A key development today in the evolving story of America’s overseas targeted killing program. The White House has officially acknowledged the killing of four of its own citizens with unmanned aerial systems, popularly known as drones. The New York Times reports:
In a letter to Congressional leaders obtained by The New York Times, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen.
Tomorrow President Obama will give a speech about targeted killings, as well as the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These gestures signal a new openness about the drone program; the executive branch only recently began acknowledging its existence.
