Normal. You can watch this and other programs online at cspan. Org. This memorial day weekend book tv features three days of nonfiction books and authors, and here are programs to watch for. Go to booktv. Org for the complete weekend schedule. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good evening. My name is hisham ashur. Good evening. Thanks for coming. My name is hisham ashur. Im with the local Amnesty International group. I would like to thank you for coming here for this presentation tonight. The use of drones is becoming more and more widespread. Issues related to this topic, local, national, international, war, peace, privacy, you name it. Before i introduce our special guest, moderator of the event, i want to do some. He is a local piece activist, the chair of the center for peace and justice he has been over 15 missions over the world for piece. He is a retired from the university of virginia. As you know, Amnesty International is a Human Rights Group that has been working for more than 50 years. Most interest in this local group is conscious. If you would like to work on people who are detained illegally, unlawfully for the simple expression of their opinion like we do right now here, please join us. We meet every month and work on activities relating to human rights. Without further ado,ado, i will introduce doctor anderson. [applause] thank you so much. It is an honor and a pleasure to welcome you to this event on behalf of the Virginia Foundation for the humanities. The festival of the book. I am sure most of you have gotten this brochure, which you can get down at the omni and some other stores on the mall like the new dominion book stop. We have got such a Wonderful Program here today. You can hear me . It just has to be okay. All right. Technical difficulties. Is this better . Okay. No, that is not the one. This is the one. Both. Both of them. Both of them. Okay. [laughter] but we really want to thank you for coming out. This event which is a very timely event. I want to ask you all to please silence your cell phones. I have one that has a very irritating ring. Turn any kind of cell phones or other Electronic Devices off now at this time, and, and i want to encourage you to tweet to others about the event and va book 2016. I really want to thank the schaum a shut hisham ashur and the Amnesty International for bringing ms. Miss Marjorie Cohn cohnms. Marjorie cohn hear, and i want to thank ms. Miss Marjorie Cohn for coming. I want to ask you also to remember to support the festival of the book. It is free of charge, but not of cost, and you can either go online to give a gift of support or you can make a contribution by picking up an envelope, these envelopes are available down at the omni. At the end i will remind you to please give an evaluation because that also helps to strengthen the festival of the book, and it will help it to endure, the contribution and your evaluation will help us to endure for years to come. The topic for discussion today, as i said, is by ms. Ms. Marjorie cohn, and she will talk about her book. Ms. Marjorie cohn is a professor at the Thomas Jefferson school of law in san diego, and she is the author of several other books which are related and are fascinating books. Among those are, republic, six ways the bush gang has defined the law, rules of disengagement, the politics of honor and military sent command she is the editor of another volume entitled us and torture interrogations, incarceration and abuse. Todays book is really interesting. It starts off with a very interesting forward by archbishop tutu, and then it he asked the question, talks about the problem of drones and now the valuable contributions that have been made in editing this book and bring together a number of authors, but he says a very interesting thing that i thought we should ask ourselves, did this an article people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the world that our lives are not the same, the same value as yours. President obama can sign off on the decision to kill us with less worry about judicial scrutiny that if the target is an american. Would your Supreme Court really want to tell humankind that we, like the slave dred scott in the 19th century are not as human as you are . I cannot believe it, he says. I hope that his disbelief is true, that we wont tolerate this, that we will find ways to resist. But now i would like to introduce ms. Miss Marjorie Cohn and have her say some things about this really, really interesting book, which i found to be very revealing. [applause] i want to thank Amnesty International charlottesville chapter for inviting me and bill for his very nice introduction, and i thank you all for coming. I am delighted to be here. In his 2009 acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize president barack obama declared wherefores and im going to go like this were a quote, wherefores like this is necessary we have a moral and Strategic Interests and binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct, and even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules to my believei believe the United States of america must remain a standardbearer in the conduct of war. By the time obama accepted the award one year into his presidency he had ordered more drone strikes than george w. Bush an authorized during his two president s terms. The Bush Administration detained and tortured