Prison Planet.com » Obama re-defined “militant” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone”

President Barack Obama addresses the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This practice continues even though key Obama officials have been caught lying, a term used advisedly, about how many civilians they’re killing. I’ve written and said many times before that in American media discourse, the definition of “militant” is any human being whose life is extinguished when an American missile or bomb detonates (that term was even used when Anwar Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son,

 

Abdulrahman, was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen two weeks after a drone killed his father, even though nobody claims the teenager was anything but completely innocent: “Another U.S. Drone Strike Kills Militants in Yemen”).

This morning, the New York Times has a very lengthy and detailed article about President Obama’s counter-Terrorism policies based on interviews with “three dozen of his current and former advisers.” I’mwriting separately about the numerous revelations contained in that article, but want specifically to highlight this one vital passage about how the Obama administration determines who is a “militant.” The article explains that Obama’s rhetorical emphasis on avoiding civilian deaths “did not significantly change” the drone program, because Obama himself simply expanded the definition of a “militant” to ensure that it includes virtually everyone killed by his drone strikes. Just read this remarkable passage:

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Full article here

via Prison Planet.com » Obama re-defined “militant” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone”.

Related articles

• “Militants”: media propaganda (weeklyintercept.blogspot.com)
• Analysis: How Obama changed definition of ‘civilian’ in secret drone wars (thebureauinvestigates.com)
• ‘Drones-Only Approach’ — How Obama Chooses Whom To Kill (ibtimes.com)
• To avoid counting civilian deaths, Obama re-defined “militant” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone” (blacklistednews.com)
• “Militants”: media propaganda (salon.com)
• Report: Obama backs disputed definition of ‘civilian’ (worldnews.msnbc.msn.com)
• Analysis: How Obama changed definition of ‘civilian’ in secret drone wars (news.antiwar.com)
• N.Y. Times reporter: Obama has ‘central role’ in drone strikes (rawstory.com)
• NY Times: Obama Controls Secret al-Qaida ‘Kill List’ (blogs.voanews.com)
• American Media Plays Sock Puppet for U.S. Government About Civilian Drone Deaths (arizonaatheist.blogspot.com)

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