00:00:00
[Music] The interesting question for people to ask themselves is just as we were
00:00:11
talking about this Senate Intelligence Committee report on interrogation techniques and torture, if you will. The
00:00:18
question people need to ask themselves is 10 years from now, will people be asking them the same questions about the
00:00:25
use of these drones? They are lethal man-made birds of prey. When you can stare at a target
00:00:38
unblinkingly for hours, if not days, and then use a weapon against that target that has a 14lb warhead in it, and with
00:00:48
an accuracy measured in inches, this actually makes warfare more precise. And that should be a good, that's the
00:00:55
correct geometry. Give me 10 seconds. Roger. Yeah, direct hits right there. Now, the
00:01:02
dark side. You know, you can't be perfect. There is collateral damage. We We feed the jihadi
00:01:09
recruitment video that these Americans are heartless killers. The most controversial target in the
00:01:17
history of drone warfare is about to enter the CIA's crosshairs. To the American people, I say your security
00:01:24
will continue to be threatened as long as your government continues with its aggression against the Muslim people. He
00:01:32
is Anoir Elaki, a sworn enemy of the United States and an American citizen. He was born in the
00:01:41
US and was someone who was using social media in order to convey a message about
00:01:48
jihad and doing it very effectively and was someone who had gone to Yemen. There
00:01:55
was no question in my mind that he was extremely dangerous and somebody that we had to go after. As you send us your
00:02:03
bombs, we will send you ours. The charismatic cleric conspires with the so-called underwear bomber in a failed
00:02:10
plot to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. And he inspires the jihadist militant who kills 13 and
00:02:18
injures more than 30 in a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas. And I was asking, "What were we interested in Locky
00:02:26
about?" Well, somebody said, "Well, he he's a bad guy. He's on the president's list." I wait. What list is that? Well,
00:02:34
the the goodbye list. The goodbye list, also known as the kill list. It's the grim roster of terrorists targeted for
00:02:46
execution by the US government. I for one was born in the US and lived in the US for 21 years. We went through the
00:02:54
process to make a case for why Alaki was dangerous. and uh the justice department
00:03:02
along with uh our general counsel and counsel out of the White House felt that a good case had been made to put him on
00:03:09
that list. [Music] September 30th, 2011, David Petraeus is now in charge when CIA drone pilots in Nevada draw a
00:03:25
bead on Elaki in Yemen. They have been watching him for days. Come back on those guys. Here we go. I think you
00:03:34
always do soulsearching when you're putting individuals in harm's way. You turn these over in your mind and uh
00:03:41
there are occasions where you say, "Let me mull this one. Let me think on it." Uh but if you ensure that you're within
00:03:48
the rules of engagement, um then uh you press forward and and and make a decision.
00:03:56
Moments later, Anoir Elaki is dead. Alaki was the leader of external operations for al-Qaeda in the I believe
00:04:08
that that the consequences of allowing the precedent of an American president being
00:04:15
able to kill an American citizen under any circumstances on just his signature is dangerous.
00:04:26
Anoir L. Awaki was just one man, but the CIA's drones have killed scores, perhaps
00:04:33
hundreds, whose names are unknown. Any personel around you see What about um the the so-called
00:04:43
signature strikes? I I can't talk about signature strikes, if they are even taken. I don't know what they are. I
00:04:49
don't believe these directors are talking about this stuff. I'm not talking about him. You have
00:04:55
every reason to believe that there are bad guys there at the moment. You don't quite know the name of the bad guy, but
00:05:02
you know the van. You know the weaponry. You know the size of the group. You know
00:05:06
what kind of meetings have been held there before. You know the other vehicle that pulled
00:05:12
up and you make a decision. My worry is that there are too many of what we would
00:05:18
call signature strikes which are at a group of suspected terrorists where the evidence may not be that clear of
00:05:26
specifically what is going on and more people clear to engage all I think this administration prefers killing the
00:05:34
prisoners rather than holding them captive and the reason I think is because it's hard it's hard to capture
00:05:43
uh It's it's hard work and many would consider it dirty business. They're killing a lot of people with let's say
00:05:52
drone strikes that would better be captured and interrogated. Then we would might have a chance of learning what the
00:05:58
terrorist group is going to do next. You can't question somebody you've killed. So in other words, the CIA is just we're
00:06:04
taking no prisoners. I don't know that that's the CIA's uh position. I think that's the president's
00:06:12
position. I I think he is killing more people than he needs to and we'd be better off
00:06:21
capturing some of them and interrogating them. Now look, it's hard, right? And anybody who makes these kinds of
00:06:28
decisions going to lose some sleep, but you'd also lose sleep if you failed to make these decisions and bad things
00:06:37
happen to Americans.