Obama's Weak Defense of His Record on Drone Killings
When my colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates interviewed President Obama for his recent article, “My President Was Black,” the discussion briefly turned to lethal drone strikes.
Obama had already spoken about the strengths and weaknesses of Black Lives Matter, LGBT activists, and activists objecting to the deportation of undocumented immigrants, remarks I suggest reading in full. “Sometimes it’s useful for activists just to be out there to keep you mindful and not get complacent,” the president concluded, “even if ultimately you think some of their criticism is misguided.”
That’s when he brought up critics of lethal drone strikes.
“The truth is that this technology really began to take off right at the beginning of my presidency,” he began. “And it wasn’t until about a year, year and a half in where I began to realize that the Pentagon and our national-security apparatus and the CIA were all getting too comfortable with the technology as a tool to fight terrorism, and not being mindful enough about how that technology is being used and the dangers of a form of warfare that is so detached from what is actually happening on the ground. And so we initiated this big process to try to get it in a box, and checks and balances, and much higher standards about when they’re used.”
Let’s pause there.
That narrative gets at least one thing right: The Obama administration’s approach
