On his third day in office, Obama ordered cross-border attacks on Pakistani tribal areas using missile-firing drones. 22 people were killed, including four children. The attacks violate international law and various treaties to which the US is a party (so they’re unconstitutional also). This makes Obama a war criminal.
(It also makes him a poor strategist. Pakistan notes that the attacks have only further endeared the local tribes to al-Quaeda. This is plausible. This kind of effect on local populations by “our” violence is, to my knowledge, predicted or confirmed by every Pentagon study to date on the War on Terror.)
The victims may or may not have had something to do with fighting in Afghanistan. Of course, these “terroristey” types are precisely the sort we lock up in Guantanamo, and the the quality of “evidence” on which the attacks were ordered is precisely the sort we use to put them there. This should prove the token nature of Obama’s effort to shut down Guantanamo: We can kill them but not lock them up? (And really, “shut down” just means relocating the residents to another prison and diverting new suspects to one of the several interrogation camps we aren’t shutting down).
Despite Obama’s inaugural promise to stop executive secrecy, the new White House refused to comment on the attacks.
Big fuckin’ surprise.