Friday, September 28, 2012

Obama's "Double Tap" War Crimes

Barack Obama is very probably a war criminal.  As Commander in Chief of a military behemoth that kills without regard to international law, Obama should be on trial if that sort of thing was conceivable in a world run on Victor's Justice.

The Obama White House is big, very big on the use of heavily-armed drones to take out perceived enemies, particularly in Pakistan.  We don't hear too much about what actually goes on but the drone programme is structured that way, to minimize public scrutiny.

Gwynne Dyer has written an eye-opener on a favoured tactic of American drone operators - the "double tap" attack.

Double tap” is what mobsters do when they put somebody down. One bullet in the heart, one in the head. That way they stay down. It’s practically standard operating procedure among hitmen.

Then there’s a different, nastier kind of “double tap”. Suppose you live in some hill village in western Pakistan, and one of the families nearby has a boy fighting with the Taliban who has come home for a visit, bringing several friends with him. It’s worrisome, because you are always hearing American drones overhead—and sure enough, one day there is a terrifying explosion and his house is destroyed.

What do you do now? There was a whole extended family living in that house: children, old folks, a cousin or two. Some of them are probably still alive under the rubble, perhaps badly injured. Do you rush over and help to dig them out? Better not. The Predator or Reaper drone (lovely names) will wait until all the neighbours have gathered round, and then launch a second Hellfire missile onto the site. Double tap.

“These strikes are becoming much more common,” Mirza Shahbad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who represents the victims of drone strikes, told the Independent newspaper recently. “In the past it used to be a one-off, now and then. Now almost every other attack is a double tap. There is no justification for it.” 

Double Tap drone attacks are executions, plain and simple.  They're murder and smack of the punitive measures the Germans employed on uncooperative civilian populations during WWII.  They absolutely beggar the Americans' claims that drone strikes are surgical and minimize collateral deaths of civilians.   That's precisely what the second missile is intended to cause.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah! And he is the only President to do that. Time you took a little break.

The Mound of Sound said...

I don't recall suggesting he's the only President to have done this sort of thing. That's a straw man of your invention. Pretty lame at that.

LeDaro said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LeDaro said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LeDaro said...

I agree with you about Obama and drones. I understand hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed by these drones. Now the alternative Mitch Romney (your post above). Wow! Where America is headed?

The Mound of Sound said...

I don't know, LD. This whole business of remote control mayhem is troubling. Some guy sitting in a trailer on an airbase inside America launches missile strikes in Pakistan and then gets home in time to fire up the barbeque.

The next generation drones will be far more automated. They will be programmed to identify certain individuals as hostile and fire on them. It's essentially robotic killing. The U.S. claims there'll always be a soldier sitting at some TV screen monitoring the drone but it seems likely that individual will probably defer to the drone's assessments. Sort of like washing your hands before the crucifixion.

Deno said...

Mound, on this topic I agree with you fully. It does not matter who is elected in November the US will keep killing friend and foe with these drones. It is only a matter of time before the US government begin to use these drones to kill US citizens on US soil. As a long timer supporter of the US it is sad to see them turn into a terrorist rogue state since 2001.

As to "where is the US headed?"

Into bankruptcy and third world status and eventually into a dictatorship..

The land of the free is no more.

Deno

The Mound of Sound said...

It was predicted that, as the pace of technological advancement quickened, our control of it would weaken. We would lose the precaution of evaluating the ethical, legal and political consequences of these breakthroughs and instead just "go for it."

I would like to know whether Obama has ever viewed video of one of these "double tap" drone strikes.

Anonymous said...

I didn't say that you did say Obama was the only President. Lighten up!