One of my favorite issues of the New York Times Magazine is its “year in ideas” issue, which comes annually in December. It has a short item this year related to battlefield robotics and law and ethics, by Dara Kerr, “Guilty Robots.” (If you go over the Opinio Juris version of this post, you can pick […]
Archive | Targeted Killing
Targeted Killing, Safe Havens, and the President’s West Point Speech
By Kenneth Anderson on December 8, 2009 11:15 am in Afghanistan, Bush, Counter-Terrorism Policy, International Law, Targeted Killing, Terrorism, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
Several times in his West Point speech on Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Obama declared that the US would not permit Al Qaeda or “violent extremists” the use of safe havens. He specifically noted Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The President unsurprisingly never overtly mentioned Predator or drone missile strikes, or the CIA as the operational agents […]
Attack of the Drones
The NYT reports that the Administration will increase the use of unmanned drones for targeted killings in Pakistan. The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president’s decision, announced Tuesday, to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. American officials […]
Reading While Traveling, Hard Copy and No Internet
By Kenneth Anderson on November 14, 2009 4:29 pm in Academia, Counter-Terrorism Policy, Economy, Finance, Financial Crisis, Freedom of Speech, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Legal Professor, Legal Scholarship, Robotics, Targeted Killing, Terrorism
I’ve been traveling recently, and so have been away from posting. One of the enforced virtues of traveling – one of the few virtues of traveling for me these days – is the plane flight with no internet. And if the big guy in front of me reclines his seat, as he always does, I […]
UN Special Rapporteur Criticizes US Predator Program in UN Speech
By Kenneth Anderson on October 28, 2009 9:15 pm in International Law, Targeted Killing, War on Terror
Reuter’s reports on a speech given by Philip Alston at the UN, criticizing the US for its drone attacks or, at a minimum, for not being forthcoming on its drone attacks. Professor Alston (a friend of mine and well known to many VC professor-readers as an NYU law professor) is the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial […]