(update below) Ahead of the confirmation of Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan to the position of CIA director, US Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has sent a letter to Brennan asking him to provide Congress access to “secret legal opinions outlining the government’s ability to target and kill Americans believed to be involved in [...]

(updated below)  John Brennan, who served as President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism advisor throughout his first term, has been nominated to head the CIA. It not only signals Obama’s intent to continue to employ an extrajudicial targeted killing program, particularly in countries like Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, but also is further indication the global War on [...]

In a feature story for The Times (London), journalist Iona Craig reports a Times investigation found “Saudi Arabian fighter jets joined the United States’ secret war in Yemen.” The support came in a year when the number of drone strikes in the Arabian Peninsula more than doubled and surpassed the number of drone strikes in [...]

The Washington Post has published a third story in its series on the Obama administration’s institutionalization of its targeted killing program. This story highlights Camp Lemmonier, the United States military base in Djibouti where drones land or take off around sixteen times a day, and is reportedly the first time the US military has confirmed [...]

Citizens of any country who hear a high-ranking US official discuss plans to help their country “meet the aspirations of its citizens” and “counter violent extremism that threatens our shared security” should be frightened. Look at Iraq. Two scholars for Al Jazeera English write, “Saddam Hussein’s removal from power by the United States and others resulted in [...]

(update below) Killing by remote control, the escalated use of drone warfare in countries, depends on people believing drones do not kill a large number of innocent civilians. It depends on people believing the program is indeed “precise” and rarely kills anybody other than members of al Qaeda and its affiliates or the Taliban. So, there [...]

Described by the New York Times as a “sloppy strike,” on December 17, 2009, a US drone launched a cruise missile carrying cluster bombs and hit al-Majalah in the Abyan province of southern Yemen. The attack targeted Saleh Mohammed al-Anbouri, who allegedly had been bringing people from different countries to train them to become members [...]

President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism chief John Brennan delivered a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center on Monday on the “ethics” and “efficacy” of the Obama administration counterterrorism policy. He particularly explained the policy of using remote-controlled aircraft or drones to target and assassinate alleged terror suspects or “militants” extrajudicially. He prefaced the explanation of why the [...]