Weekend Economists Celebrate Harry Potter's 35th Birthday July 31st, 2015

[Demeter]

39. Mercenary Drone Operators Kill Outside US Chain of Command

http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20150801/1025289723.html

Experts say that the US armed forces are using a growing number of mercenaries or contractors to operate lethal drone attacks as regular troops are increasingly unwilling to do so...

“The critical decisions of identifying ‘the enemy’ are being made by civilians who are under no official chain of command,” he added.

All drone killing remains clearly in violation of international law and US domestic law against assassination, Mottern pointed out.

Yet, “here we have the US paying civilians to do illegal killing without even the legal accountability applied to the US military,” he said. “The mercenaries are accountable only to their employers who most assuredly are encouraging high kill totals to ensure continued contracts. “

This lack of accountability and of any clear chain of command “obviously means dramatically increased jeopardy for the people under surveillance and drone attack; that is a dramatic increase in the number of people being killed and terrorized,” Mottern explained...

NOT TO MENTION:

Mottern noted the need to hire mercenaries indicates that the US military is not able, for whatever reason, to find enough people within its ranks to do such work.

“This is… because it is involving an increasing amount of killing, and, I suspect, an increasing amount of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).”