The White House's Rules Of Engagement For Drone Strikes Are Not Being Followed By U.S. Forces

A soldier carries an anti-U.S. drone booklet as people chant slogans against U.S. drone strikes outside the Yemeni House of Representatives in Sanaa April 24, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

Despite Obama's New Rules, No End In Sight For Drone War -- Reuters

(Reuters) - When a barrage of drone-fired missiles hit al Qaeda cells in Yemen in mid-April and killed dozens of militants, the results were strikingly different from a mistaken U.S. attack on a Yemeni wedding convoy just four months earlier.

But even though the drones apparently found their targets this time, they were still blamed for a number of civilian deaths.

It was a stark reminder that a year after Obama laid out new conditions for drone attacks around the world, U.S. forces are failing to comply fully with the rules he set for them: to strike only when there is an imminent threat to Americans and when there is virtually no danger of taking innocent lives.

Although Obama promised greater transparency in his speech at the National Defense University, U.S. lawmakers are increasingly critical of the secrecy surrounding the operations.

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My Comment: I know what Reuters is trying to do here .... they are trying to lay the groundwork to excuse President Obama from being responsible for drone strikes that resulted in civilian casualties. But we now know that for many of these drone strikes .... President Obama was involved in the discussion (where the possibility of civilian casualties was probably raised) and in the end it was he who signed off on them. Case in point .... U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki.

This trail of who is responsible for ordering drone strikes is important .... it is only a question of time before international legal institutions will be asked to investigate the impact of US drone strikes on civilian populations and to rule if they are war crimes. Now if I was a betting man, I would say that they would be ruling in the favor that these drone strikes are actually war crimes .... and that the people who ordered them should be held accountable. The possibility that Nobel Peace prize recipient President Obama may be labeled a war criminal is .... I am sure .... a legacy that he will not want to be remembered for.