“When the re-election of President Obama was official, I was very interested to see what would happen to the trajectory of foreign military interventions — especially the use of unmanned Predator drones. We didn’t have to wait long, however; within hours of being reelected, Obama celebrated with strikes in Yemen. As unaccountable, lawless, and dangerous as U.S. use of drone warfare has been under the Obama administration, new developments reveal that it may actually be getting worse.
NYU student Josh Begley has been tweetingevery U.S. drone strike since President Bush’s first bombing in Yemen back in 2002, and his Twitter feed highlights an incredibly disturbing tactic. The U.S. is employing a “double-tap” method in its use of drones, which means the bombing of a target multiple times in a very short period of time.
These “double-tap” attacks end up hitting “first responders” to the rubble and ashes that are left over after the initial strike, and Begley’s tweets reveal that the U.S. has been intentionally targeting funerals and civilian rescuers.
While these tactics, when discussed at all (Obama’s drone program is shrouded in an intense level of secrecy), are justified under the rubric of “national security,” even the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have classified “double-taps” as staples of terrorists, not the repertoire of supposed constitutional republics.
So while the “double-tap” method may please the likes of Hamas and the abortion clinic bomberEric Rudolph, these attacks, even by the most broad definitions of international law, are blatant war crimes….”
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