“It’s not legal; It’s not necessary, and it’s not effective.”

“The entire system is illegal in terms of how we conduct these strikes. There’s no declaration of war in any of these countries: in Yemen, in Somalia, and Pakistan. And yet we are constantly barraging their people with drone strikes. It’s lawless.”

“When a drone hits a target, it blows up about a square block. … As a result of that there you have so much collateral damage….”

“Less than 2% of the time the intended target is actually killed. 98% of the time you miss. 98% of the time you’re blowing up and killing civilians and children and women.”

– Ben Swann

Transcribed by Jeff Fenske

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5I3SUEm9pA]Obama violated his own rules with Yemen drone strike

RT America | Published on Feb 21, 2014

President Barack Obama violated his own rules for the use of drone strikes in a December 2013 strike on a wedding procession in Yemen, a new report from Human Rights Watch says. The US military initially claimed that the procession was actually members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, then admitted it was a wedding procession, but claimed that most of the people killed in the attack were members of the terrorist organization. But Human Rights Watch says, “The procession also may have included members of AQAP, although it is not clear who they were or what was their fate.” The group went on to say that there is no evidence that members of the caravan posed an imminent threat, and that killing them was a violation of international human rights laws. RT’s Meghan Lopez speaks with investigative journalist Ben Swann about US drone policy and whether the attack was a violation of Obama’s own stated rules.