The dissent for drone use on American soil is growing.
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South African social rights activist Desmond Tutu does not approve of President Obama’s drone program. In a letter to The New York Times titled “Drones, Kill Lists and Machiavelli,” the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate says he is “deeply, deeply disturbed” by the idea that only drone strikes against American citizens might get a judicial review.
I am deeply, deeply disturbed at the suggestion in “A Court to Vet Kill Lists” (news analysis, front page, Feb. 9) that possible judicial review of President Obama’s decisions to approve the targeted killing of suspected terrorists might be limited to the killings of American citizens.
Do the United States and its people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the world that our lives are not of the same value as yours? That President Obama can sign off on a decision to kill us with less worry about judicial scrutiny than 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.
I used to say of apartheid that it dehumanized its perpetrators as much as, if not more than, its victims. Your response as a society to Osama bin Laden and his followers threatens to undermine your moral standards and your humanity.
DESMOND M. TUTU
Aboard MV Explorer, near Hong Kong Feb. 11, 2013
We’re not crazy about drones either, but do you think the comparison of drones to apartheid is legit or appropriate?
SOURCE: NY Times
