Sign our petition demanding that White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan tell the American people the whole truth about CIA drone strikes. We will hand-deliver this petition to John Brennan when he speaks at the commencement at Fordham University in New York City on May 19.
John Brennan
Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Dear Mr. Brennan:
We urge you to tell the American people the whole truth about CIA drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.
While you have publicly stated that "the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists," the New York Times and the Washington Post have reported that the CIA has conducted drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen against unknown people who are not on any list of suspected terrorists, but merely fit a "profile" of suspected terrorist activity, according to intelligence reports. U.S. officials have said that such "signature strikes" increase the risk of killing civilians, and the risk of killing people who have had nothing to do with attacks on the United States, enmeshing America in other people's civil wars.
The existence of such "signature strikes" is also crucial to the question of whether CIA drone strikes are legal under the 2001 authorization of military force. Congress authorized the use of force against the people responsible for the September 11 attacks and those who harbored them, not against unknown people who fit a profile of suspected terrorist activity according to intelligence reports.
Mr. Brennan, tell the American people the whole truth about CIA drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.
Comment: The U.S. aim with its increasing drone strikes grows more obvious by the day, that aim is not the pursuit of the ubiquitous al-Qaeda™ boogeyman as is fed to the media. It seems clear the aim is to win influence by helping client regimes in the region to eliminate any source of opposition, all under the guise of 'the war of terror'.