Obama is undermining the drone war.
The question of civilian casualties is one of the more important metrics in the use of terrorist-targeting drones. If U.S. targeting has a very high degree of accuracy with very few civilian deaths, the use of drones is more defensible. If drones are killing large groups of civilians or it's unclear who's dying and how important they are in the al-Qaeda hierarchy, then it's harder to justify - at least on a widespread basis.
The Obama administration has had a difficult time squaring up on this issue, so now they have a new, simplified formula. To wit: a combatant is anyone killed by a U.S. drone. Or as the New York Times writes:
'Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.'
So not only do we not know who's getting killed by the drones, we now know that the administration is cooking the books in a way to deliberately confuse matters. Unfortunately, by doing so they're undermining the fundamental legitimacy of the drone program. It's not only that the public doesn't have enough information to judge the program's efficacy (that's unavoidable, given its nature) but it is now impossible to trust what information the government is providing. That's hardly the basis for a legitimate, sustainable policy.
This approach is also likely to impress upon any young man downwind of U.S. drones that America places a very low value on their life. For a country whose political class engages in endless self-congratulatory paeans to "American values," it sure is an odd message to send.
(AP Photo)