Thread: So, the President May Kill Anybody He Pleases, Right?

So, the President May Kill Anybody He Pleases, Right?

By Robert Higgs

16/09/08 "Lew Rockwell" -- - Among the many cock-and-bull stories set afoot by the Bush administration during the lead-up to its attack on Iraq was the one about the now-infamous drones of death. Later, it became sufficiently clear that this alleged threat had no more substance than the others the administration and the lapdog mainstream media had served up to a credulous public.

Although the ludicrously primitive Iraqi drones had no capacity whatsoever to harm the American public, the lethality of U.S. drones is another matter. Predator drones equipped with Hellfire missiles now provide the U.S. government with a means of flying over territory that U.S. ground troops dare not penetrate, observing activities on the ground, and killing people there with, shall we say, a minimum of due process.

In November 2002, for example, BBC News reported: "America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) carried out an attack in Yemen that killed six suspected members of Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, according to US officials. The men died when the jeep they were travelling in was hit by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA plane – believed to be a Predator drone, the US sources said."

U.S. forces have also used the Predator actively in Afghanistan and, most recently, in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. Today, I read an account of a drone attack near the town of Miramshah in North Waziristan that is reported to have "killed at least 14 people and injured 12 others," including "at least six women and children."

In Afghanistan, such aerial attacks, not always by drones, of course, have created a ticklish dilemma for the Karzai government as it pretends to be a real government, rather than the U.S. puppet it actually is. Official protests have become increasingly vociferous, though I have seen no evidence that the U.S. forces intend to change their operations in response.

What an awesome power the president and, with his authorization, his subordinate officers possess: they can kill people at will, including those persons’ wives and children, with no risk whatever of receiving return fire or other retribution. Surely this is the long-sought culmination of the Republican’s quest to establish "law and order."

What leads me to remark on this matter, however, is not its technological nuts and bolts or its connection with master-puppet relations in southwest Asia, but rather the complete insouciance with which the American public greets reports of deaths by drone. I do not exaggerate if I say that the general reaction is "ho-hum." Well, the average American says, that disposes nicely of another "bad guy." The gratuitous murder of the bad guy’s family members, neighbors, and other innocent persons in the vicinity appears to create no blip on the average American’s moral radar screen. Perhaps Americans do not consider Yemenis, Afghanis, and Pakistanis to be real human beings whose right to life we are obliged to respect?

Is death by drone simply another occasion when the president, having labeled a set of actions as a "war," believes and acts as though he has carte blanche to dish out death and destruction willy nilly?

Of course, reports of drone attacks usually refer to militants, Taliban forces, or al Qaeda members. To this information, we might well respond: yeah, who says? If we are content to assume that U.S. intelligence agents, who nearly always get their information from collaborators in the target territories, really know whom they are targeting, then we are certainly easily satisfied. One does not have to make an extensive survey of U.S. government claims about Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other places in southwest Asia over the past seven years to see that for the most part the U.S. commanders, from the Commander in Chief on down to the sweatiest noncom on patrol, are either more or less clueless or the biggest liars on the planet. I do not rule out that they are both.

The upshot is that the people who cooperate in getting to the point at which someone pushes the button to send the Hellfire toward its selected target may in fact not know for sure whom they are about the kill, or how many others will be killed along with this ostensible "enemy" or who those others are.

Without launching into a massive geopolitical inquiry, we might well pause from time to time to ask, What are U.S. forces doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan anyhow? Surely they are not there to capture or kill the persons responsible for the crimes of 9/11, because they have already proved beyond all doubt that they are incapable of doing so (as Osama bin Laden’s videos periodically remind us). They are, however, all too capable of diverting their energies from that objective toward unrelated goals, such as attacking and occupying Iraq.

We Americans find ourselves, then, observing with extreme moral disengagement as the president and his subordinates murder persons whose identities remain uncertain along with assorted others whose only crime is being in the same area as the targeted individuals – after all, the Hellfire, which makes a very big blast, can scarcely be described as a surgically precise killing instrument.

Moreover, the president’s use of this remote-control-execution device apparently has no geographical limits, because, as he assures us, the "war on terror" has none. Today, a dirt road in Waziristan; tomorrow, the Santa Monica Freeway. It will be interesting to see, when drone attacks are carried out in this country, whether the American public gives a damn.

Robert Higgs [send him mail] is senior fellow in political economy at the Independent Institute and editor of The Independent Review. He is also a columnist for LewRockwell.com. His most recent book is Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government. He is also the author of Depression, War, and Cold War: Studies in Political Economy, Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis Since 9/11 and Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e20781.htm

Intel, Analysis & Revelations Of The Georgian Disaster

The Voice of the White House
By Brian Harring
9-16-8


The Bush Administration is now having serious problems with Georgian President Saakashvili. He has always been seen as an excellent political tool, very pro-American, very anti-Putin and a man who had received over $860,000 USD from the American government for his "friendly cooperation" in permitting American and Israeli intelligence and military units to develop a striking base in his country aimed at both Russia and Iran.

Saakashvili. has had three highly informative and secret email exchanges (on September 3,4 and 5th) with American Vice President Cheney and two with American Secretary of State Rice (on September 1 and 3rd) concerning the future of Georgia. Since email privacy is impossible to maintain, the contents of these messages are certainly not secret.

Saakashvili has reiterated repeatedly, and very forcefully, that he wants the U.S. to reequip the Georgian army to the level it was at prior to the military events with Russia in early August.

Saakashvili insists that the U.S. develop a large naval base at Poti, the oil refinery port, to protect it from the Russians.

Saakashvili wants a large number of American troops stationed in Georgia for a protracted period to physically protect that country by their presence.

