US Drone Strike Victims Discover US Is Not Above Law, Sometimes
The family of a Colombian man killed in a US drone strike, targeting alleged drug-carrying boats in international waters, has filed a human rights challenge. This, The Independent notes, is a novel approach to a common tragedy. One might wonder why a superpower, routinely deploying lethal force globally without much scrutiny, is now facing inconvenient questions about international law. Oh, right,
because it's not a 'real' war theatre, just the 'War on Drugs' – a conflict that conveniently expands US jurisdiction wherever a coca leaf grows. This isn't an isolated incident; US drone policy has a storied history of 'mistakes' and 'collateral damage'—from wedding parties in Yemen to farmers in Afghanistan. The fact that a family needs to file a 'human rights challenge' for a strike outside
declared war zones, rather than have protocols automatically trigger an investigation, speaks volumes. It appears some lives, particularly those under the vague umbrella of 'anti-narcotics operations,' are deemed less worthy of due process than, say, a shipment of cocaine.