Top Secret Intel Docs Betray Obama Claims on Drone Targeting

US drone war kills all kinds of people beyond Al Qaeda

- Jon Queally, staff writer, Common Dreams

Based on their review of leaked top-secret intelligence reports, McClatchy is reporting that the Obama Administration has long been guilty of misrepresenting the kind of groups and individuals it has targeted with its fleet of armed Predator and Reaper drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Pakistani soldiers stand guard at the Shamsi Airbase located some 320 kilometers southwest of Quetta in southwest Pakistan, on December 11, 2011. (Yslb Pak Zhang Qi/Xinhua/MCT) Though critics of Obama's targeting killing have long-believed that so-called signature strikes—where targets are chosen for their behavior rather than confirmed intelligence on who they are—would be illegal under US and international law, the White House has long defended the manner in which it targets specific groups and individuals. It has done so, however, without releasing the trail of documents that track the program's decision-making.
But as McClatchy reports, the top-secret U.S. intelligence reports it reviewed "show that drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn’t adhere" to the standards put fourth in public statements and press interviews by White House officials.