The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Jane Duncan -
Drones. Many South Africans are likely to think of lazy worker bees or boring people when they hear the word. But Pakistanis, Afghanis or Yemenis are likely to think of the unmanned planes sent by the Barack Obama administration that rain death on their heads.
Obama’s drone strikes are summary, extrajudicial executions. The victims never having a chance to defend themselves against the accusations made against them, namely that they are terrorists. Furthermore, these strikes...
For the past four years that the US’ drone programme has been operational, President Barack Obama, with John Brennan for some of that time, has been sitting down and deciding who gets killed. On Thursday, 7 February 2013, for the first time, the Obama administration released documents to explain the legal basis for the drone attacks to a select senate committee on intelligence.
Human rights lawyer, Michael Ratner, argues that despite the release of these legal documents, the drone...
Alex Kane -
The Obama administration has developed a new strategy over the past two years that will institutionalize and expand what has become known as the “kill list,” or the list of terrorism suspects whose assassinations President Obama personally authorizes, according to a Washington Post report.
The administration even has a new, Orwellian term for the expanded “kill list”: the “disposition matrix,” which refers to the varied plans the administration has at...
Since 2004, up to 884 innocent civilians, including at least 176 children, have died from US drone strikes in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. A new report from the Stanford and New York University law schools finds drone use has caused widespread post-tramatic stress disorder and an overall breakdown of functional society in North Waziristan. In addition, the report finds the use of a "double tap" procedure, in which a drone strikes once and strikes again not long after,...
Peter Certo -
One of the most resonant details from The New York Times’ recent feature on the Obama administration’s targeted killing program is the president’s apparent fondness for the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo, two early Christian thinkers who attempted to reconcile the pacifist teachings of Christ with the compromises that leaders must make in their inherently violent line of work. The president, it is suggested, strives to wage a “just war” against...
