Month: February 2013

apparatchik noun

1. A member of a Communist apparat.
2. An unquestioningly loyal subordinate, especially of a political leader or organization

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) thinks we’d be asking too much of Obama if we demanded the President publicly acknowledge when he targets a US citizen for assassination. If President Obama wants to drop a bomb on an American with a drone in total secrecy, he should be able to do so.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Pelosi was asked whether “the administration should acknowledge when it targets a US citizen in a drone strike.”

“It depends on the situation,” she said. “Maybe it depends on the timing, because that’s right — it’s all about timing, imminence. What is it that could be in jeopardy if people know that happened at this time? I just don’t know.”

That’s right. She doesn’t know. Nor does anybody else because all of it is secret. The Obama administration, like every administration before it, keeps secret that which is legally and morally questionable, while justifying it with practiced tropes about “protecting sources and methods.”

Pelosi is erring on the side of deference. If Obama declares he will strip Americans of the Constitutional rights and that it needs to be secret because divulging such information could “harm national security,” she grants him that prerogative because she is not an independent voice in the branch of government meant to serve as a check on the President’s power. Instead, she is an apparatchik; she’s a Party mouthpiece faced with the task of capitulating to the Party leadership.

This is more of a distinction than you might think, because not all members of Congress are like this. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has been insisting that, “Every American has the right to know when their government believes it’s allowed to kill them.”

In direct response to Pelosi’s statements during an interview with The Washington Examiner, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said, “Anytime the government willfully executes a citizen, regardless of the circumstances, it is a very serious issue. As the body that oversees executive branch actions, at the very least, Congress should have a full accounting – even if it must sometimes be in a classified setting – of the specific considerations that went into the decision.”

Pelosi also “disputed the assertion that Democrats are less critical of the drone program than they would have been if George W. Bush were still president,” Huffington Post reports. This, despite the recent study that shows liberals are more likely to approve of the targeted killing program as long as a Democrat’s finger is on the trigger.

This month’s leak of a Justice Department white paper describing the administration’s legal rationale for executing Americans has put extra emphasis on Obama’s drone war, with many critical commentators pointing out how he has appointed himself Judge, Jury, and Executioner in the war on terror. This is a status quo Pelosi seems eager to uphold.

In January, US District Judge Colleen McMahon reluctantly granted the Obama administration’s request to throw out a case brought against it by The New York Times that would have forced more disclosures about the drone war.

The since oft-quoted statement she made in her decision was the following: “I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.”

But, as Marcy Wheeler has pointed out, McMahon also discussed original intent of the Constitution’s framers, citing Madison:

As they gathered to draft a Constitution for their newly liberated country, the Founders – fresh from a war of independence from the rule of a King they styled a tyrant – were fearful of concentrating power in the hands of any single person or institution, and most particularly in the executive. That concern was described by James Madison in Federalist No. 47 (1788):

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny…

The magistrate in whom the whole executive power resides cannot of himself…administer justice in person, though he has the appointment of those who do administer it.

No dice, says Nancy. I will not perform my duty to check the President’s usurpations, says Nancy. Obama can do what he wants, and I’ll be an obedient little apparatchik.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow recently aired an hour-long special about the Bush administration’s lies that got us into Iraq. For most of our readers, this will undoubtedly be review (especially if you’ve seen the PBS documentary Bush’s War, which is just a more detailed version of Maddow’s special). Her version isn’t perfect, but it’s notable at least that this was on prime time cable news.

See here for David Swanson’s context and review of the show.

While watching this, as I do whenever I reexamine the blatant lies the Bush administration told to get us into Iraq, all I can think is: “how have these gangsters not been put on trial?”

Update: David Corn, who co-wrote the book that Maddow’s special is based on, writes at Mother Jones about some of the show’s juicy parts:

One chilling moment in the film comes in an interview with retired General Anthony Zinni, a former commander in chief of US Central Command. In August 2002, the Bush-Cheney administration opened its propaganda campaign for war with a Cheney speech at the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. The veep made a stark declaration: “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” No doubt, he proclaimed, Saddam was arming himself with WMD in preparation for attacking the United States.

Zinni was sitting on the stage during the speech, and in the documentary he recalls his reaction:

“It was a shock. It was a total shock. I couldn’t believe the vice president was saying this, you know? In doing work with the CIA on Iraq WMD, through all the briefings I heard at Langley, I never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program. And that’s when I began to believe they’re getting serious about this. They wanna go into Iraq.”

That Zinni quote should almost end the debate on whether the Bush-Cheney administration purposefully guided the nation into war with misinformation and disinformation.

