Amnesty International Accuses Obama of War Crimes- Human Rights Watch and UN Similar Findings

Well, maybe someone will finally do something about Obama's illegal drone strikes. Innocent people are murdered on a regular basis by a president that many here have loved and adored. Now meet your real president! I find you Obama guilty as charged!

Amnesty International has accused the Obama administration of "war crimes" in its drone policy in a new report released Tuesday. The human rights organization reviewed forty-five drone strikes in the Pakistani providence of Waziristan since January 2012, and concluded that they "have resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths, some of which may amount to extrajudicial executions or war crimes under international law.

The Amnesty report was covered by National Public Radio and CNN on Tuesday, as well as a few other sources. However, the New York Times article ignored the explosive "war crimes" accusation.

Amnesty International Accuses Obama of 'War Crimes'

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Amnesty International 74 Page Report On Drone Strikes In Pakistan

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Human Rights Watch 97 Page Report - On violation Of laws Of war

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Two influential human rights groups say they have freshly documented dozens of civilian deaths in U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, contradicting assertions by the Obama administration that such casualties are rare.

In Yemen, Human Rights Watch investigated six selected airstrikes since 2009 and concluded that at least 57 of the 82 people killed were civilians, including a pregnant woman and three children who perished in a September 2012 attack.

In Pakistan, Amnesty International investigated nine suspected U.S. drone strikes that occurred between May 2012 and July 2013 in the territory of North Waziristan. The group said it found strong evidence that more than 30 civilians were killed in four of the attacks.

The groups’ findings coincide with a report released Friday by a U.N. human rights investigator, who estimated that 2,200 people have been killed in drone strikes over the past decade in Pakistan.

Drone strikes killing more civilians than U.S. admits, human rights groups say

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U.N. Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson said that preliminary information gathered for a new report indicated more than 450 civilians may have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, but more work needs to be done to confirm the figures.

The single greatest obstacle to an evaluation of the civilian impact of drone strikes is lack of transparency, which makes it extremely difficult to assess claims of precision targeting objectively,” said the report, which was released Friday. The lack of transparency “creates an accountability vacuum and affects the ability of victims to seek redress.”

UN expert calls on US to reveal number of civilian casualties from drone strikes in new report

Has a Nobel Peace Prize laureate ever completed such a successful 180 before? It's like reality has become a comedy of errors.

Josephus
Has a Nobel Peace Prize laureate ever completed such a successful 180 before? It's like reality has become a comedy of errors.

Maybe Obama would like some Chianti and fava beans to wash down his Nobel Peace Prize? Grrr.....

You know we always hear that Obama is not a dictator. But after reading something like this, what does this remind you of?

UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights Ben Emmerson wrote in March of this year, “As a matter of international law, the US drone campaign is therefore being conducted without the consent of the elected representatives of the people, or the legitimate government of the state. It involves the use of force on the territory of another state without its consent, and is therefore a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.”

Global Drone Warfare, Targeted Assassinations Supported by NSA Surveillance


Anyways, where is everyone? Isn't there someone here that would like to defend Obama? Any takers? There is always one person we can count on. Tapping finger....

reply to post by elouina


There are already threads about this on ATS, I say the more the better, so S+F to you OP.

Other threads about this topic: here (by GD21D) and here (by boncho).

My own thread about a HTML5 visualization that lists all victims of every known drone strike in Pakistan since 2004: here.

More background information here:
Covert Drone War (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
Living Under Drones (Stanford International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic)

Good to see this topic gets more attention.

reply to post by ColCurious


Groan... I did a search.... Well this thread also mentions the UN also. And I thank you for pointing me to those links and I am reading all of the posts! Yes, the more attention the better! If I would have seen those other threads, I would have been all over them, and you know it. Grrr....

You know we now have 2 powerful agencies and the UN involved now. Some good will have to come out of this.

reply to post by elouina


Yeah, the search function on ATS is unfortunately somewhat... well... bad.

