Flying Death Squads

In October, during an interactive session with students in Pakistan, a female medical student praised Hillary Clinton for inspiring women; but then the same admirer asked the secretary of State how the United States justifies using those CIA remote-controlled Predator drone planes without sharing intelligence with the Pakistan military. These airborne assassins kill civilians while targeting terror suspects in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Clinton refused comment on this expansive and lethal program, details of which are, of course, classified state secrets.

But another Pakistan woman flatly told Clinton that these drone devastations of suspected terrorist hideouts are like "executions without trials."

The secretary of State's blunt response about these sometimes-summary executions was: "There is a war going on."

During an interview on the Pakistan TV program "Our Voice," still another woman asked our chief foreign affairs officer if she considered these high-tech Predator drone attacks terrorism.

Clinton's terse reply to such an accusatory question to so high a level of a visitor from an key ally of Pakistan was, "No, I do not." Next question?

On Oct. 27, as Agence France Press reported, our killer drones were confronted at the United Nations by Philip Alston, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions.

"My concern," he said, "is that drones/Predators are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law."

Alston sent a strong message, without naming him, to President Obama: "We need the United States to be more up front and say, 'OK, we're willing to discuss some aspects of this program,' otherwise you have the really problematic bottom line that the CIA is running a program that is killing significant numbers of people and there is absolutely no accountability in terms of the relevant international laws."

Is it possible that the CIA would actually commit alleged war crimes - and the U.S. government would not hold the CIA and itself accountable in any way?

Is water wet?