We Need a Full, Transparent Review of the US Targeted Killing Program | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

5.5.15

We Need a Full, Transparent Review of the US Targeted Killing Program | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community: This approach should be the rule rather than the exception.

But to the families of hundreds of Pakistani and Yemeni victims of US drone strikes, the United States has offered only silence. President Obama stated that he decided to release information about the January strike because “the Weinstein and Lo Porto families deserve to know the truth.” They certainly do. And so do Yemeni and Pakistani families who have lost their loved ones and who thus far have been denied even simple acknowledgment. The contrast is glaring, unfair, and likely to increase the already strong anti-American sentiment the lethal force program has caused abroad.

These limited disclosures also underscore the urgent need for meaningful oversight and implementation of reforms — including restrictions on the killing authority that President Obama announced in 2013, but from which he then partially exempted the CIA’s strikes in Pakistan.