[Peace-discuss] droning on - the buzz word

[E. Wayne Johnson]

  US warned on deadly drone attacks

US drone
Missile strikes by US drones have often resulted in civilian deaths

*The US has been warned that its use of drones to target suspected 
terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan may violate international law.*

UN human rights investigator Philip Alston said the US should explain 
the legal basis for attacking individuals with the remote-controlled 
aircraft.

He said the CIA had to show accountability to international laws which 
ban arbitrary executions.

Drones have killed about 600 people in north-west Pakistan since August 
2008.

Mr Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, told 
the BBC: "My concern is that these drones, these Predators, are being 
operated in a framework which may well violate international 
humanitarian law and international human rights law.

"The onus is really on the government of the United States to reveal 
more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary executions, 
extrajudicial executions, are not in fact being carried out through the 
use of these weapons."

*Increased use*

Mr Alston raised the issue in a report to the UN General Assembly's 
human rights committee on Tuesday.

At a news conference afterwards, he said he had become increasingly 
concerned at the increase in their use since June, particularly in 
Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US told the UN in June that it has a legal framework to respond to 
unlawful killings. It also said the UN Human Rights Council and the 
General Assembly have no role in relation to killings during an armed 
conflict.

But Mr Alston described that response as "simply untenable".

Mr Alston's warning came as US President Barack Obama reviews US 
strategy in the Afghan campaign.

The senior US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, 
has asked for at least 40,000 more troops there.

*******

This from the country whose President and Commander-in-Chief won a 
(bogus) Nobel Prize.

Every American is responsible.

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