[Peace-discuss] Obama administration's drone lies - and Durbin's drone hearing, now set for April 23rd

[Stuart Levy]

> "For years, senior Obama officials, including the president himself, have been making public claims about their drone program that have just been proven to be categorically false."

Sen. Durbin is holding hearings on drone use and policy soon.   It's 
encouraging that they're even undertaking such a thing - they are 
empowered to ask questions that will make the Administration 
uncomfortable, which it should be.  And maybe if pushed they will 
actually do that.

[The hearings had been set for April 16th, but have now been postponed 
to the 23rd... so there is more time to call Durbin's office!   I did, 
last Friday, following Bob Naiman's suggestion below.    They report 
having gotten a fair number of calls on drones already, let's send them 
more!  ]

Robert Naiman spoke about doing just this at the ACLU-CU meeting last 
weekend.   He proposes calling Durbin's office and urging that Durbin - 
as chair of the Constitution subcommittee of the Sen. Intelligence Cmte 
- raise at least these four specific questions:

   1- How many civilians have US drone strikes killed in Pakistan, and 
why has this number been classified?
        (Naiman mentioned that he'd learned last year that such a count 
*is* being kept, *and* that it is classified, from Richard Hoagland of 
the US Embassy in Pakistan.)

   2- Is it true that the US has performed *secondary strikes* in 
Pakistan?   (... where a strike at some site is followed, after other 
unknown people have arrived to help those hurt, by a second strike)    
Hoagland told them that this is not happening, but mainstream press 
reports allege that it has on a number of occasions.   It would be a 
clear war crime, if true.

   3- Is it true - as reported in the NYTimes last May - that the CIA 
counts any military-aged male killed by a drone strike as a presumed 
militant?    (Sen. Feinstein, chair of the full Intelligence Cmte, later 
claimed she was unaware of such a report.)   If this is true, what does 
it mean for the estimates of civilians killed?

   4- What fraction of those killed by drone strikes in Pakistan have 
been high-level militants?
   (The strikes' stated purpose had been to kill specifically those 
people.  Yet other estimates (including from the Knuckey and Sonnenberg 
report, http://www.livingunderdrones.org/report/ and detailed reporting 
from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism such as this, 
<http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/04/02/march-2013-update-us-covert-actions-in-pakistan-yemen-and-somalia/> 
suggest only about 2% of the 2500-3500 people killed by US drone strikes 
since 2004 were high level militants.  Some 10-30% of those killed were 
reported to be civilians, including 5% children.)

Durbin's office phone numbers -
    Washington, DC:   202-224-2152.   or if that's busy, you can also 
call his...
Springfield, IL:  217-492-4062.


On 4/13/13 11:27 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/04/12-2
>
> For years, senior Obama officials, including the president himself, have been making public claims about their drone program that have just been proven to be categorically false. The evidence of this falsity is so conclusive that even establishment sources are using unusually harsh language - including "lies" - to describe Obama's statements. McClatchy's national security reporter, Jonathan Landay, obtained top-secret intelligence documents showing that "contrary to assurances it has deployed US drones only against known senior leaders of al-Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified 'other' militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan's rugged tribal area." That article quotes drone expert Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations as saying  that "McClatchy's findings indicate that the administration is 'misleading the public about the scope of who can legitimately be targ
>   eted.'"
>
>
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