Obama admin. favors killing enemies over their prosecution: Tighe Barry
Mon Apr 8, 2013 5:36PM GMT

http://64.150.186.181/presstv/site%20video/04-08-2013/tighe-berry.mp4

The Obama administration finds it much easier and much quicker to kill than to capture and to have a Guantanamo on their hands, which they have been unable to close."
An analyst says the US has become judge jury and executioner in targeted drone assassinations to avoid capturing militants and reviving the Guantanamo issue.


In the background of this it has been revealed that Pakistan granted the US permission to access its airspace for drone operations in a secret deal made back in 2004. In public, however, Pakistan has frequently voiced opposition to the drone attacks as if the attacks were without their permission. US assassination drones have claimed hundreds of lives in Pakistan and thousands of lives in other countries, mostly innocent. Civilians are the main victims of US drone attacks to the tune reportedly of 10:1. President Obama personally signs off approving each drone attack from what has been coined the ‘kill list’. Drone strikes in Pakistan, a country the US is not at war with, are declared illegal and therefore a war crime under international law.

Press TV has interviewed Tighe Barry, CODEPINK, Los Angeles about this issue. The following is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Looking at the way Pakistan has time and time reacted to the violation of its airspace. Many say it’s just been words and no action, which is an indication of Pakistan’s compliance with regards to drone attacks, do you agree with that?

Barry: I do not agree with that. As a person who’s been time and time again to Pakistan and I was there and kidnapped under the Musharraf government at one point; held in secret prison as well.

    I know for a fact that the people of Pakistan, the parliament of Pakistan, is not complicit with the CIA in its illegal and what I would call war crime in the region of Pakistan carrying out illegal drone attacks in sovereign Pakistan territory.



The agreement that we now find out via Wikileaks and we once again have got to thank Bradley Manning for this and also for this new book that’s come out called “Way of the Knife”, we see that the CIA has been complicit with the ISI - its cohort inside Pakistan.

This doesn’t mean the Pakistani people nor the Pakistani government is necessarily in cahoots with the illegal war crimes that the CIA is committing.

We do know that Musharraf and heads of the ISI were completely engaged with the CIA and actually admitted telling lies to media and other saying that they were the ones that committed the killing of Nek Muhammad (2004), the famous Pakistani Taliban, who brought the Pakistani military to its knees in Sutta region and therefore Musharraf had a personal grudge against Nek Muhammad and wanted to have him murdered.

In 1975 the Church Commission forbade the United States CIA agency from carrying out... forbade the CIA from committing assassinations - and that’s what they’re doing today.

Press TV: I’d like to touch on that point. The New York Times article does cover how the US has transitioned from capturing and detaining potential “terrorists”, to targeting them.

And this is not just happening in Pakistan, but several other Muslim countries like Yemen and Somalia. What do you make of that?

Barry: For years now it has been asserted that the Obama administration has used targeted assassinations instead of capture, which is a clear war crime.

You have to allow a person to either surrender or to know that they are being wanted, at least. The Obama administration claims that that is not the case. If they could capture, they would.

But apparently it’s very true, it’s factual, that the Obama administration finds it much easier and much quicker to kill than to capture and to have a Guantanamo on their hands, which they have been unable to close.

Getting back to the Nek Muhammad killing, to point out the fact that two boys were killed during their so-called targeted assassination on Mr. Muhammed - Boys 10 and 16 were killed.

So, these targeted assassinations come with thousands of innocent civilians who seem to be in the way of the CIA’s war crimes.