suspected terrorists. The Obama Administration has chosen to illegally assessed met them. Often with the use of drones. The continued indefinite detention of men at guantanamo allies obamas pledge two days after his 1st inauguration to close the prison there. However, obama has added only one detainee to the guantanamo roster. This government has decided that instead of detaining members of al qaeda at guantanamo they are going to kill them according to John Bellinger who formulated the Bush Administration drug policy. On terror tuesdays obama and john brennan, his former counterterrorism advisor, now cia director, go through catalysts to identify which individuals should be assassinated that week. Obama orders two different types of drone strikes, personality strikes which target named, highvalue terrorists, and signature strikes which target Training Camps and suspicious compounds in areas controlled by militants. And we often see in newspapers like the New York Times a us drone strike kills four militants are ten militants were 12 militants. Not sure what a militant looks like. In the signature strikes sometimes called crowd killing, the Obama Administration often does not even know who it is killing. But some state Department Officials have complained to the white house that the criteria used by the cia sees three guys doing jumping jacks im sorry, the signature for identifying a terrorist signature was to lax. The joke was when the cia sees three guys doing jumping jacks the Agency Thinks it is a terrorist training camp. When loading a truck with fertilizer could be bomb makers, but they also to be farmers. As the news broke on march 7, 2016, the us drone strikes had killed 150 people in somalia, the white house announced it will reveal for the 1st time the number of People Killed by drones and manned ends manned airstrikes outside areas of active hostility since 2009, including civilian deaths which is a critical 1st step toward muchneeded transparency. It will not go far enough. The Obama Administration has been lying for years about how many deaths result from us drone strikes and manned bombers. In 2011 john brennan falsely claimed that no civilians have been killed and drone strikes in nearly a year. The bureau of Investigative Journalism and this is an anthology collection. One of the chapters is written by the bureau of journalism which is a premiera premier organization the tally civilian deaths from drone strikes based in london, the bureau of Investigative Journalism and other organizations that calculate drone deaths put the lot to brennans claim. It is believed that of the estimated 5,000 People Killed on obamas watch, approximately 1,000 were civilians. Which responding to International Criticism about men starving themselves to death that guantanamo and his joan policy, obama delivered delivered a speech at the National Defense university at washington d. C. He proclaims, america does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists. Our preference preference is always to detain, interrogate, and prosecute them. Then why does he add only one man to guantanamo during his tenure . As he gave his 2013 speech, the white house released a fact sheet that purported to contain precan additions for the use of lethal force outside areas of hostility. The president ial policy guidance on which the fact sheet was based remains classified. So what does the fact sheet say . First, there must be a legal basis for the use of lethal force. It does not do fine find whether legal basis means complying with ratified treaties and when the United States ratified the treaty it becomes part of u. S. Law, domestic law under the supremacy clause of the constitution which says treaties that shall be the supreme law of the land. These treaties include the United Nations charter which prohibits the use of military force except in selfdefense or when approved by the Security Council. It also includes that Geneva Geneva convention which prohibits the targeting of civilians. Also the International Covenant on civil and Political Rights which guarantees due process and the right to life. The administration justified its drone strikes by reference to the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, or the, or the au ms that Congress Gave george w. Bush after the 9 11 attacks. That au ms authorizes only via targeting of affiliated forces. In somalia the 150 People Killed according to the administration, were from al shabab. Al shabab did not even exist in 2001 when exist in 2001 when the au ms was enacted. Al shabab had nothing to do with nine 9 11. The Administration Says that the People Killed, the 150 People Killed in somalia were terrorists and militants and members of this group, al shabab, but provided no evidence to prove that assertion. The dead fighters were assembled for what american officials believed were a Graduation Ceremony and a prelude to an eminent attack against americans. I guess thats what people do before they mount an eminent, they go to graduation ceremonies. Secondly,. To the fact sheet to requirements. The target must oppose a continuing eminent threat to u. S. Persons. The fact sheet does not define continuing or eminent. But a u. S. Department of Justice White paper that was leaked into thousand 13 says that a u. S. Citizen can be killed even when there is clear evidence that a specific attack on u. S. Persons and interest will take