Killing Machine (43 page)

6
.
  
Pete Hegseth and Wade Zirkle, “A Fifth Star for David Petraeus,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 13, 2011.

7
.
  
Jeffrey Steinberg, “US Needs an ‘Alert and Knowledgeable Citizenry’ to Avoid Imperial Wars,”
Salem-News.com
, December 29, 2011,
www.salem-news.com/print/21497
.

8
.
  
James Reston Jr.,
The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/ Nixon Interviews
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007), 103–4; “I Have Impeached Myself,” edited transcript of the Frost/Nixon interviews broadcast in May 1977,
The Guardian
, September 7, 2007.

9
.
  
Charlie Savage,
The Return of the Imperial Presidency, and the Subversion of American Democracy
(New York: Little, Brown, 2007). Savage had been writing about the question before the war turned south, but his theme gained traction as a result of the news from Iraq.

10
.
  
“President Obama’s Statement on the Memos,”
New York Times
, April 16, 2009.

11
.
  
David Johnston and Charlie Savage, “Obama Reluctant to Look into Bush Programs,”
New York Times
, January 12, 2009.

12
.
  
Ibid.

13
.
  
“‘This Week’ Transcript: Barack Obama,” ABC News, January 11, 2009,
abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Economy/story?id=6618199&page=l#.UZtwXUqFlrs
.

14
.
  
Tom Engelhardt, “How Did Obama Become Our Most Imperial President?” AlterNet, April 29, 2012,
www.alternet.org/story/155196/how_did_obama-become_our_most_imperial_president
.

15
.
  
The letter, dated November 25, 2008, can be found at
www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/11/brennan-withdraws/208166
.

16
.
  
Rob Crilly et al., “US Refuses to Apologise for Pakistan Air Strike That Killed 24 Soldiers,”
Daily Telegraph
, November 29, 2011; Reza Sayah and Nick Paton Walsh, “Pakistan’s Prime Minister Warns United States,” CNN, November 28, 2011,
www.cnn.com/2011/11/28/world/asia/pakistan-us
.

17
.
  
Salman Masood, “In Protest over NATO Strike, Pakistan Will Skip Afghan Conference,”
New York Times
, November 29, 2011; Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti, “Obama Refrains from a Formal ‘I’m Sorry’ to Pakistan,”
New York Times
, November 30, 2011.

18
.
  
Ken Dilanian, “CIA Has Suspended Drone Attacks in Pakistan, U.S. Officials Say,”
Los Angeles Times
, December 23, 2011.

19
.
  
Much of the information about the incident presented here is taken from an excellent summary, “Iran-U.S. RQ-1770 Incident,”
Wikipedia
.

20
.
  
Ibid.

21
.
  
New Beginnings: Foreign Policy Priorities in the Obama Administration
, Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, 111th Cong., April 22, 2009.

22
.
  
Mark handler and David E. Sanger, “Clinton Speaks of Shielding Mideast from Iran,”
New York Times
, July 22, 2009; Joby Warrick and Greg Miller, “Stealth Drone Highlights Tougher U.S. Strategy on Iran,”
Washington Post
, December 7, 2011.

23
.
  
David E. Sanger, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,”
New York Times
, June 1, 2012.

24
.
  
Ibid.

25
.
  
Ibid.

26
.
  
Roger Cohen, “Doctrine of Silence,”
New York Times
, November 28, 2011.

27
.
  
Peter Beinart, “Obama’s Foreign Policy Doctrine Finally Emerges with ‘Offshore Balancing,’”
Daily Beast
, November 28, 2011,
www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/27/obama-s-fore
.

28
.
  
Ibid.

29
.
  
Colin Clark, “U.S. Military to Scrap Counterinsurgency; Focus on Pacific, Says Vice-Chairman,”
Breaking Defense
, November 27, 2011,
breakingdefense.com/2011/11/17/u-s-military-is-scrapping-coin-focusing-on-pacific-says-vice/
.

