Inside Obama's kill list

[Bilge_Rat]

Article in Der Spiegel on the NATO drone kill lists used in Afghanistan. This is based on an analysis of secret NATO documents.

A bit shocking to see that instead of being names of carefully investigated "terrorists" as the White House has often alluded to, the lists cast a very wide net.

being a deserter was enough to have a death sentence:

The case of an Afghan soldier named Hussein, number 3,341 on the list, shows how coldly NATO sometimes treated the lives of suspects. According to the documents, Hussein was suspected of involvement in an attack on ISAF forces in Helmand. A corporal in the Afghan army, he had allegedly deserted and was now on the run, presumably to join the Taliban.

NATO officials placed him on the list in the summer of 2010, as one of 669 individuals at the time. He was given the code name "Rumble" and assigned to priority level 2.

Just having the wrong phone could trigger a strike:

The documents suggest that sometimes locating a mobile phone was all it took to set the military machinery in motion. The search for the Taliban phone signals was "central to the success of operations," states a secret British report from October 2010.

As one document states, Predator drones and Eurofighter jets equipped with sensors were constantly searching for the radio signals from known telephone numbers tied to the Taliban. The hunt began as soon as the mobile phones were switched on.

civilian casualties were considered acceptable "collateral damage". Note also how the definition of "civilians" was deliberetaly curtailed.

When an operation could potentially result in civilian casualties, ISAF headquarters in Kabul had to be involved. "The rule of thumb was that when there was estimated collateral damage of up to 10 civilians, the ISAF commander in Kabul was to decide whether the risk was justifiable," says an ISAF officer who worked with the lists for years. If more potential civilian casualties were anticipated, the decision was left up to the relevant NATO headquarters office. Bodyguards, drivers and male attendants were viewed as enemy combatants, whether or not they actually were. Only women, children and the elderly were treated as civilians.

the procedure to "identify" a target was also a bit vague:

The document also reveals how vague the basis for deadly operations apparently was. In the voice recognition procedure, it was sufficient if a suspect identified himself by name once during the monitored conversation. Within the next 24 hours, this voice recognition was treated as "positive target identification" and, therefore, as legitimate grounds for an airstrike. This greatly increased the risk of civilian casualties.

Drug dealers, farmers and couriers were also considered to be legitimate targets, whether they had any connection or not to the Taliban:

According to the NSA document, in October 2008 the NATO defense ministers made the momentous decision that drug networks would now be "legitimate targets" for ISAF troops. "Narcotics traffickers were added to the Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL) list for the first time," the report reads.

In the opinion of American commanders like Bantz John Craddock, there was no need to prove that drug money was being funneled to the Taliban to declare farmers, couriers and dealers as legitimate targets of NATO strikes.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...a-1010358.html