*I must say though I'm not sure the U.N. being involved automatically means that something good must come out of this.

reply to post by elouina


To me, it seems that Obama and his admin will just say something like "we didn't push the button on the strikes"... someone will hang for this I'm sure, butit wont be the obama admin... unfortunately.

I hope this issue isn't forgotten or swept under the rug.

I already posted this topic here.

GD21D
I already posted this topic here.

What's done is done. We already discussed this and I was sitting back and letting my thread die a graceful death. But you just bumped my thread up. But think of it this way, the more attention for the cause, the better.

elouina

What's done is done. We already discussed this and I was sitting back and letting my thread die a graceful death. But you just bumped my thread up. But think of it this way, the more attention for the cause, the better.

Yes. Instead of a mod closing this thread as is normal with duplicate threads. They've allowed it continue. It's quite obvious what is going on here.The blatant conservative bias has become the death knell of my interest in this site. I will not continue to be part of a community that falsely claims to be unbiased. Truth is in actions, not words.

reply to post by elouina


Obama is a clown. What's worse is he insults in the intelligence of the people in the US every time he opens his mouth.

He said raising the debt ceiling didnt mean more debt.

Why didnt someone stand up and say "excuse me but can you explain that statement because the majority of us are in agreement that increasing the amount of debt we can incur in fact does mean we will incur more debt. Why would you raise the ceiling if you dont want to borrow more?"

He also said that drone strikes in other countries have saved lives.

Why didnt someone stand up and say "Can you show us (and not in a hypothetical manor) whos lives have been saved? because we have seen these drones kill innocent people...but have no evidence of them saving anyones life."

Ohhhh.... We do have a positive effect from this new found information. We have children injured by drones that will be testifying in front of congress! We have a direct hit! It is very unfortunate that we even have children that can testify in the first place. But I am very happy that they are alive to tell their story. Lets see congress look into their sweet faces and tell them that what happened to them was ok since our president says so.

Next week two children who were injured by drone strikes in Pakistan plan to testify in front of Congress on the effects of the drone program at the request of Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat.

White House defends drone program against 'war crime' claim

Right, drone strikes are war crimes but torture, illegal wars and war profiteering by Bush/Cheney was just protecting the US and fighting terrorists. You people need to make up your minds which way is right. I already know how you make up your minds, it's really obvious, whatever Obama does is wrong. Geesh even a blind squirrel finds an acorn occasionally.

damwel
Right, drone strikes are war crimes but torture, illegal wars and war profiteering by Bush/Cheney was just protecting the US and fighting terrorists. You people need to make up your minds which way is right. I already know how you make up your minds, it's really obvious, whatever Obama does is wrong. Geesh even a blind squirrel finds an acorn occasionally.

No, judging by your post, you made up your mind that whatever Obama does is right, as long as someone else did the same thing before.

"But maaaaa.... Johnny torched a cat the other day while you weren't home. How come I always get in trouble when he does the same things?"

And if this is all you could come up with, it is a pretty piss poor rationale for murder.

damwel
Right, drone strikes are war crimes but torture, illegal wars and war profiteering by Bush/Cheney was just protecting the US and fighting terrorists. You people need to make up your minds which way is right. I already know how you make up your minds, it's really obvious, whatever Obama does is wrong. Geesh even a blind squirrel finds an acorn occasionally.

You're more than free to provide proof that the people in this thread said that what Obama did was wrong and what Bush did was right. Granted, it won't change the fact that you're trying to derail that thread, but at least it's better than trying to derail with a baseless accusation.

Would be nice if people on the left/right/etc. would stop with this "but the other side"-type posts whenever someone posts thread showing group or member(s) of a group in a negative light. Make your own thread instead of trying to derail others.

There should be a word for people like you (and others on this site) assuming there hasn't been already.

A crazed Obama fan has a change of heart and really lets into Obama and Michelle over the murder of innocent children. Not worthy of its own thread but this does deserve to be placed somewhere.