The drone targeting is worrisome in the very big picture and long term sense of establishing certain kinds of precedents for robotic warfare that might be troubling. The fact that it is happening in Pakistan honestly seems more problematic to me in terms of the badness that comes with not having “clearly defined parties who can verifiably negotiate”. Did the US declare war on Pakistan without me noticing? Is Pakistan happy that we’re helping them “maintain brutal law and order” in their country by bombing people in their back country? Are there even functioning Westphalian nation states in this area? (These are honest questions—I generally don’t watch push media, preferring instead to formulate hypotheses and then search for news or blogs that can answer the hypothesis.)
The assassination story, if true, seems much more worrisome because it would imply that the fuzziness from the so-called “war on terror” is causing an erosion of the rule of law within the US. Moreover, it seems like something I should take responsibility for doing something about because it is happening entirely within my own country.
Does anyone know of an existing political organization working to put an end to the imprisonment and/or killing of US citizens by the US government without formal legal proceedings that include the right to a trail by jury? I would rather coordinate with other people (especially competent experts) if such a thing is possible.
Are there even functioning Westphalian nation states in this area?
Pakistan does not have anything close to a force monopoly in the region we’re attacking. They’ve as much as admitted that, I believe. I actually think I’m okay with the attacks as far as international law goes.
The drone targeting is worrisome in the very big picture and long term sense of establishing certain kinds of precedents for robotic warfare that might be troubling.
I always hear this but no one ever tells me just what precedents for robotic warfare they find troubling.
I always hear this but no one ever tells me just what precedents for robotic warfare they find troubling.
It is a further dehumanization of the process of killing and so tends to undermine any inbuilt human moral repugnance produced by violence. To the extent that you think that killing humans is a bad thing I suggest that is something that should be of concern. It is one more level of emotional detachment for the drone operators beyond what can be observed in the Apache pilots in the recent Wikileaks collateral murder video.
ETA: This Dylan Rattigan clip discusses some of the concerns raised by the Wikileaks video. The same concerns apply to drone attacks, only more so.
Does anyone know of an existing political organization working to put an end to the imprisonment and/or killing of US citizens by the US government without formal legal proceedings that include the right to a trail by jury? I would rather coordinate with other people (especially competent experts) if such a thing is possible.
Thanks for the link. I have sent them an email asking for advice as to whether this situation is as bad as it seems to be, and if so, what I can do to make things less bad. I have also added something to my tickler file so that on May 21 I will be reminded to respond here with a followup even if there is no response from the ACLU’s National Security Project.
ETA: One thing to point out is that before sending the email I tried googling “Presidential Assassination Program” in google news and the subject seems to have had little coverage since then. This was the best followup I could find in the last few days, and it spoke of general apathy on the subject. This leading me to conclude that “not enough people had noticed” yet, so I followed through with my email.
I did not get a reply from the ACLU on this subject and just today sent a second email asking for another response. If the ACLU continues to blow me off by June 1st I may try forwarding my unanswered emails to several people at the ACLU (to see the blowoff was simply due to incompetance on the part of only the person monitoring the email).
If that doesn’t work then I expect I’ll try Amnesty International as suggested by Kevin. There will be at least one more comment with an update here, whatever happens, and possibly two or three :-)
This will be my final update on this subject. I received an email from a representative of the ACLU. He apologized for the delayed response and directed me to a series of links that I’m passing on here for the sake of completeness.
First, there is an April 7th ACLU press release about extra-judicial killings of US citizens, that press release notes that an FOIA request had already been filed which appears to ask for the details of the program to see specifically how it works in order to find out if it really violates any laws or not, preparatory to potential legal action.
This appears to provide a good summary of the institutional processes that have already been put in motion to fix the problems raised in the parent posts. The only thing left to consider appears to be (1) whether violations of the constitution will be adequately prevented and (2) to be sure that we are not free riding on the public service of other people too egregiously.
In this vein, the ACLU has a letter writing campaign organized so that people can send messages to elected officials asking that they respect the rule of law and the text of treaties that the US has signed, in case the extra-judicial killings of US citizens are really being planned and accomplished by the executive branch without trail or oversight by the courts.
Sending letters like these may help solve the problem a little bit, is very unlikely to hurt anything, and may patch guilt over free riding :-)
In the meantime I think “joining the ACLU as a dues paying member” just bumped up my todo list a bit.
