Thanks to Reliance on “Signature” Drone Strikes, US Military Doesn’t Know Who It’s Killing

A “signature strike” takes place when a drone hits a target based on a target’s patterns of behavior – but without knowing the target’s identity. (Image: Predator drone via Shutterstock)

 

Adam Hudson | Truthout | August 4, 2015

Last month, on June 9, the United States launched a drone strike that killed Nasir al-Wuhayshi, a high-ranking leader in the Islamic militant group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). What makes the strike notable is that it was a coincidence: The CIA – the agency that pulled the trigger – had no idea al-Wuhayshi was among the group of suspected militants it targeted. Al-Wuhayshi’s death at the hands of a US drone reveals that the United States continues to fire drone missiles at people whose identities it does not know.

Government officials confirmed the June 9 strike was a “signature strike” to The Washington Post. A signature strike takes place when a drone hits a target based on a target’s patterns of behavior, but without knowing that target’s identity. Thus, a US drone, in a signature strike, will target an area the government believes is filled with militant activity but will not know who exactly they are killing. While signature strikes have been happening for a while in the global war on terror, they signify a serious shift in US war-making. American warfare is increasingly placing a greater emphasis on big data, advanced computing, unmanned systems and cyberwarfare. While this approach may seem “cleaner” and more precise than previous tactics (particularly in contrast the drawn-out and bloody occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan), it is not. High-tech militarism is far from “accurate.” Even more importantly, it inflicts serious human suffering and perpetuates the US permanent-war machine.

Signature Strikes

Signature strikes began during the Bush years, in January 2008, as the US intensified drone strikes in Pakistan. When Obama entered office in 2009, his administration picked up where Bush left off and exponentially increased the number of drone strikes. During his eight years in office, Bush launched 51 drone strikes in Pakistan and killed between 410 and 595 people. Obama, so far, has launched 419 drone strikes in Pakistan, alone, and killed over 4,500 people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia since 2009.

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CIA to stay in charge of deadly drone strikes

Exposing Obama’s Hypocrisy on Drone Warfare

Lauren  Byrd | AlterNet | January 14, 2014

In 2013, the discussion about the Obama administration’s use of drones as weapons of war intensified. Americans became more aware of the practice, and President Obama outlined his vision of counterterrorism efforts, and how the use of these unmanned bombers fit into that vision. The upshot is that the administration continues to deploy drone strikes as its main counterterrorism strategy, ignoring both the high rate of civilian casualties associated with these attacks, and the high cost to U.S. taxpayers.

Take a look back at some of the statements the Obama administration made about drones in 2013, and you’ll see there’s a disconnect between what is said and what actually happens, as this brief timeline will show. Drone policy and reality are not the same. Increasingly, progressives want to know what they can do to reduce or do away with this weapon of mass destruction in 2014.

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9 Myths About Obama’s Drone Killings Debunked [Video]

Marine Corps RQ-7B Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle launches from Speedbag Airfield (Photo credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery)

AlterNet | Steven Rosenfeld |

The Obama administration has launched more drone strikes in recent weeks than any time since 2009, according to human rights lawyers and overseas media reports. Attacks in Yemen killed more than  37 people, Reuters reported. Nearly all of their identities remain unknown.

The killings are a bleak reminder that Syria is not the only war President Obama is pushing. Despite the president’s  recent pledges to make the drone program more transparent to the public, it remains not only secretive and unaccountable, but also at odds with U.S. and international law. What is known is that the White House appears to permit extrajudicial executions, in violation of international human rights law, virtually anywhere in the world, and the victims from these strikes include many innocent civilians, including children.

The administration’s refusal to discuss and debate the legality and morality of the drone program prompted Director Robert Greenwald and his team of  filmmakers at  Brave New Foundation to create an onscreen, virtual debate in which many of the country’s top human and civil rights lawyers respond to statements made by Obama administration spokespeople about the program.

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Obama Has Not Delivered on May’s Promise of Transparency on Drones

Official portrait of United States Senator . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Guardian | Naureen Shah | AlterNet | August 17, 2013

The past two weeks have seen an escalation in drone strikes more dramatic than any since 2009.

The media estimate that more than  37 people have died in a series of strikes in  Yemen. The US government has refused to officially acknowledge the strikes surge or  reports of potentially unlawful deaths – just as it did, for years, refuse to confirm reports of the more than 300 drone strikes in Pakistan. On  drones, secrecy is business as usual – and it carries on.

Earlier this summer, however, there was hope for a different way forward. In late May, the White House released more information about US drone strikes than it ever had before. Following a  major address on national security by President Obama, the government pledged to keep sharing “as much information as possible”.

In fact, since May, the White House has not officially released any new information on drone strikes (though leaks still abound). While NSA surveillance has taken center-stage, the government’s policy of secrecy and obfuscation on drones persists, too. Past critics of the drone program – ranging from Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) to Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat, Oregon) – should take notice. It is time to renew and expand the demand for answers about who is being killed.

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John Kerry hopes drone strikes end ‘soon,’ State Dept thinks otherwise

Drones killed more civilians than governments admit

‘Signature Strikes’ and Obama’s Empty Rhetoric on Drones

Seal of the C.I.A. – Central Intelligence Agency of the United States Government (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Arianna Huffington | Huffington Post | AlterNet | July 11, 2013

On March 17, 2011, four Hellfire missiles, fired from a U.S. drone, slammed into a bus depot in the town of Datta Khel in Pakistan’s Waziristan border region. An estimated  42 peoplewere killed. It was just another day in America’s so-called war on terror. To most Americans the strike was likely only a one-line blip on the evening news, if they even heard about it at all.

But what really happened that day? Who were those 42 people who were killed, and what were they doing? And what effect did the strike have? Did it make us safer? These are the questions raised, and answered, in a  must-watch new video just released by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation.

The attack was what has come to be called a “signature strike.” This is when the CIA or the military makes the decision to fire based not on who the targets are but on whether they are exhibiting suspicious patterns of behavior thought to be “signatures” of terrorists (as seen on video from the drone). Given that the CIA is killing people it’s never identified based on their behavior, one would assume a certain rigor has gone into defining the criteria for the kinds of behavior that get one killed.

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CIA drone program: kill first, count bodies later

Obama Drone Oversight Proposal Prompts Concern Over ‘Kill Courts’

Dan Roberts | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | May 25, 2013

Human rights groups wary after president asks Congress to establish special court or board to authorise legal drone action.

Proposals to vet future US drone strikes risk creating “kill courts” according to human rights campaigners who say Barack Obama‘s promise of new legal oversight does not go far enough to end what they regard as extrajudicial executions.

The president has asked Congress to consider establishing a special court or oversight board to authorise lethal action outside warzones under a new counter-terrorism doctrine which he says will end the “boundless war on terror”.

But responses to his speech from leading campaign groups, though broadly welcoming, highlight how little change Obama is proposing to the underlying principle that the US has a legal right to kill suspected terrorists abroad without trial.

In his speech on Thursday, Obama suggested that in the future drone attacks would be limited, and that they would be carried out primarily by the US military rather than the CIA.

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