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Summary Congressman Dennis Kucinich has severely criticized drone attacks.
Congressman Kucinich (Democrat from Ohio) on Saturday has deplored the policy of the United States administration without any knowledge of Congress or any legal justification. He also announced to hold a Congressional briefing on November 16th to discuss the implications of the drone policy at home and abroad.While referring to a three-part series in the Washington Post recently regarding the plans of the Obama administration to institutionalize the practice of targeted killing by unmanned drones abroad, he said such plans only mean that we have only reached the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism.In the video message, he regretted that the targeted killing of suspects by the US was becoming a permanent feature of the US counterterrorism strategy. “Yet the program has thus far been conducted with virtually no oversight from Congress or any other judicial body and absolutely no due process. Congress has even been denied the right to be informed of and view the legal memos which the Administration uses as its basis to justify these killings, he observed.Despite increasing calls for transparency and the legal justification from both Members of Congress and a broad range of advocacy organizations, targeted killing was becoming a routine, he grumbled while saying that the US administration had unnecessarily spread the war in several parts of the world through such attacks.“The battlefield has been stretched to include nearly anywhere in the world, making it easier to justify the flouting of international law and the laws of war. But the US is not at war with Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, he maintained while adding that even the exceptional case scenario was not justified in such attacks.Such killings are only lawful under a very narrow set of circumstances. We cannot claim to be meeting those narrow circumstances when the number of people killed by such strikes, including innocent civilians, is estimated to exceed 3,000. This number alone demonstrates that the administration’s claims that such strikes occur only under ‘imminent threat’ is patently false, he emphatically said.He was also critical of the proposed plans for surveillance drones. “The expansion of the use of surveillance drones here in the US also raises significant concerns about the safeguarding of privacy and what information may be collected without prior authorization, he said.Any government or local law enforcement agency deploying such drones must ensure that the 4th amendment rights and the right to privacy of US citizens are not being violated by the use of this technology, he remarked.“Congress cannot stand idly by as these actions are being taken in the name of the American people.That is why I am hosting a briefing on Friday, November 16, 2012 to discuss the implications of our drones policy here at home, and abroad, he announced.
