The United Nations has an independent investigator on extrajudicial killings and he wants the United States to reveal the details of the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden. The reason? Christof Heyns wants to determine if the raid conformed to “international human rights law standards.” Heyns says he is particularly interested to know whether “if the planning of the mission allowed an effort to capture Bin Laden.”
The request presents an interesting dilemma for the Obama Administration, which was highly critical of the Bush Administration for failing to conform to international legal norms when carrying out its anti-terrorism policies. Many of those policies have continued. Indeed, the Obama Administration has gone even further by escalating drone attacks to kill terrorists rather than the previous Bush policy of trying to capture and interrogate.
I’m pretty doubtful that the Obama Administration will cooperate. Suddenly those criticisms of Bush policy sound pretty hollow don’t they?
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