{"id":22293,"date":"2013-11-06T07:22:03","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T15:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=22293"},"modified":"2013-11-06T07:22:03","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T15:22:03","slug":"why-the-cia-is-keeping-its-drone-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/06\/why-the-cia-is-keeping-its-drone-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the CIA Is Keeping Its Drone War"},"content":{"rendered":"

The big exclusive up at Foreign Policy<\/em><\/a> reveals that Obama’s promises to shift the drone war from the shadows of the CIA over to the Defense Department are being broken. The obstacles to completing this promised shift are “practical” as well as bureaucratic,\u00a0Gordon Lubold and Shane Harris\u00a0report<\/a>, and the DoD just doesn’t seem ready to handle it.<\/p>\n

\"ObamaBut here is the key passage, which I think describes the real hurdle:<\/p>\n

Keeping the drones with the CIA also offers legal cover for drone strikes, former officials argued. By law, the military is not supposed to conduct hostile actions outside a declared war zone, although special forces do so on occasion acting at the CIA’s behest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The CIA can break international law, while the DoD can’t. Almost a year ago, in a blog post titled “Why Is the Drone War Secret?<\/a>” I explained it in a similar way:<\/p>\n

Those parts of U.S. foreign policy that are of questionable legality or are particularly cold-blooded in their execution must be kept secret in order to avoid public and judicial scrutiny. If the ugly parts of the drone war \u2013 like the fact that\u00a0its illegal<\/a>,\u00a0kills civilians<\/a>, and represents a\u00a0radical expansion of executive power<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 were out in the open, the administration might be predisposed to some accountability. \u00a0An ignorant public is absolutely essential to the functioning of Obama\u2019s foreign policy.<\/p>\n

The current debate about whether or not Obama\u2019s drone war is legal and humane is resolved by simply recognizing that it is secret. It isn\u2019t a covert war because Obama wants to \u201cprotect sources and methods.\u201d Indeed, enough is known about the program that sources and methods aren\u2019t really secret. What\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0kept secret, revealingly, is the administration\u2019s legal case for the drone war, as well as a government accounting of who is being killed. If it were perfectly legal and humane, Obama would have little reason to keep it secret.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bringing the drone war over to the DoD would automatically impose greater transparency and accountability to the law – two things the Obama administration is desperate to avoid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big exclusive up at Foreign Policy reveals that Obama’s promises to shift the drone war from the shadows of the CIA over to the Defense Department are being broken. The obstacles to completing this promised shift are “practical” as well as bureaucratic,\u00a0Gordon Lubold and Shane Harris\u00a0report, and the DoD just doesn’t seem ready to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-22293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22295,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22293\/revisions\/22295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22293"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}