Remember those very useful unmanned drones being used in Afghanistan and Pakistan to target terrorists? AllSeeingEye has blogged on them before, their effectiveness in combat situations and the fact that human rights lawyers therefore don’t like them. Well it seems possible that that expansive monolithic bastion of socialist stupidity the United Nations has had enough of the possibility that the forces of good might actually get the upper hand over those who want to blow us up, and is having another go about them. The UN, as usual, want to take away the things which work and, probably, arm our troops with spoons or similar. Bob Ainsworthless will be pleased.

A U.N. human rights investigator warned the United States Tuesday that its use of unmanned warplanes to carry out targeted executions may violate international law.

Philip Alston said that unless the Obama administration explains the legal basis for targeting particular individuals and the measures it is taking to comply with international humanitarian law which prohibits arbitrary executions, “it will increasingly be perceived as carrying out indiscriminate killings in violation of international law.”

Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s investigator on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, raised the issue of U.S. Predator drones in a report to the General Assembly’s human rights committee and at a news conference afterwards, saying he has become increasingly concerned at the dramatic increase in their use, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since June.

We know how Obama loves the UN (witness the allowing of human rights inspectors into major US cities to investigate housing issues), so, what will he do? This might give him the chance he seems to desperately want, after all his campaign promises and without appearing weak, to abandon the War on Terrorism, Operation Overseas Contingency.
So, this is a test for Obama. Despite preferring to play golf than taking the decision to commit to the troop surge in Afghanistan and renaming the WoT, as well as some pretty speeches, he has actually done a decent job, mostly out of the public eye. He escalated drone strikes not only in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan. He has stuck with the Bush plan to leave Iraq. He has kept rendition. Gitmo is nowhere close to being closed. Will he listen to the UN this time? Hopefully not.