From his first days as commander in chief, the drone has been President Barack Obama\u2019s weapon of choice, used by the military and the CIA to hunt down and\u00a0kill the people his administration has deemed\u2014through secretive processes, without indictment or trial\u2014deserving of execution. There has been intense focus on the technology of remote killing, but that often serves as a surrogate for what should be a broader examination of the state\u2019s power over life and death.<\/p>\n
Drones are a tool, not a policy. The policy is assassination. While every president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel, Congress has avoided legislating the issue or even defining the word \u201cassassination.\u201d This has allowed proponents of the drone wars to rebrand assassinations with more palatable characterizations, such as the term du jour, \u201ctargeted killings.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Obama administration has discussed drone strikes publicly, it has offered assurances that such operations are a more precise alternative to boots on the ground and are authorized only when an \u201cimminent\u201d threat is present and there is \u201cnear certainty\u201d that the intended target will be eliminated. Those terms, however, appear to have been bluntly redefined to bear almost no resemblance to their commonly understood meanings.<\/p>\n