Symbol of America

So when the whitetail doe jumped up without any warning, it scared the deer pellets right out of me. She must’ve thought that by laying low in the grass she could stay hidden. But when I was about to walk right into her, she panicked and leaped up, nearly running me over. Now that’s a way to start your day that a cup of coffee can’t match.


I’d gone down to the river for a morning walk and to check on the water clarity. With the river rising from the runoff, it’d gotten murky. It’s going to be a while before the fishing is good again.

After flushing the deer like a grouse, I headed upstream along the bank. There was no place in particular that I was going to. I thought that maybe the rushing of the river would drown out the voices in my head for a while.

It’s always relaxing to walk along, take in the smells of the forest, and let your mind wander. I thought about the fish and the fishermen who are dealing with all the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, about how there will never be another Dennis Hopper, and about how the salmonflies will start to hatch soon.

An osprey called out, and I looked up in time to see him swoop down and pluck a fish from the river. It wriggled in his talons as he flew away.

Then, a bald eagle came streaking out of the sky toward the osprey. The smaller bird swerved at the last minute and took off in the other direction. The eagle was right back on him, and the two of them swirled around each other.

The eagle was bigger and faster; the osprey was quicker and more maneuverable but was hampered by the weight of the still struggling fish. After successfully defending his catch for a few minutes, the osprey eventually got tired and let the trout slip from his grasp.

The harassing eagle dove after it and snatched it out of the air. The osprey knew that he wouldn’t be able to overpower the bigger bird and flew away with his beak hung low. Confident in his air superiority, the eagle went off to eat the spoils of victory.

That got me to thinking.

Is America being unfairly criticized by the international community for using deadly force to protect our citizens in places like Afghanistan?

I know what you’re thinking, How in the world did he make that connection?

No, I haven’t lost it…yet. It’s the whole thing with the bald eagle as a symbol of America, and he’s attacking a smaller bird to get what he wants.

Anyway, a recent report to the UN Human Rights Council by Philip Alston, their Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, calls into question the legality of certain “targeted killings,” especially those by clandestine agents using unmanned drones.

The report, dated May 28, 2010, talks a whole lot about the legal framework of when it’s OK for a country to kill a specific individual, and the methods they can use to do it. If you’re in an “armed conflict” (meaning you’re at war), then it’s usually OK

If not, there are a whole set of rules you’re supposed to follow. If you’re in an intelligence agency, like the CIA, and you don’t provide all kinds of justification to the international community, then you’re an assassin and could be charged with war crimes.

The report says that the use of drones is most likely illegal because there is too much risk of civilian casualties and because it doesn’t give troops on the ground the opportunity to get the target with non-lethal force. It also states that because the operators are in a remote location looking at a computer screen “there is a risk of developing a Playstation mentality to killing.”

Basically, what Alston is trying to say is that the use of drones by the CIA to kill Al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan is pre-meditated murder. Because of the secrecy, there’s no accountability. And our claim that we are acting in self-defense isn’t justified because we haven’t proved to the rest of the world that the guys we’re targeting pose an imminent risk to our country.

Like most UN reports that I’ve read, there’s a whole bunch of opinion and speculation sprinkled in amongst the facts.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the name Special Rapporteur Philip Alston accidentally popped up on a list of targets on a Langley computer. All I can tell you is Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the number 3 man in Al-Qaeda, is dead because of a drone attack, and I feel better because of it.

I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.