Getting around to making some drone rules...sort of

"The Slatest" has a piece on how the White House is finally getting around to making some rules for when it's appropriate to hunt people down with drones and kill them. It's here. The only actually heartening news out of all this is that the powers that be within the Administration are not so united as they might appear, and that the United Nations is going to set up a unit to investigate drone strikes early next year. Otherwise, we're still talking about some deep, deep denial. 

What happened to Leon Panetta?

I happened upon this rather dismaying report over at Danger Room today. Although at one point, Panetta apparently believed that the war against al Quaida was all but over, such is the case no more.

"Now, a more dour Panetta believes that it’s not enough to continue the drone strikes and commando raids in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; they’ve got to expand “outside declared combat zones” to places like Nigeria, Mali and even Libya."

Now Secretary of Defense and previously the director of the CIA, many people also know that Panetta was Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff, and had a long and distinguished career in the House of Representatives. Not everyone, though, can say, as I can, that he was their representative, and attest that he was fondly thought of by many people on the Central Coast, which is where he was born. I can remember seeing him sitting in the outdoor dining area at Carmel Plaza once. He hosted a series of popular talks at the Instititute for for Public  Policy, which he and his wife founded at Cal State Monterey Bay.

So what happened to you, Leon? Or do you even know?

Accountability

I've got a backlog of drone material, but meanwhile, here's a lucid expostion of the anti-drone position by Barbara Lochbihler, Chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament. A small sample:

"The US drone program’s legal basis is entirely unclear, however. Given that most information about UAV activity is classified, it is impossible to know whether all drone targets directly participated in hostilities. And, while the Obama administration’s claim of zero or single-digit civilian fatalities may be true according to the official definition, it rests on the premise that any military-age male killed in a drone strike is a militant, unless intelligence posthumously proves otherwise."