Secret assassination and its aftermath

"Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbor secretly." -- Deuteronomy 27:24

Some believe that drone attacks save U.S. lives because they do not rely on "boots on the ground" and thus service members are spared death and injury.

But what about other people's lives? Recently, as a Quaker and an American Friends Service Committee staff member, I joined a gathering of 150 interfaith folk at Princeton Theological Seminary to consider that very question.

Lethal drones are used in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen precisely because "boots on the ground" would be impractical in those countries. "Collateral damage" -- that is, the number of civilian deaths -- is higher than most Americans realize. Accounting for the victims is lacking. Standards for compensating victims are not commonly known.

While we were together as leaders of various faiths, we joined together in calling for the immediate halt of targeted lethal drone strikes. We called for Congress to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that has been used as the legal justification for the lethal drone program.

2014 Global Day of Action Against Drones in Washington D.C. (Creative Commons/Flickr User - Stephen Melkisethian)

As a Quaker, I think of the moral injunction to not kill but to wage the "Lambs War," that is, as the early Quaker leader James Naylor wrote, "war not against men's persons, so their weapons are not carnal, nor hurtful to any of the creation; for the Lamb comes not to destroy men's lives, nor the work of God, and therefore at his appearance in his subjects, he puts spiritual weapons into their hearts and hands."

That is what people of faith can do in joining in the call to the administration to halt drone strikes and for Congress to repeal the AUMF.

I also recall my own experience with secret assassination and its aftermath.

The story begins when I was 12. It was 1962, and I was picking blueberries in the woods. I didn't notice the yellow jackets that had climbed up into my pant leg from a ground nest. They started stinging. Walking home the mile or so, I became more and more enlarged, looking like the Michelin tire boy, arms akimbo and tongue hanging out of my mouth, struggling to breathe and experiencing anaphylactic shock.

I was rushed to our small-town doctor. Dr. Lansing Bennett gave me a lifesaving injection of epinephrine. Then he laughed, noting that the same thing had happened to my older brother a few years before. I forgave him for the laughing and my loss of dignity as I knew he had just saved my life.

Rally against drones in Des Moines, Iowa in 2013 (AFSC/Jon Krieg)

Fast forward to 1993. I read in the Washington Post that someone had assassinated two CIA workers and wounded three others as they were driving into the CIA headquarters at Langley, Va. Dr. Lansing H. Bennett of Duxbury, Massachusetts, was one of the victims. I was shocked at reading the name and at the tragedy.

In 1997, the CIA tracked down the assailant, Mir Kasi, in Pakistan, from which he was spirited back to the U.S. He said in his confession that he had been led to the killings out of anger about the U.S. and the CIA's negative roles in the Muslim world. After his conviction and death sentence, four U.S oil executives and their Pakistani taxi driver were shot dead in Karachi in retaliation.

The Commonwealth of Virginia executed Kasi in 2002.  At that time, the Washington Post reported that Kasi had said that there should be no blood vendetta in response to his death.  But by then eight lives had been lost.

Each life is precious in God's eyes. One loss, Dr. Bennett, was deeply mourned by me, a kid he had cared for in a small town, long ago.

Peace walk organized by The Legal Aid Forum for Human Rights in Chitral, Pakistan (Creative Commons/Flickr User - Ground Report)

We now know that the CIA and U.S. government have carried out secret assassination for a long time, underreporting the number of civilians assassinated by drones in our current wars.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that 2,500 people -- including children -- in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia have been killed -- and that's not even including Iraq and Afghanistan. I think of the revenge actions that might occur by friends and relatives of those killed in our name. Are we to be cursed in this manner? Let us end this cycle of violence -- stop lethal drones and repeal the AUMF (Authorization to Use Military Force), the legal basis of the targeted assassinations.

"The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light." -- Romans 13:12

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