place in the immediate future. You wonder, what does does eminent mean . Presumably the Administration Sets a lower bar from noncitizens. Third, there must be near certainty that the terrorist target is present. The fact. The fact sheet does not address the signature strike where the Obama Administration does not even target individuals, but rather rather areas of suspicious activity. Fourth, there must be near certainty that noncombatants will not be injured or killed. The administration defined combatants as all men of military age in a strike so unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. Five, there, there must be an assessment that captures not feasible at the time of the operation. I do not like capture, animals are captured, people are apprehended, people are apprehended, nevertheless will use their terminology. An assessment that capture is not feasible at the time of operation. It is unclear what feasibility means. The department of Justice White paper seems to indicate that in feasible means inconvenient. It was feasible to capture Osama Bin Laden, who is not armed at the time the u. S. Military assassinated him. Now, i just want to diverge for a moment and talk about this idea that people have that Osama Bin Laden was this evil man, its a good thing we took him out, you know, lets forget about due process. After world war ii and the holocaust, the leader said the victorious powers got together to decide what to do with the nazi leaders. Winston churchill said just take them out and shoot them. To his credit, Justice Robert jackson who took a leave from the. Her court said no. He said if we do not provide due process even to the nazi leaders, we will pass a poisoned chalice to future generations. When my feeling is that if due process is good enough for the nazi leaders, it would have been good enough for Osama Bin Laden. Number six, there must be an assessment that relevant governmental authorities in the country were action was contemplated cannot, or will not effectively address the threat to u. S. Persons which is left undefined. And seven, there must be an assessment that no other reasonable alternative exist to a address the threat to u. S. Persons, also left undefined. Finally, the fact the fact sheet would excuse all of these preconditions when the president takes action in extraordinary circumstances which are both lawful and necessary to protect the United States and its allies. There is no definition of extraordinary circumstances or what would be lawful. Releasing the president ial policy guidance, declassify an will clarify the gaps in the guideline for the use of lethal force listed in the fact sheet. In february 2016, the bipartisan simpson tax force on drum policy gave the Obama Administration and ask in three areas the task force has plagued in improvement in its report. The first area is focused on the progress of releasing information on drone strikes. The second involves explaining the legal basis under u. S. And national law for the Drone Program. The third is about developing more robust and oversight accountability mechanisms for targeted strikes outside fields. Regarding the first area, releasing information. They concluded that the administration had made almost no information public about the approximate number, location, or death toll of legal lethal drone attacks. Which agency is responsible for what strike . The cia or military . The organizational affiliation of people known to have been killed by strikes, and the number and identities of civilians who are known to be killed. Speaking about the second area of focus, the legal legal basis for the Drone Program, it was mentioned that the few governmental documents have been made public that relate to the u. S. Lethal Drone Program, primarily primarily as a result of court orders. One was a rejected, that means editing, black lines and through much of it, a rejected memo from the department of justice about the legality of the 2011 targeted killing of u. S. Citizens on without due process of law. This followed a successful aclu New York Times freedom of information act request. The other release document was the department of defense law of war manual with three short sections on the use of remotely piloted aircrafts in war. The only qualification it contained was that the weapons cannot be inherently indiscriminate or calculated to cause injury. But the Geneva Conventions prohibited the targeting of civilians in all instances. Regarding the third area, oversight and accountability, the, the stimson report says the administration continues to oppose the release of any Public Information on the Lethal Drone Program which has obstructed mechanisms for greater oversight and accountability. The lack of action reinforces the culture of secrecy surrounding the use of armed drones according to the report. The stimson report noted the administration has, as a rule been reluctant to publicly acknowledge the use of lethal force by on demand vehicles in foreign countries. Stimson identified one notable exception however, after the discovery that two westerners who are held by al qaeda had been killed by u. S. Drone strike in june or 2015, the administration admitted the death but provide a few specific details. Note, no, they were westerners who were killed. I want to just say that when we hear about isis beheading someone, were justifiably outraged. Of course we do not hear a