Is Pakistan happy that we’re helping them “maintain brutal law and order” in their country by bombing people in their back country?
No, in general I think they are about as unhappy as you might expect US citizens to be if the Chinese government was conducting drone attacks on targets in the US with heavy civilian casualties. This was part of the basis for my prediction last year that there will be a major terrorist attack in the US with a connection to Pakistan. Let’s hope that all would be attackers are as incompetent as Faisal Shahzad.
The assassination story, if true, seems much more worrisome because it would imply that the fuzziness from the so-called “war on terror” is causing an erosion of the rule of law within the US.
I don’t believe anyone has challenged the truth of the story, it has just not been widely reported or received the same level of scrutiny as the extra-judicial imprisonment and torture conducted by the last administration. The article I linked links to a New York Times piece on the decision. The erosion of the rule of law within the US in response to supposed terrorist threats has been going on ever since 9/11 and Obama has if anything accelerated rather than slowed that process.
Or, to put it another way—it would happen; it just wouldn’t be called assassination, because it would be done using standard police procedure, and because other people would get killed. It would be like the standoffs with MOVE, or David Koresh’s organization in Waco, or Ruby Ridge.
The word assassination is wrong for all these cases. These kinds of “assassination” are just the logical result of law enforcement. If you’re enforcing the law, and you have police and courts and so on; and someone refuses to play along, eventually you have to use force. I don’t see that the person being outside or inside America makes a big moral difference, when their actions are having effect inside America. A diplomatic difference, but not a moral difference.
I also think it’s funny for people to have moral arguments in a forum where you get labeled an idiot if you admit you believe there are such things as morals.
Perhaps we should be grateful that technology hasn’t advanced to the point where we can take these people out non-violently, because then we’d do it a lot more, for more trivial reasons.
I also think it’s funny for people to have moral arguments in a forum where you get labeled an idiot if you admit you believe there are such things as morals.
Why shouldn’t people argue over morals? The mainstream view here is that each person is arguing about what the fully-informed, fully-reflected-upon output of the other person’s moral-evaluating computation would be. The presumption is that all of our respective moral-evaluating computational mechanisms would reach the same conclusion on the issue at hand in the limit of information and reflection.
The drone targeting is worrisome in the very big picture and long term sense of establishing certain kinds of precedents for robotic warfare that might be troubling. The fact that it is happening in Pakistan honestly seems more problematic to me in terms of the badness that comes with not having “clearly defined parties who can verifiably negotiate”. Did the US declare war on Pakistan without me noticing? Is Pakistan happy that we’re helping them “maintain brutal law and order” in their country by bombing people in their back country? Are there even functioning Westphalian nation states in this area? (These are honest questions—I generally don’t watch push media, preferring instead to formulate hypotheses and then search for news or blogs that can answer the hypothesis.)
The assassination story, if true, seems much more worrisome because it would imply that the fuzziness from the so-called “war on terror” is causing an erosion of the rule of law within the US. Moreover, it seems like something I should take responsibility for doing something about because it is happening entirely within my own country.
Does anyone know of an existing political organization working to put an end to the imprisonment and/or killing of US citizens by the US government without formal legal proceedings that include the right to a trail by jury? I would rather coordinate with other people (especially competent experts) if such a thing is possible.
Pakistan does not have anything close to a force monopoly in the region we’re attacking. They’ve as much as admitted that, I believe. I actually think I’m okay with the attacks as far as international law goes.
I always hear this but no one ever tells me just what precedents for robotic warfare they find troubling.
It is a further dehumanization of the process of killing and so tends to undermine any inbuilt human moral repugnance produced by violence. To the extent that you think that killing humans is a bad thing I suggest that is something that should be of concern. It is one more level of emotional detachment for the drone operators beyond what can be observed in the Apache pilots in the recent Wikileaks collateral murder video.
ETA: This Dylan Rattigan clip discusses some of the concerns raised by the Wikileaks video. The same concerns apply to drone attacks, only more so.
I don’t know if they have responded to this specific issue, but the ACLU is working against the breakdown of rule of law in the name of national defense.
Thanks for the link. I have sent them an email asking for advice as to whether this situation is as bad as it seems to be, and if so, what I can do to make things less bad. I have also added something to my tickler file so that on May 21 I will be reminded to respond here with a followup even if there is no response from the ACLU’s National Security Project.
