Drone Ambivalence

THE SOURCE: “Mixed Messages on Targeted Killings” by Charles G. Kels, in Armed Forces Journal, July–Aug. 2012.

The Obama administration has taken great pains to defend recent U.S. drone attacks on targets outside conflict zones, namely in Pakistan and Yemen. But by “trying to please everyone at once instead of holding firm to basic, time-tested principles,” writes Charles G. Kels, an attorney with the Department of Homeland Security and a major in the Air Force Reserve, the administration has pleased no one. In fact, Kels says, it risks undermining its own legal authority and setting poor legal precedents for drones’ use in the future.

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