Posted on 03/07/2019 2:13:47 AM PST by gattaca
President Donald Trump revoked a requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in drone strikes and other attacks on terrorist targets outside of war zones.
Trump formally ended the requirement with an executive order on Wednesday, months after signaling such a move. The administration last year ignored a May deadline for an annual accounting of civilian and enemy casualties required under an order signed in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama. The order was part of an accountability effort to minimize civilian deaths from drone strikes.
The order signed by Trump revokes the requirement that the administration release an unclassified summary of “the number of strikes undertaken by the United States Government against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities, as well as assessments of combatant and non combatant deaths resulting from those strikes, among other information.”
A law Congress passed last year requires the Defense Department to provide Congress a report of civilian casualties, though parts of it may be classified. Trump’s action effectively removes casualties from any drone strikes by the CIA or other agencies outside the military from the reporting requirements.
Ned Price, a former intelligence analyst and Obama-era spokesman for the National Security Council who is now affiliated with the National Security Action policy advocacy group, said Trump’s move sets back transparency efforts and is “a shortsighted decision that will allow our enemies to be more effective at what they’ve long sought to do.”
Price said Obama’s order “allowed the United States to counter with facts and figures the misinformation and disinformation that terrorist groups and others issued to undermine our counter-terrorism operations around the globe.”
The White House National Security Council said in a statement that Trump’s order removes “superfluous reporting requirements” that “distract our intelligence professionals from their primary mission.”
If they were muslims, they are not civilians no matter what any geneva convention spouting leftist says. Every muslim is part of the war fighting machine that is islam. Did anyone care about all the japanese who died in the fire bombing of Tokyo? No, because they were also part of the japanese war fighting machine.
JoMa
Hooray.
I never saw the point of it anyway. Terrorists use civilians as human shields.
Oh that evil Trump, killing future terrorists as well ass their supporters
>> required under an order signed in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama.
Obunghole was just setting dumpster fire distractions for the next administration to have to deal with.
If it was a concern Barack Hussein Obama WANTED to address he would’ve done it under HIS own administration.
The bisexual Obama voting known wolf Islamonazi terrorist in Orlando Florida shot up that nightclub because of Obama’s drone strike policies, not because of “opposition to same sex marriage”.
There will always be some innocents that die.
It is part of war.
Probably more than one older German thought that the was and hitler were insane.
That was no defense against the Dresden bombing.
It is what it is.
Looks like another order that Obummer snuck in before he left.
My point is those Germans who died in Dresden that you call innocents, I call valid military targets. In war, there is no neutral position. For example, if one supports a military machine by being a farmer who grows food then given to the soldier, you are a valid military target. This argument can and should then extend to virtually an entire population since everyone supports society somehow and that society supports the war fighting machine of the society.
This, simply, is how my position differ from the written language of the Geneva Conventions and just war theory. By the way, Islam agrees with this position which is why they use human shields in warfare or support the killing of any non-believer.
JoMa
If they are Islamic, they are legit targets.
Remember the civilian casualties during the Kosovo “war”? Christians were being killed on Easter Sunday while Clinton stopped bombing during Ramadan. Another reason to hate the king of Rats. The Clintons.
That’s why we live in America.
We can voice our opinions freely :)
No, because they were also part of the japanese war fighting machine. ............................ As were the people of Hamburg, Koln, and as NYC and DC would have been if the Germans had the means. Modern War doen’t separate the good from the bad, it seeks a quick end.
Good for Trump, they were guilty of no less than being around a terrorist when they were killed.
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