This cartoon from the new issue of the New Yorker perfectly nails the absurd presumptions behind Obama’s drone policy.

One of the most prevalent criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy on Iran is that he appeased those conniving mullahs and allowed them to charge full speed ahead on a nuclear weapons program. This is the type of critique you hear from establishment DC think-tanks, Republicans in Congress, and right-wing talk shows. If only he had threatened Iran with imminent attack, they opine, the mullahs would have been deterred.

The problem is that none of this is true. Beyond a few empty words about diplomacy at the beginning of his administration, President Obama has chosen to pressure, bully, and threaten Iran virtually without deviation. And that is what has pushed Iran to continue to its defensive postures and to continue to enrich uranium (albeit in what remains a civilian nuclear program).

In his New York Times column today, Richard Cohen reviews Vali Nasr’s book  The Dispensable Nation. Nasr criticizes Obama’s foreign policy with an inside perspective (he was “senior adviser to Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan until his death in December 2010”). His conclusions are revealing:

In Iran, Nasr demonstrates Obama’s deep ambivalence about any deal on the nuclear program. “Pressure,” he writes, “has become an end in itself.” The dual track of ever tougher sanctions combined with diplomatic outreach was “not even dual. It relied on one track, and that was pressure.” The reality was that, “Engagement was a cover for a coercive campaign of sabotage, economic pressure and cyberwarfare.”

Opportunities to begin real step-by-step diplomacy involving Iran giving up its low-enriched uranium in exchange for progressive sanctions relief were lost. What was Tehran to think when “the sum total of three major rounds of diplomatic negotiation was that America would give some bits and bobs of old aircraft in exchange for Iran’s nuclear program”?

Incidentally, these are the same conclusions myself and many others have been writing about at Antiwar.com for years.

The crux of the book, Cohen relates, is the following quote from Nasr: “It is not going too far to say that American foreign policy has become completely subservient to tactical domestic political considerations.”

“Nasr was led to the reluctant conclusion,” Cohen writes, “that the principal aim of Obama’s policies ‘is not to make strategic decisions but to satisfy public opinion.'”

(See my earlier piece which quoted Nasr condemning the sanctions on Iran as ineffective and counterproductive.)

Last week, the Military Times ran a report based on statements from James Williams, the man from the Federal Aviation Administration that is “in charge of integrating unmanned aircraft into US airspace.” The story had an encouraging headline: “No Armed Drones in US Airspace.”

Over the next 10 years, unmanned aircraft could fill a number of commercial and government uses here at home – but those uses don’t include putting ordnance on target, said James Williams of the Federal Aviation Administration.

“We currently have rules in the books already that deal with releasing anything from an aircraft, period,” Williams said Wednesday. “Those rules are in place and are there that would prohibit weapons from being installed on a civil aircraft. We don’t have any plans on changing them for unmanned aircraft.”

An all out prohibition on armed drones over US airspace would indicate a significant check on the government’s growing powers expanding into uncharted territory thanks to the technological advances of unmanned aerial vehicles. Drones have made it easier for Washington to conduct covert warfare and surveillance in other countries, and those that are critical of their use have for years warned of their inevitable domestic application.

While Williams’s comment seems categorical – no armed drones over US airspace – his meaning is less clear. He mentions laws that prohibit weapons being installed on “civil aircraft.” What about the government? Certain US senators, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) have made it a mission of theirs to get clarity on “whether or not the president can kill American citizens through the drone strike program on US soil,” given Obama’s declared authority to do so on foreign soil.

Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News gives further specificity to the question, citing a US Army manual. The army’s use of drones over US airspace is “constrained, not prohibited,” he reports.

There are significant barriers to the Army’s use of unmanned aerial systems within the United States, according to a new Army manual, but they are not prohibitive or categorical.

“Legal restrictions on the use of unmanned aircraft systems in domestic operations are numerous,” the manual states.  The question arises particularly in the context of Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA), refering to military assistance to government agencies in disaster response and other domestic emergencies.

“Use of DOD intelligence capabilities for DSCA missions–such as incident awareness and assessment, damage assessment, and search and rescue–requires prior Secretary of Defense approval, together with approval of both the mission and use of the exact DOD intelligence community capabilities. Certain missions require not only approval of the Secretary of Defense, but also coordination, certification, and possibly, prior approval by the Attorney General of the United States.”

As a general rule, “military forces cannot use military systems for surveillance and pursuit of individuals.”  This is precluded by the Posse Comitatus Act, as reflected in DoD Directive 5525.5.

