Tag Archives: U.S. Drone War

Thanks to Congress, Trump Will Have Nearly Unlimited Power to Wage War

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“Trump will have a free hand to use the law meant for the perpetrators of 9/11 to wage war around the world, fashioning it to different enemies at his command”

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-29-2016

“You could easily see him wanting to ramp up the war on terror and take it to new parts of the globe,” one US lawmaker said of President-elect Donald Trump. “There are few limits on what he can do.” (Photo: Debra Sweet/flickr/cc)

The failure of U.S. Congress to pass a formal authorization for the war against the Islamic State (ISIS) means incoming President Donald Trump—whose brash and impulsive approach to foreign policy has raised alarms—will have effectively unlimited war powers, Politico reported Thursday.

In the absence of such a resolution, President Barack Obama has relied on the existing Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as justification for military action in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Attempts to replace or rein in the AUMF have failed. Continue reading →

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Obama Went Unchallenged, Now Donald Trump Will Have a ‘Kill List’

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‘Instead of dismantling the surveillance state and war machine, the Obama administration and Democrats institutionalized it—and it will soon be in the hands of a maniac’

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-10-2016

"Obama had a kill list," wrote journalist Jeremy Scahill on Twitter. "Now Trump will." (Photo: Stephen Melkisethian/flickr/cc)

“Obama had a kill list,” wrote journalist Jeremy Scahill on Twitter. “Now Trump will.” (Photo: Stephen Melkisethian/flickr/cc)

Powers that went largely unchallenged during the Obama administration are now in the hands of President-elect Donald Trump—and that’s a frightening prospect.

From expanding mass surveillance to justifying drone kill lists, President Barack Obama “not only retained the controversial Bush policies, he expanded on them,” as commentator and law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in 2011. Continue reading →

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ACLU Forces US Government to Release Secret Drone Playbook

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The long-awaited guidelines provide “a timely reminder of the breadth of the powers that will soon be in the hands of another president,” said ACLU deputy legal director

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-6-2016

Three years and thousands of deaths later, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama late Friday finally made public its guidelines for conducting lethal drone strikes.

The release of the Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG), also known as “the Playbook,” came in response to a lawsuit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seeking the framework—which Obama said at the time was created in the interest of greater transparency and oversight over the expansive targeted killing program Continue reading →

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Obama’s Civilian Drone Death Count up to 500% Higher Than US Mass Shootings

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By Claire Bernish. Published 7-6-2016 by The Anti-Media

An MQ-1 Predator at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Photo: Maj. David Kurle [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

An MQ-1 Predator at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Photo: Maj. David Kurle [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

United States — Obama’s drones have ‘officially’ killed more innocent people than mass shooters — despite paranoia surrounding gun control and propaganda about unhinged loose cannons shooting civilians en masse.

According to President Obama’s administration — in a years-in-the-making report — drones used in military combat overseas killed between 64 and 116 civilians between 2009 and the close of 2015 — almost certainly a paltry representation of the true total, considering accurate record-keeping remains a near impossibility. Continue reading →

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What If We Could No Longer Celebrate Freedom on the 4th of July?

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By Claire Bernish. Published 7-4-2016 by The Anti-Media

Photo via Pinterest

Photo via Pinterest

United States — What if people, sickened by tyrannical control, threw off the shackles of bloated governance in favor of leading themselves? What if the erosion of fundamental freedoms — guaranteed not by a document, but by being human — were actually intolerable as so much grumbling intimated? What if government intrusion into people’s bedrooms, communications, sovereign corporeal decisions — of vice, health, and more — means of subsistence, financial choices, business, education, and innumerable other aspects, were utterly unacceptable?

What if even the revolutionary roots, the foundation, of the nation were soaked in the blood of countless individuals and peoples — a likely sign no tangible freedom would last beyond lip service? Continue reading →

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Germany: Thousands Surround US Air Base to Protest the Use of Drones

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Over 5,000 Germans formed a 5.5-mile human chain to surround the base

By Common Dreams staff. Published 6-11-2016

Thousands took to the streets in Germany to protest at U.S. Base in Ramstein

Thousands took to the streets in Germany to protest at U.S. Base in Ramstein

Demonstrators have formed a human chain near a US air base in western Germany to protest against lethal drone strikes.

The demonstration was organized by the alliance “Stop Ramstein – No Drone War“, which says the Ramstein base relays information between operators in the US and unmanned drone aircraft on missions over Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and other places.

Organizers said that 5 to 7 thousand people took part in the chain near the Ramstein Air Base, the principal US Air Force facility in Europe, on a rainy Saturday. Continue reading →

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‘I am on the Kill List’

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“Singling out people to assassinate, and killing nine of our innocent children for each person they target, is a crime of unspeakable proportions.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-13-2016.

An MQ-1 Predator drone. (U.S. Air Force photo/Lt Col Leslie Pratt)

An MQ-1 Predator drone. (U.S. Air Force photo/Lt Col Leslie Pratt)

“Stop trying to kill me.”

That’s the message a man from Waziristan, Pakistan’s border area with Afghanistan, has brought to the UK this week, saying that the U.S. has targeted him for death by placing him on the so-called kill list.

In an op-ed published Tuesday at the Independent, tribal elder Malik Jalal explains he’s in England “because I decided that if Westerners wanted to kill me without bothering to come to speak with me first, perhaps I should come to speak to them instead. I’ll tell my story so that you can judge for yourselves whether I am the kind of person you want to be murdered.” Continue reading →

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