The New York Times defends assassinations

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The New York Times defends assassinations
11 October 2010

In its main editorial Sunday, the New York Times, the major voice of what passes
for liberalism in America, openly defends the right of the US government to
assassinate anyone it pleases. The only restriction the Times suggests is that
the president should be required to have his selection of murder victims
rubber-stamped by a secret court like the one that now approves 99.99 percent of
all electronic eavesdropping requests.

The apologia for killing begins with a blatant lie about the US assassination
program using missiles fired from CIA-operated drone aircraft flying along the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The Times claims, citing official US government
sources: “The drone program has been effective, killing more than 400 Al Qaeda
militants this year alone, according to American officials, but fewer than 10
noncombatants.”

Actually, Pakistani government officials estimated the number of civilians
killed by drone attacks in 2009 alone at more than 700, with an even higher
figure this year, as the Obama administration has rained missiles and bombs on
the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.(See “US drone missiles slaughtered 700
Pakistani civilians in 2009” .)

A report in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn concluded, “For each Al-Qaeda and
Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die.
Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians,
claim authorities.”

The Times editors cannot be unaware of these well-established figures, since
their own journalists have reported a civilian death toll from US missile
strikes in Pakistan of some 500 by April 2009, and 100 to 500 more through April
2010. They lie shamelessly and deliberately in order to conceal the significance
of their endorsement of such widespread killing.

The editorial claims that US drone missile attacks are legal under international
law as self-defense, but this is flatly rejected by human rights groups and
legal experts, except those who work as paid apologists for the CIA and
Pentagon. The United States is not at war with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or
Somalia, but US missiles have struck the territory of all these countries and
annihilated their citizens.

In a 29-page report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in June, the UN
Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Philip Alston, rejected the
doctrine of “preemptive self-defense” employed by the Bush and Obama
administrations, as well as the state of Israel, and declared that a targeted
killing outside actual warfare “is almost never likely to be legal.”

In an accompanying statement, Alston pointed out the consequences if such a
doctrine were to become universal. He declared: “If invoked by other states, in
pursuit of those they deem to be terrorists and to have attacked them, it would
cause chaos.”

The Times concedes, “it is not within the power of a commander in chief to
simply declare anyone anywhere a combatant and kill them, without the slightest
advance independent oversight.” The editorial argues that such arbitrary
killings can be prevented through procedural safeguards of a purely cosmetic
character.

These would include the Obama administration making public “its standards for
putting people on terrorist or assassination lists,” limiting targets to “only
people who are actively planning or participating in terror, or who are leaders
of Al Qaeda or the Taliban”; capturing instead of killing, where possible; and
“oversight outside the administration,” i.e., the aforementioned judicial review
by a body like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Yes, if only the
Nazis had followed “proper procedures.”

In the mealymouthed language that has become typical of the Times as it provides
“liberal” justifications for the crimes of US imperialism, the editors insist
that in the case of US citizens, “the government needs to employ some due
process before depriving someone of life,” adding that, “If practical, the
United States should get permission from a foreign government before carrying
out an attack on its soil.”

The Times editorial admits that in the much-publicized case of Anwar al-Awlaki,
the US-born Muslim cleric now living in Yemen, the Obama administration has
acted in a manner diametrically opposed to the procedure the newspaper claims to
favor. Awlaki has been targeted for assassination, based on criteria that are
secret and unreviewable. The Justice Department has gone to court to assert the
“state secrets” privilege to quash a lawsuit brought by the American Civil
Liberties Union, on behalf of Awlaki’s father, seeking to compel the government
to justify or rescind its death sentence.

No evidence has been presented that Awlaki, a longtime publicist for Islamic
fundamentalism, has engaged in actual terrorist actions. And as the Times itself
admits, “If the United States starts killing every Islamic radical who has
called for jihad, there will be no end to the violence.” But the editors are
nonetheless willing to place their confidence in the Obama administration, even
to the point of giving it powers of life and death over citizens of the US and
other countries alike.

The Times editorial reeks of cynicism. It advances arguments that convince no
one, and are not intended to convince, only to provide a screen of words for a
policy of imperialist barbarism and reaction. It is one more demonstration that,
within the US financial aristocracy, there is no constituency whatsoever for the
defense of democratic rights.

The open reactionaries like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News display their
bloodlust unashamedly. The “liberals” like the Times prefer a dose of
hypocritical moralizing and legalistic quibbling. The consequences for humanity
are the same.

Patrick Martin

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o11.shtml

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