{"id":109862,"date":"2014-03-20T20:47:33","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T20:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=109862"},"modified":"2014-03-21T00:12:45","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T00:12:45","slug":"us-refuse-enter-talks-illegal-drone-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/us-refuse-enter-talks-illegal-drone-strikes\/","title":{"rendered":"US Refuses To Talk About Illegal Drone Strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Sarah Lazare\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rinf.com\" target=\"_blank\">RINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The United States is refusing to participate in UN Human Rights Council talks about greater accountability for human rights violations in covert drone wars.<\/p>\n<p><em>Foreign Policy<\/em>\u00a0reporter Colum Lynch, who broke the story Wednesday, says the U.S. is opting out of discussions about a draft Pakistani resolution aimed at the U.S. drone strikes. Lynch\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thecable.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2014\/03\/19\/exclusive_us_boycotts_un_drone_talks\">explains<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Pakistani draft, which was obtained by\u00a0<em>Foreign Policy<\/em>, urges states to &#8220;ensure transparency&#8221; in record-keeping on drone strikes and to &#8220;conduct prompt, independent and impartial investigations whenever there are indications of any violations to human rights caused by their use.&#8221; It also calls for the convening of &#8220;an interactive panel discussion&#8221; on the use of drones.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>During the third round of talks on Wednesday about the resolution, the United States was notably absent. The boycott marks a shift from President Obama&#8217;s decision in 2009 to join the Human Rights Council after years of U.S. boycott at the behest of former President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, the move is in keeping with the Obama administration&#8217;s diligent refusal to share public information about those U.S. drone wars and those killed in the attacks. A &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/headline\/2013\/11\/22-4\">modest<\/a>&#8221; initiative in the U.S. Senate that would have forced the U.S. government to publicly report and identify those killed by U.S. drone strikes overseas failed last November.<\/p>\n<p>While the Obama administration has repeatedly claimed that civilian deaths in drone strikes are minimal, the\u00a0<em>Bureau of Investigative Journalism<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebureauinvestigates.com\/2014\/03\/04\/february-2014-update-us-covert-actions-in-pakistan-yemen-and-somalia\/\">documents<\/a>\u00a0alarming rates of civilian deaths by covert U.S. attacks in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Furthermore, in a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/reprieve.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=d176b31fc0ccbde9f3f3a6349&amp;id=eb973316ec&amp;e=f652320750\">21-page report<\/a>\u00a0released earlier this month, UN special rapporteur on human rights Ben Emmerson identifies drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Gaza in which civilians were killed, injured, or threatened in drone attacks by the U.S. and close ally Israel.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. still has not answered for numerous high-profile attacks, including a December 2013 U.S. drone strike on a recent wedding procession in Yemen near the city of Rad\u2019a that left 12 people dead and at least 15 wounded.<\/p>\n<p>The boycott of the talks comes as the U.S. escalates its covert drone war in Yemen, with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/raniakhalek.com\/2014\/03\/17\/us-media-ignores-7-us-drone-strikes-on-yemen-in-first-12-days-of-march\/\">at least seven suspected strikes<\/a>\u00a0in the first two weeks of March.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sarah Lazare is a writer for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/headline\/2014\/03\/20-2\" target=\"_blank\">Common Dreams<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sarah Lazare\u00a0 RINF Alternative News The United States is refusing to participate in UN Human Rights Council talks about greater accountability for human rights violations in covert drone wars. Foreign Policy\u00a0reporter Colum Lynch, who broke the story Wednesday, says the U.S. is opting out of discussions about a draft Pakistani resolution aimed at the U.S. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-109862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}