Saakashvili is also asking Israel to occupy at least one air base and to station a significant number of bombing aircraft there to facilitate a planned attack on Iran or on Russian forces should they invade Georgian territory again.

Saakashvili stated that he planned to equip loyalist local militias in the two provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia ,with sufficient weapons to harass and drive out the Russian occupiers.

Saakashvili intends to ask Israel to send tactical atomic weapons to Georgia to maintain a balance against Russian aggression..

Saakashvili vowed on September 6 to regain control over the two independence-seeking provinces of by military force at the earliest possible opportunity..

Major problems facing Washington include:

The total inability of the U.S. to field a significant force of ground troops anywhere in the area due to prior needs in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Small numbers of American military personnel (there were two thousand such personnel in Georgia before that country attacked South Ossetia and then were forced to rapidly evacuate following a massive Russian military incursion) could be made available but large and determinant numbers are not possible and this is certainly well-known to the public.

The well-publicized instability of Saakashvili who can best termed a loose cannon. Although a bought-and-paid-for American source, the Georgian leader, cozened and flattered by the Bush White House, has come to believe that he is America's darling who can do as he wishes with their complete support. He has pranced around the state, shouting to his fellow-countrymen and giving the finger to Vladimir Putin.

A treacherous ally, Israel, who thinks that, like Georgia's President, that they have the full and unconditional backing of the Bush White House (but certainly not the Ametican public) and have been working both sides of the block at the same time, swearing total allegiance to the United States while passing our military, economic and political secrets to the Russians.

A strong reluctance on the part of Turkey to let American naval units take up residence in the Black Sea. The only entrance and exit for such units would be through Turkish territorial waters and Turkey has a very understandable desire not to provoke economic or military responses from Russia.

A Russian GRU report, under date of September 3, 2008, concerning one aspect of the huge trove of American and Israeli intelligence documents found abandoned in Georgia by both American intelligence units as well as Israeli, disclosed that the U.S. electronic equipment captured at Poti by Russian spesnatz units was partially manufactured, under U.S. license, at Odessa in the Ukraine. The Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but NATO-compatible sensitive military equipment is being manufactured in a non-NATO country. The Russian reports goes on to state that the Georgian military not only abandoned "significant amounts of" valuable equipment, but essentially totally compromised both the American and Israeli intelligence network set up in Georgia for the purpose of electronic spying on Iran, Russia and Turkey.

As a matter of record, once this story was published, the American military immediately denied that anyone captured any sensitive American documents. Unfortunately, the Russians did and are now quietly releasing the results of their finds. On the other hand, the Israelis are smart enough to keep their mouths shut about what the Russians discovered about their activities.

The Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, turned out to be an utter disaster in conducting surveillance over Russian territory prior to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. Russian aircraft, aided by their new radar systems, were able to shoot down all of these craft and subsequent incursions by Russian forces overran Israeli reconnaissance control bases and captured a number of intact drones of different types as well as a wealth of technical data and many reconnaissance films taken on earlier incursions of Russian air space.

Russian counter-intelligence units also seized copies of the computer files of the Georgian government, including highly sensitive diplomatic messaging from, and to, the following individuals and entities:

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USA in Georgia John Teft

the delegation of the EU Troika represented by Eric Fournier
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of France - current EU Presidency, Robin Liddell
First Counselor of the European Commission's Delegation to Georgia and Ivan Jestrab
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic - next EU Presidency
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Â* State Secretary G. Karasin
representatives of the Embassies of the New Group of Georgia's Friends: Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic accredited in Georgia
representatives of the Embassies of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and China
Director of the Policy Planning Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia Tiit Matsulevits
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine in Georgia Mikolas Spiss
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Estonia to Georgia Toomas Lukk
delegation of the EU Troika represented by Fabienne Drout-Lozinski
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to Georgia Denis Keefe
representatives of the Embassies of the Netherlands, Italy, Holy See, Turkey, France, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Ukraine to Georgia
Deputy US Ambassador Kent Loxton and representative of the Embassy's political division Joy Davis Kirshner
the diplomatic corps accredited in Georgia
Permanent Representative of Georgia to the UN, Ambassador Irakli Alasania

Also discovered were the special bank accounts into which the United States Embassy, acting for "several" other American agencies, (CIA and DoS) paid monies for the "personal use" of President Saakashvili:

Bank Accounts
For transactions in GEL
Beneficiary's Bank: "Basis Bank"Bank Code : 220101956
Beneficiary: "DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM FOUNDATION" UNDER PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA
Account Number # : 134530
Total deposits from State Department accounts: $275,000
For transactions in US Dollars
Intermediary Bank,: DEUTCHE BANK TRUST CO. AMERICAS NEW YORK, USA, SWIFT : BKTRUS33 ABA : 021001033
Beneficiary's Bank: BASIS BANK TBILISI, GEORGIA SWIFT : CBASGE22
Beneficiary: OBJECTIVE ACCOUNT FOUNDATION " DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM FOUNDATION"
Account Number # 134530
Total deposits from State Department accounts $400,000
For transactions in Euro and other convertible currency:
Intermediary Bank: DEUTCHE BANK FRANKFURT/ESCHBORN, DEUTSCHLAND, SWIFT : DEUT DE FF
Beneficiary's bank: BASIS BANK, TBILISI, GEORGIA SWIFT : CBASGE22
Beneficiary: OBJECTIVE ACCOUNT FOUNDATION "DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM FOUNDATION"
Account Number #134530
Total deposits from State Department accounts: $185,000

http://www.rense.com/general83/ananl.htm