But there is a possibility that exceptions may arise, the manual indicates.  “[Unmanned aircraft] operators cannot conduct surveillance on specifically identified U.S. persons, unless expressly approved by the Secretary of Defense, consistent with U.S. laws and regulations.”  See U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-52, Airspace Control, February 2013 (especially Appendix G).

So there are regulatory and procedural constraints on the government’s use of domestic drones in general, and the US Army manual prohibits the use of military systems for surveillance and “pursuit of individuals.” That would suggest pursuing individuals with drones – armed or unarmed – is not allowed. Furthermore, the Posse Comitatus Act restrains in principle the military’s domestic capabilities. So again, in principle, it would seem illegal.

But nothing here yet specifies what are the rules for the police force’s use of drones, to which Army manuals and Posse Comitatus do not apply.

Furthermore, many legal experts agree the President’s use of drones in targeted killings abroad is illegal. But that hasn’t prevented their expansive application. Indeed, to avoid legal scrutiny, the Executive Branch simply keeps the program technically secret and conducted by the CIA. Covert activities are those that would be illegal…if the government would make them public and submit to judicial review, which it refuses to do.

When it comes down to it, the question of whether armed drones will be used to pursue domestic targets depends on how robust the rule of law is – as opposed to rule by men. To what extent does the state submit itself to its own rules, laws, and promises? Not very much, especially in cases of “national security.”

Update: Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones reports that there are barely any specific rules restricting the state and local government’s use of drone technology. Harkinson illustrates the growing move for domestic police forces to get drones. Many of them, like Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern, claim they want the drones for search and rescue purposes, and only to catch the worst federal criminals. But it isn’t hard to determine their true intent:

“I think this is the future of technology,” [Ahern] said, “and we can work together to make sure that this works appropriately.”

But barring written rules, privacy groups aren’t convinced that Ahern or other sheriffs can be trusted with drones. Last year, Ahern publicly pitched the drone to county lawmakers as a search-and-rescue tool, but told a different story in a grant application submitted to the Department of Homeland Security, which said the drone would assist with “surveillance (investigative and tactical)…intelligence gathering…suspicious persons, large crowd control disturbances, etc.” (Alameda County includes Oakland, where police battled with Occupy protesters last year.)

Electronic Intifada with the backstory:

This disturbing image shows the back of the head of a child or young man as seen in the crosshairs of a rifle. The photo was posted on the personal Instagram account of Mor Ostrovski, a 20-year old Israeli soldier in a sniper unit.

The context – particularly the character of the buildings seen in the background of the image – strongly suggests the child could be Palestinian.

There are no other images to suggest that the photographer actually fired at the person in the image in this case. The image is simply tasteless and dehumanizing. It embodies the idea that Palestinian children are targets.

It reminded me of a chilling account another Israeli soldier gave to the group Breaking the Silence about how Israeli soldiers in Nablus in 2006-2007 would deliberately fire at children, sometimes using live ammunition and sometimes rubber-coated steel bullets:

Where do you aim? Do you choose some kid at random?
Yes. Choose someone, aim at his body.
Body?
Center of mass.
10 meters’ range at the center of mass?
I remember one time we put a kid down. We didn’t kill him but someone hit the kid in the chest and he fell and probably lost consciousness, or at least, it was pretty close. About 10 meters.

The Israeli army has called this “a severe incident,” promising it “will be examined and properly handled.”

Somehow I’m doubtful. Palestinian children are frequently shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. In fact, such an incident is what ultimately led to the 2012 November-December Israeli assault on Gaza. In the days leading up to the pummeling of Gazans that winter, Israeli forces shot and killed 23 year old Ahmad Nabhani for daring to “approach the border fence with Israel.” According to at least one account, Nabhani was mentally challenged.

Three days later, Israeli forces shot and killed a 13-year old boy who was reportedly playing soccer near his home.

Just one month ago, the IDF shot a 16-year-old Palestinian boy in the West Bank in the back as he was retreating and killed him.  His name was Samir Awad. The IDF claimed Awad tried to breach the separation barrier Israel has built to help fortify their system of apartheid and land theft. However, Ayeed Mora, a member of the Budrus Popular Committee, told Haaretz at the time “that near the separation barrier that Israel built, IDF soldiers ambushed the youths and opened fire. There was no just cause to open fire, he asserts.”

What the Instagram picture represents is, unfortunately, an ordinary facet of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dehumanization of “the other” is so deep and so pervasive, and the Israeli system of domination and abuse is so permeating, that horrors like this seem routine.

As one member of the Israeli veteran group Breaking the Silence wrote: “This is what occupation looks like. This is what military control over a civilian population looks like.”