30
.
  
Scott Wilson, “Obama Administration: Libya Action Does Not Require Congressional Approval,”
Washington Post
, June 15, 2011.

31
.
  
Joshua Hersh, “Obama, Syrian President Assad Must Step Down,”
Huffington Post
, August 18, 2011,
www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/18/obama-assad_n_930229.html
.

32
.
  
“How Iraq, Afghanistan Have Changed the Military,”
Talk of the Nation
, National Public Radio, December 26, 2011.

33
.
  
Elizabeth Bumiller and Allison Kopicki, “Support in U.S. for Afghan War Drops Sharply, Poll Finds,”
New York
Times, March 26, 2012.

34
.
  
Scott Shane, “In Afghan War, Officer Becomes a Whistle-Blower,”
New York Times
, February 5, 2012.

35
.
  
Tim Mak, “Award for War Whistleblower,”
Politico
, April 23, 2012,
www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75516.html#ixzz2KdIf12Cj
.

36
.
  
“Joe Biden on Iraq, Iran, China and the Taliban,” interview by Leslie H. Gelb,
Daily Beast
, December 19, 2011,
www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/12/18/joe-biden-on-iraq-iran-china-and-the-taliban.html
.

37
.
  
“Former US Officials See War ‘Fatigue’ from Afghan Conflict,” Voice of America, January 31, 2012,
www.voanews.com/content/former-us-officials-see-war-fatigue-from-afghan-conflict-138424439/168400.html
.

38
.
  
Karen DeYoung, “After Obama’s Remarks on Drones, White House Rebuffs Security Questions,”
Washington Post
, January 31, 2012.

39
.
  
“Press Briefing by Jay Carney,” January 31, 2012,
www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/31/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-13112
.

40
.
  
Craig Whitlock, “Panetta: U.S., NATO Will Seek to End Afghan Combat Mission Next Year,”
Washington Post
, February 1. 2012.

41
.
  
Alissa J. Rubin, “Afghan Protests Over the Burning of Korans at a U.S. Base Escalate,”
New York Times
, February 22, 2012.

42
.
  
Mark Thompson, “Green on Blue,”
Battleland blog, Time
, March 2, 2012,
battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/03/02/green-on-blue/
.

43
.
  
Jack Goldsmith, “More on al-Aulaqi and Transparency,”
Lawfare
, October 5, 2011,
www.lawfareblog.com/2011/10/more-on-al-aulaqi-and-transparency
.

44
.
  
Quoted in Amy Davidson, “The President’s Kill List,”
Daily Comment
blog,
New Yorker
, May 30, 2012,
www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/05/the-presidents-kill-list.html
.

45
.
  
Ibid.

46
.
  
“Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at Northwestern School of Law,”
Justice News
, March 5, 2012.

47
.
  
Jeh C. Johnson, “National Security Law, Lawyers and Lawyering in the Obama Administration,” speech at Yale Law School, New Haven, CT, February 22, 2012.

48
.
  
Charlie Savage, “U.S. Law May Allow Killings, Holder Says,”
New York Times
, March 6, 2012.

49
.
  
Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, “Drones Are Focus as C.I.A. Nominee Goes Before Senators,”
New York Times
, February 7, 2013.

50
.
  
John O. Brennan, “The Ethics and Efficiency of the President’s Counterterror ism Strategy,” speech at the Wilson Center, Washington, DC, April 30, 2012, transcript and video available at
www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-efficacy-and-ethics-us-counterterrorism-strategy
.

51
.
  
Scott Shane, “Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy,”
New York Times
, November 24, 2012.

8. American Hubris

1
.
  
Mark Mazzetti,
The Way of the Knife: The
CIA,
a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
(New York: Penguin, 2013), 125–26.

2
.
  
James Jay Carafano, “Drone Strikes and Just War,”
National Interest
, February 15, 2013.

