CIA Plan Escalates Debate Over Legality of Drone Attacks

The CIA's plan for a secret Persian Gulf base to launch drone attacks on suspected terrorists in Yemen has escalated the debate over just how far the United States can go with such attacks before violating accepted principles of international law.

"The whole use of drones in Pakistan and Yemen raises the question of whether the United States is really in a war with a loosely organized terrorist organization whose members seem to pop up in diverse locations," says Geoffrey Corn, a former military lawyer and World Politics Review contributor who teaches at South Texas College of Law.

"People like me," said Corn, "believe that the answer to this question is yes, and that because we're in an armed conflict with al-Qaida, once we identify an operative of this belligerent organization, it is lawful to attack that individual with deadly force as a measure of first resort."

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review