United States self-licensed to kill: Analyst

The United States is using assassination drones in other countries in line with its self-declared right to kill, an analyst tells Press TV in an interview.

“It’s a flagrant violation of international law. It is establishing unilaterally by one nation, the United States, the right to kill at will,” Rick Rozoff said.

The analyst made the comments following a report by UN special rapporteur Christopher Haines that the US policy of using assassination drones presents a major challenge to the system of international law.

Rozoff said the US has been involved in “slaughter from the air” for a decade.

“They’re aerial assassins. If they offend international law, they certainly offend human morality,” he said.

Rozoff said it would be “simply ludicrous” to believe that thousands of Pakistanis killed in the US drone strikes have all been “high-profile al-Qaeda commanders.”

“This is no excuse in the war crimes tribunal. It certainly won’t be if the US is ever held accountable for its actions,” said Rozoff.

The analyst said the US unnamed aerial vehicles, known as ‘hunter, killers’, “have accounted already for conservatively five to six thousand deaths in the last 10 years.”

Washington claims its drone strikes target militants, although casualty figures show that civilians often fall victim to the attacks.

Over the past several years, Washington has been launching drone attacks on Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.