The Washington Post has started publishing a series of articles based on interviews with dozens of current and former national security officials, intelligence analysts and others, which examine evolving U.S. counterterrorism policies and the practice of targeted killing.
The first of the three stories
deals with the administration's plans for hunting terrorists and U.S.
intentions to keep adding names to kill lists.
It
reveals already existing practices of the so called "targeted killings"
in countries the U.S. is not even at war with, like Yemen and Somalia,
and even the country that in 2004 was included by George W. Bush on the
list of "major U.S. non-NATO allies", Pakistan.
"Over
the past two years," states the Washington Post, "the Obama
administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing
terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the 'disposition
matrix'."
In essence, this means that based on
intelligence evidence, the administration assumes the right to judge and
execute anyone without bothering about such minor things as proper
court hearings, or the right of the accused person for proper legal
defense.
Too much has been said by those who are
acquainted with the practice of "targeted killings" that they tend to
target at least as many innocent civilians as real militants. In
countries like Pakistan where a wedding in tribal areas is usually
accompanied by extensive shooting in the air, this has often resulted in
a wedding turning into a mass funeral.
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