So did US drones really kill 60 plus people in Yemen?

[marions ghost]

46. Really?

You can't think of any other ways other than raining terror on a country of 20 million? And I think you know as well as I do that the numbers of civilian "bug splats" is likely to be higher than estimates.

I am not saying that we should let the jihadi leaders run amok. But without more controls on this type of stealth warfare we are headed for very dangerous waters, both strategically and morally. It is bad policy as it stands now. And I can't sit idly by while innocent civilians are being wantonly terrorized and there is a pattern of blatant overkill.

What does this form of terrorism do to the soul of OUR nation? You have to ask that question.

This is a military/CIA program out of control, taking full advantage of weaknesses in policy and international law.
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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/04/us_drone_strike_kill_26.php

"The pace of the drone strikes in Yemen decreased last year from the previous year (26 in 2013 versus 41 in 2012). The reduction in the number of strikes coincided with a speech by President Barack Obama at the National Defense University in May 2013. The strikes are being reduced as the US government is facing increasing international criticism for conducting the attacks in both Yemen and Pakistan."

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/04/us_drone_strike_kill_26.php#ixzz2zn8hVYBn

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http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-yemen/

http://www.livingunderdrones.org/report-legality/
http://www.livingunderdrones.org/numbers/
http://www.livingunderdrones.org/living-under-drones/

These legal concerns include questions regarding:

-- individual strikes, including those on mosques, funerals, schools, or meetings for elders to gather and resolve community disputes, where large numbers of civilians are present. Even when such strikes are aimed at one or more individuals who may be deemed legitimate military targets, the presence of large numbers of civilians in such spaces may make the strike disproportionate. Strikes that result in large numbers of civilian deaths also raise questions about whether adequate precautions in attack were taken;
-- signature strikes, which reportedly are based on behavior patterns observed from on high and interpreted thousands of miles away. The practice of such strikes raises concerns about whether they are conducted with the proper safeguards to ensure that they strike lawful targets;[40]
-- strikes on rescuers and first responders, as documented in the Living Under Drones Chapter.[41] These may violate the principle of distinction, and also contravene specific rules protecting the wounded and humanitarian assistance.[42] It might be that, under the ICRC formulation of the CCF test, a fighter could be lawfully targeted even while the person is at that moment rescuing someone.[43] However, available evidence raises very serious concerns about such strikes, given that they occur in areas where civilians are very likely to be present. The short time between first and second strikes at rescue sites further raises questions over how an individual’s lawful target status could be properly determined. Evidence uncovered by our research team that humanitarian actors may not attend to strikes immediately because of second-strike fears is especially troubling.[44] As U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, sum­mary or arbitrary exec­utions Christof Heyns observed, “If civilian ‘rescuers’ are indeed being intentionally targeted, there is no doubt about the law: those strikes are a war crime;”
-- the proportionality of particular strikes, in light of the higher-end estimates of civilian casualties noted in the Numbers chapter. Recent revelations regarding the Obama administration’s “guilt by association”[47] approach to counting drone-strike casualties, classifying ‘all military-age males’ as ‘combatants’ absent exonerating evidence, reinforce these concerns;