“Killing one of the most powerful terrorists, an enemy of the US, and key planner behind the killing of thousands of Americans...” you mean
2012: White House (@JohnBrennan and @TVietor08) offers rare defense of Obama drone attacks politico.com/blogs/under-th… via @politico
2012: White House (@JohnBrennan and @TVietor08) offers rare defense of Obama drone attacks politico.com/blogs/under-th… via @politico
John Brennan: “Drones, the remotely piloted vehicles, [are] a tremendously capable tool to use against the terrorist abroad. It has capability to monitor their activities.
It provides a good insight to our intelligence analysts and operators in terms of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It has the capability of carrying out strikes as well.”
“This is something that the president has told us we need to work closely with these partners. And so, in Yemen in particular, these groups, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in particular, are determined to kill Americans,"
It was not immediately clear whether Brennan's comments were simply an unplanned outbreak of public candor on the subject or whether high-level administration deliberations about whether to be more open in discussions of anti-terrorism operations led to his remarks.
Asked about Brennan's statements, a White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said the counterterrorism adviser "was talking about drones as a tool in the abstract."
"I think many people have commented on the fact that they allow... precision that you cant get with an F16...”
"I think many people have commented on the fact that they allow... precision that you cant get with an F16...”
2014: THE WEDDING THAT BECAME A FUNERAL FOR 12 CIVILIANS: U.S. STILL SILENT ONE YEAR ON FROM DEADLY YEMEN DRONE STRIKE newsweek.com/wedding-became…
Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs.
This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.
While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.
One bombing technique that President Obama championed is drone strikes. As drone-warrior-in-chief, he spread the use of drones outside the declared battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, mainly to Pakistan and Yemen.
Obama authorized over 10 times more drone strikes than George W Bush, and automatically painted all males of military age in these regions as combatants, making them fair game for remote controlled killing. amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 
