Surprise- UN Official Criticizes United States Policy
According to Yahoo News,?“US drone strikes against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be breaking international laws against summary executions, the UN’s top investigator of such crimes said.” UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston?has now decided the United States’ Predator drone strikes?might be?”?operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law.?
In the article, concerns about how many people the United States is killing with drones is Alston’s main concern. Note to Alston: we are trying to kill terrorists- the same people who want to violate (and do violate) international law all the time by targeting civilians as their sole goal. Meanwhile, Ed Morrisey at HotAir.com noted that Alston makes no distinction about the hundreds of civilian deaths versus the many terrorist deaths the drones have caused. Instead, he is worried about?America being willing to open up about the program, and saying,?”‘OK, we’re willing to discuss some aspects of this program.’” Alston also says that without the opening up by American officials, “…you have the really problematic bottom line that the CIA is running a program that is killing significant numbers of people and there is absolutely no accountability in terms of the relevant international laws.”"
A couple of questions for Alston: first, since when are we supposed to capture and put through a fair trial civilian-targeting terrorists? It’s not like they come peacefully. Secondly, WHAT international law? There are no international laws regarding how to kill terrorists, as far as I know, because the UN lacks judicial and regulatory power and has no real authority given its positions and non-resistance against terrorists and their supporting nations (Iran, anyone?). If the individual countries we enter have an issue (such as Pakistan), it can be taken up with America on a bilateral basis. Let’s hope President Obama doesn’t listen to this fool.
