Jacology: Obama’s Use Of Drones

(KPLR) – In Thursday’s Jacology, Charles Jaco looks at how spying on terrorists has taken a stealthy turn.

The Obama administration has managed to sidestep all those messy Bush -era problems about kidnapping, torture, Guantanamo and terrorism. While the bush administration had to deal with black ops, prison camps and secret military tribunals the Obama administration merely vaporizes suspected terrorists.

The Obama White House’s Justice Department has written nine memos, seven of them still classified; justifying the use of unmanned drones to target and incinerate anyone, American citizens included; who have been judged to be a threat to national security and allied with terrorists. The senate intelligence committee has refused to confirm John Brennan as the next CIA Director until they see more of those memos.

According to the British organization the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the United States has carried out a total of 424 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The vast majority of those have been on Obama’s watch. Those drones have killed anywherer between 550 and 11-hundred civilians, according to the bureau. Some were terrorists. Many were women. Many were children.

Some of the drone attacks are run by the pentagon. Some are run by the CIA. And all of this long-range remote-controlled death from above is being paid for by you and me and is being done in our name against people whom we’re assured are dangerous. And what’s the evidence that they’re dangerous? Sorry. That’s classified.

So our government now has the right to obliterate anyone by remote control, suspected of being a serious national security threat. And if as bunch of kids are in the way? Oops.

I’m Charles Jaco and that’s Jacology.