3
.
  
Marcy Wheeler, “Members of Congress Have Asked for the Targeted Killing Memos 14 Times,”
Empty Wheel
, February 8, 2013,
www.emptywheel.net/2013/02/08
; Marcy Wheeler, “Cornyn Called Targeted Killing a ‘Program,’ Too,”
Empty Wheel
, August l0, 2012,
www.emptywheel.net/2012/08/10
.

4
.
  
Wheeler, “Cornyn Called Targeted Killing a ‘Program,’ Too.”

5
.
  
John Bellinger, “New York Times on Noor Khan Lawsuit,”
Lawfare
, January 31, 2013,
www.lawfareblog.com/2013/01/new-york-times-on-noor
.

6
.
  
Jake Tapper, “Why Libya and Not Syria, and Drones Killing Innocents—Today’s Q’s for O’s WH—5/29/12,”
Political Punch
blog, ABC News, May 29, 2012,
abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/why-libya-and-not-syria-and-drones-killing-innocents-todays-qs-for-os-wh-52912/
.

7
.
  
Bill Roggio, “US Drones Kill 8 in Pair of Strikes in North Waziristan,”
Long War Journal
, May 28, 2012,
www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/05/us_drones_kill_5_in.php#ixzz2LCC5tMEU
.

8
.
  
“Al-Qaeda Commander Abu Yahya al-Libi Killed—US Officials,” BBC News, June 5, 2012,
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-183343777
.

9
.
  
Declan Walsh and Eric Schmitt, “Militant Leader Believed Dead in Pakistan Drone Strike,”
New York Times
, August 24, 2012.

10
.
  
Ibid.

11
.
  
Walter Pincus, “Doing Business with Despots?”
Washington Post
, August 27, 2012.

12
.
  
Robert F. Worth, Mark Mazzetti, and Scott Shane, “Drone Strikes’ Dangers to Get Rare Moment in Public Eye,”
New York Times
, February 5, 2013.

13
.
  
Margaret Sullivan, “The Times Was Right to Report—at Last—on a Secret Drone Base,”
New York Times
, February 6, 2013. For more on the controversy, see Karen McVeigh, “US Newspapers Accused of Complicity as Drone Report Reopens Security Debate,”
The Guardian
, February 6, 2013.

14
.
  
Sullivan, “Times Was Right to Report.”

15
.
  
Lloyd C. Gardner, Three
Kings: The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War
II (New York: The New Press, 2009), 32–33; “Excerpts from the News Transcript of Sam Tannenbaus’
Vanity Fair
Interview with Paul Wolfowitz,” U.S. Department of Defense, May 9, 2003.

16
.
  
Marcy Wheeler, “Is This Why the Press Finally Revealed the Saudi Drone Base?”
Empty Wheel
, February 18, 2013,
www.wemptywheel.net/2013/02/18/is-this-why-the-press
; Robert F. Worth, “Yemen, Hailed as Model, Struggles for Stability,”
New York Times
, February 19, 2013.

17
.
  
Wheeler, “Is This Why the Press Finally Revealed the Saudi Drone Base?”; “Niger Agrees to US Drones on Its Territory,”
Al Jazeera
, January 30, 2013,
www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/01/2013131300246143363.html
.

18
.
  
Department of Defense,
Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for list Century Defense
, January 3, 2012,
5–6
,
www.defense.gov/news/defense_strategic_guidance.pdf
.

19
.
  
Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker, “Obama Puts His Stamp on Strategy for a Leaner Military,”
New York Times
, January 5, 2013.

20
.
  
Roger Cohen, “Doctrine of Silence,”
New York Times
, November 28, 2011.

21
.
  
Kevin Robillard, “Madeline Albright: Drones ‘Very Effective,’”
Politico
, February 19, 2013,
www.politico.com/story/2013/02/madeleine-albright-drones-very-effective-87777.html
.