legal or not. The question isn't whether they are hostile, it's whether they are "hostile" as that word is used in a particular context--probably the war powers resolution, IIRC. But there are some interesting end-runs you could potentially do around that, such as through the UN--maybe Congress approved the UN charter, which validates the security council resolution authorizing the action, for example. That shouldn't work--there are limits that the Supreme Court puts on how far Congress can delegate its powers, and there's no way they can delegate the declaration of war, particularly if they do so ambiguously.

    Ultimately, if the House wants to stop it, they can always cut the funding.

    On the upside, $10M a day is going mostly to our military industrial complex, which pumps some money into the economy. Also on the upside, getting rid of tyrants.

    Still, I get the image of a big freeciv display in the situation room...

    --
    -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
    1. Re:Legally by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because when Hoover did nothing*, that sure worked out brilliantly. FDR initiates the new deal, economic cratering almost immediately halts and GDP starts going back up. 1936/7, Republicans demand new deal be cut back to balance budget, recession is immediate. Then shortly after we got into WWII, also known as "the biggest big-government deficit-spending jobs & stimulus program in all of history." Then the GI Bill paid to have them all sent off to school again and the next few decades were the zenith of American power and prestige around the world.

      So, how's things going in Greece and Iceland?

      *He actually did start the ball rolling on some stimulus-esqe stuff, but it was too little too late, and he didn't afaik do anything to stop the bank dominos from falling, which was the immediate short-term problem.

    2. Re:Legally by Kyusaku+Natsume · · Score: 4, Funny

      The problem is that a significant percentage of your countrymen get a really good hard on and a orgasm every time they get news that their armed forces are dropping bombs and firing bullets anywhere in the world. Is the best way to win elections and certainly, that Citizens United ruling from your Supreme Court has put the last nail in the coffin of the american democratic republic. On the plus side, you guys can use Jefferson's body to power all the East Coast instead of letting him simply spin in his grave.

      --
      Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
  15. precedent by petsounds · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While Obama should've gone back and gotten authorization from Congress to extend the mission in Libya, he acted properly initially, because otherwise there'd be a lot of blood on our hands (see: Bush Sr. in Iraq) as the resistance capital Benghazi was about to fall had we not intervened.

    Of course, as far as I know we never declared war on Pakistan either, but Congress has been happy to sign checks for drones to fire missiles inside Pakistan territory. Is this not also "putting US Armed Forces into hostilities"? And if you want to be technical, Congress has not passed a bill declaring war on anyone since World War II. It's all "authorization to use force", which is more of the kind of Orwellian terminology in use post-WWII, such as changing the Department of War to the Department of Defense.

    In my opinion, this is not "hostilities" in the sense of invading a country. We are in Libya at the request of the Libyan people to prevent a humanitarian disaster. Obama may have slipped up on the technicalities, but the technicalities are only being brought up now because of politics. The cause is a just one.

  16. Clearly /,ers are confused by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This President is 100% - after all, he's won a Nobel Peace Prize, how can he be wrong about what is hostile and what is not?

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  17. Its not a benefit to the economy, its pure loss. by Marrow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are firing shells, missiles, burning fuel, and consuming resources including time and attention. Once, shells, missiles strike their target, they are gone for good: burned up. The fuel is burned up. The time is burned up. None of these things can then benefit us or anyone else in the future.
    If we spend money on tools that we need to make more things in the future, then spending the money may help our economy. But only if the amount of money we can draw from those added resources exceeds what we spent.
    Every time the US declares war (or fails to declare it), its really a war against its own people. Its an excuse to funnel billions of dollars down a rat-hole that has no oversight, and no end in sight. Can you think of another country just before WW1 and WW2 that was addicted to war? Look what happened to them.
    Our leaders think they can gamble at any stakes and take all the winnings for themselves. And if they lose, they can parachute out to some haven and leave the people with the crushing debt of their mistakes.

  18. Re:the difference is by element-o.p. · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I won't argue the facts that you presented here; there is no doubt in my mind that you are far more acquainted with them than I. I will, however, argue that we are not on any moral high ground, nor are we building many friends around the world with our actions. As a result of 9/11, we have since pretty much invaded four sovereign countries -- one of which (Pakistan, the other three being Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya) is ostensibly our ally (at least for now). We at least had some legitimate claims to Afghanistan, since they were clearly in cahoots with OBL. Iraq was ostensibly about removing an power mad dictator who was allegedly creating weapons of mass destruction. When none were found, we changed out tune to "well, he was in league with the terr'ists, and killing his own people"...much like our justification for invading Libya. But if that were really our motivation, then why aren't we in Syria or Yemen? Why didn't we get involved in Egypt or Tunisia? Why did we send just a token presence into Somalia in the '90s? Why were Libya and Iraq the only countries where we care that the leaders are attacking their own people?

    I'm sure it's just pure coincidence that both Libya (#17) and Iraq (#12) are much greater producers of oil than Syria (#32), Yemen (#36), Egypt (#28), or Tunisia (#53).

    --
    MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?