Andrew Cockburn

Andrew Myles Cockburn (7. January 1947, London) ist britischer Journalist und Editor von Harper's Magazin. Er wuchs in Irland auf. Sein Vater war ein sozialistischer Autor und Journalist: Claud Cockburn. Seine Mutter Patricia Evangeline Anne (née Arbuthnot) war die Enkelin des Kolonialverwalters Henry Arthur Blake and des Politikers George Arbuthnot. Sie verfasste eine Autobiographie (Figure of Eight).

Publikationen von Andrew Cockburn

• Cockburn, Andrew (2015). Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 9780805099263
• Cockburn, Andrew (2007). Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy Scribner ISBN 1-4165-3574-8
• Cockburn, Andrew (with Patrick Cockburn) (2002). Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession Verso ISBN 1-85984-422-7
• Cockburn, Andrew (with Patrick Cockburn) (1999). Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein HarperCollins Publishers Hc ISBN 0-06-019266-6

• Cockburn, Andrew (with Leslie Cockburn) (1997). One Point Safe Doubleday ISBN 0-385-48560-3
• Cockburn, Andrew (with Leslie Cockburn) (1991). Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship HarperCollins Publishers ISBN 0-06-016444-1
• Cockburn, Andrew (1983). The Threat: Inside the Soviet Military Machine Random House ISBN 0-394-52402-0

Andrew Cockburn: Kill Chain (Auszüge zum Thema "targeted killings")

political assassinations

• originally officially banned as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy (42); but: "It's not assassination if we do it" (73 ff)
• 50er-Jahre: CIA plans in 1954 to eliminate "top-flight communists" in the event of a successful coup in Guatemala (84: "Manual on assassination")
• order to set up an assassination squad (coming from the National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy and his deputy Walt Rostow): 84
• "neutralizations" of Viet Cong Infrastructure (85): a quota of 800 per months as a management tool --> PRU (provincial reconnaisance teams)
• "as America withdrew from Vietnam, the assassination program was widely deemed an embarrassment, if not a war crime, and best forgotten" (88)
• Public ban of political assassination by President Gerald Ford (1976), reaffirmed by Presidents Carter and Reagan: "No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassinations" (89).
• but CIA instructional manual (1983) on how officials of the Sandinista regime could be „neutralized“ (89)

high-value targets

• Hitler as the ultimate high-value target (74)
• targeting of Fidel Castro (83)
• 1986: Reagan orders Muammar Qaddafi killed (legal rationale provided by W.Hays Parks, working for the army's judge advocate) (90): „lawful self-defense options against legitimate threats against the national security of the United States or individual US citizens" (91).
• Sadam Hussein (passim)
• kingpin strategy der DEA gegen die kolumbianischen Drogen-Barone (93ff): "Unveiled the year before Escobar's death under the leadership of Robert Bonner, an ambitious prosecutor appointed administrator of the agency by George Bush sr. in 1990, the 'kingpin strategy' focused on eliminating the leadership of the major cocaine cartels, along with their key henchmen, either by death or capture" (96)
• Bin Laden (passim)
• offizielle Legalisierung der high value targetted killings in George W. Bushs "Memorandum of Notification" (17.September 2001)"giving the CIA carte blanche to hunt down and kill high-value targets in the al-Qaeda leadership" (115)
• "Bush also approved a list of about two dozen people whom the CIA was authorized to kill or capture without further presidential review and allowed the addition of names on that list with no permission necessary" (115).
• Targeters: „A new profession of ‚targeters‘ was born. Their task was to assemble information on a future victim, his movements, associates, and habits, in ordert o set him up for a kill“.

Israel's influence

• Praxis von "targeted extermination" (Hisul Memukad)
• Euphemisierung (2001?) durch Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein: "Sikul Menukad" = targeted prevention" (116)
• Avi Dicter (2005) retiring head of Israel's internal security service: "The state of Isreal has turned targeted preventions into an art form". Dicter war unmittelbar nach seiner Pensionierung mehrere Monate als Gastwissenschaftler an der Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.; Mitautor der Schrift "Israel's Lessons for Fighting Terrotists and their Implications for the United States"(117). Grundprinzip: "the number of effective terrorists is limited", weshalb deren Eliminierung besonders produktiv sei.
• former senior White House counterterrorism official (interviewd von A.C.): "The idea had its origins in the drug war. So that precedent was already in the system as a shaper of our thinking... In additiom, the success of the Israeli targeted-killing strategy was a major influence on us, particularily in the and in the special Ops agency. We had a high degree of confidence in the utility of targeted killings. There was a strong sense that this was the tool to be used" (117).

Siehe auch

• Gezielte Tötung
• Killer-Drohne