(MintPress) – On Sunday, the U.S. military announced that it will stop reporting on U.S. airstrikes carried out by unmanned predator drones, adding further secrecy to a program that human rights organizations believe is responsible for the deaths of 1,200 civilians, including women and children, in combat zones since 2004.
U.S. Central Command made the announcement believing that previous reports have “disproportionately focused” on attacks made by the remotely piloted aircraft. According to government statistics, only 3 percent of attacks involve the use of an unmanned drones. Most missions using predator drones were for reconnaissance, the report said.
The report underscored the alleged commitments to avoiding civilian casualties and using drones in a targeted manner. “Protecting civilians remains at the very core of Air Force Central Command’s mission,” it said.
“The use of all aerial weapons are tightly restricted, meticulously planned, carefully supervised and coordinated, and applied by only qualified and authorized personnel.”
President Obama’s expansion of the Bush drone program received scrutiny in Congress last week after an exhaustive 13-hour filibuster led by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) failed to cancel John Brennan’s nomination as the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Brennan helped draft the “kill list” — a document listing individuals the U.S. military will target for assassination. Targeted killings against U.S. citizens are considered unconstitutional and illegal under international law.
Despite these clear legal bans, three U.S. citizens suspected of terrorist activity were killed by drone strikes in Yemen in 2011, leaving open the possibility of further strikes against U.S. nationals without trial or due process of law.
Last month, President Obama moved to keep the kill list hidden from the public, the latest evasive measure aimed at keeping the details of target drone killings permanently confined to the executive branch.
This opposes efforts by members of both the House and Senate wanting to hear more about extrajudicial attacks executing Americans suspected of terrorist activity without trial or due process of law.
“I will speak until I can no longer speak, I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court,” Paul said.
Shortly after the filibuster, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote to Paul, assuring the Senator that Americans could not be killed by drones on U.S. soil.
“Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on U.S. soil?” Holder writes. “The answer to that is no.”
This contradicts what top legal experts say could happen given the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and other legislation granting broad powers to the executive branch.
“My firm opinion is that these drone attacks, these targeted killings are illegal — period. They are unlawful whether they are carried out against a U.S. citizen or a non-U.S. citizen,” said Marjorie Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in an interview with Mint Press News.