This administration has
expanded the Air Force inventory of active drones to at least 7,500.
Drones have joined Special Operations forces as the “tip of the spear”
of U.S. power projection in the developing world, the “front lines” of
the current imperial offensive.
Virtually all of the
drones’ lethal missions are, in legal terms, assassinations, with or
without “collateral damage.” They are also acts of terror, certainly in
the broad sense of the word, and intended to be so.
As Canadian political scientist David Model points out in a recent article “Assassination by Drones”:
“It is clearly evident that for a State to launch an attack by a UAV is
a violation of international law and those responsible for such acts
becomes suspects of war crimes.” Drone warfare utterly shreds the very
concept of the rule of law. In killing those “suspected” of committing
or planning actions against the U.S., Washington “precludes the
application of due process,” writes Model.
Therefore, in the quest
to make the entire world a free-fire (and law-free) zone, drone warfare
requires that due process be destroyed everywhere, including within the borders of the United States. The
Obama-shaped preventive detention bill signed into law this past New
Years Eve is the logical extension of the international lawlessness
called forth by drone warfare, and
by the larger aims of full spectrum American dominance. Barack Obama is
not just another “war president” – he is a destroyer of world
civilization, the terms by which humans deal with one another as states,
social groupings and individuals. It is not an exaggeration to describe
this leap into depravity as a war against humanity at-large, and
against the human historical legacy.
-- Glen Ford, "Obama's Drones Threaten World Civilization" (Black Agenda Report).