I think I have done my good deed for the day :-)
ETA: One thing to point out is that before sending the email I tried googling “Presidential Assassination Program” in google news and the subject seems to have had little coverage since then. This was the best followup I could find in the last few days, and it spoke of general apathy on the subject. This leading me to conclude that “not enough people had noticed” yet, so I followed through with my email.
Following up for the sake of reference...
I did not get a reply from the ACLU on this subject and just today sent a second email asking for another response. If the ACLU continues to blow me off by June 1st I may try forwarding my unanswered emails to several people at the ACLU (to see the blowoff was simply due to incompetance on the part of only the person monitoring the email).
If that doesn’t work then I expect I’ll try Amnesty International as suggested by Kevin. There will be at least one more comment with an update here, whatever happens, and possibly two or three :-)
This will be my final update on this subject. I received an email from a representative of the ACLU. He apologized for the delayed response and directed me to a series of links that I’m passing on here for the sake of completeness.
First, there is an April 7th ACLU press release about extra-judicial killings of US citizens, that press release notes that an FOIA request had already been filed which appears to ask for the details of the program to see specifically how it works in order to find out if it really violates any laws or not, preparatory to potential legal action.
Second, on April 19th the Washington Post published a letter for the ACLU’s Executive Director on the subject. This confirms that the issue is getting institutional attention, recognition in the press, and will probably not “slip through the cracks”.
Third, on April 28th the ACLU sent an open letter to President Barack Obama about extrajudicial killings which is the same date that the ACLU’s update page for “targeted killings” was last updated. So it seems clear that steps have been taken to open negotiations with an individual human being who has the personal authority to cancel the program.
This appears to provide a good summary of the institutional processes that have already been put in motion to fix the problems raised in the parent posts. The only thing left to consider appears to be (1) whether violations of the constitution will be adequately prevented and (2) to be sure that we are not free riding on the public service of other people too egregiously.
In this vein, the ACLU has a letter writing campaign organized so that people can send messages to elected officials asking that they respect the rule of law and the text of treaties that the US has signed, in case the extra-judicial killings of US citizens are really being planned and accomplished by the executive branch without trail or oversight by the courts.
Sending letters like these may help solve the problem a little bit, is very unlikely to hurt anything, and may patch guilt over free riding :-)
In the meantime I think “joining the ACLU as a dues paying member” just bumped up my todo list a bit.
I would ask Amnesty International.
No, in general I think they are about as unhappy as you might expect US citizens to be if the Chinese government was conducting drone attacks on targets in the US with heavy civilian casualties. This was part of the basis for my prediction last year that there will be a major terrorist attack in the US with a connection to Pakistan. Let’s hope that all would be attackers are as incompetent as Faisal Shahzad.
I don’t believe anyone has challenged the truth of the story, it has just not been widely reported or received the same level of scrutiny as the extra-judicial imprisonment and torture conducted by the last administration. The article I linked links to a New York Times piece on the decision. The erosion of the rule of law within the US in response to supposed terrorist threats has been going on ever since 9/11 and Obama has if anything accelerated rather than slowed that process.
I imagine the assassination story would be a bigger deal if the target was still in the US.
It wouldn’t happen. They’d arrest him.
Or, to put it another way—it would happen; it just wouldn’t be called assassination, because it would be done using standard police procedure, and because other people would get killed. It would be like the standoffs with MOVE, or David Koresh’s organization in Waco, or Ruby Ridge.
The word assassination is wrong for all these cases. These kinds of “assassination” are just the logical result of law enforcement. If you’re enforcing the law, and you have police and courts and so on; and someone refuses to play along, eventually you have to use force. I don’t see that the person being outside or inside America makes a big moral difference, when their actions are having effect inside America. A diplomatic difference, but not a moral difference.
I also think it’s funny for people to have moral arguments in a forum where you get labeled an idiot if you admit you believe there are such things as morals.
Perhaps we should be grateful that technology hasn’t advanced to the point where we can take these people out non-violently, because then we’d do it a lot more, for more trivial reasons.
Why shouldn’t people argue over morals? The mainstream view here is that each person is arguing about what the fully-informed, fully-reflected-upon output of the other person’s moral-evaluating computation would be. The presumption is that all of our respective moral-evaluating computational mechanisms would reach the same conclusion on the issue at hand in the limit of information and reflection.