citizens cannot be tried in military commissions. historically speaking, foreign policy tends to either stain or illuminate a president s legacy. time will tell which foreign policy position will define the obama years. joining us to discuss from washington is former assistant secretary of state and professor at george washington university, professor pj crowley. professor, thank you for joining us. hello. pj as we talk about the legacy of the obama doctrine, vis-a-vis our war on terrorists drones. the attacks were motivated to do what they did by the wars in iraq and afghanistan. i ll quote a little bit from that story. the 19-year-old suspect in the boston marathon bombings has told interrogators that the american wars in iraq and afghanistan, motivated he and his brother to carry out the attack. what do you make of that, pj? i m not surprised at all that
you know, if playing whack-a-mole in pakistan is creating a dynamic where people come out of the woodwork like faisal shazad or the tsarnaev brothers, we ve got to relate to that, or perhaps keep the tool, but use it less. i want to go back to something that wes was talking about. the other piece of this as somebody who has a loved one in afghanistan, on a fifth tour of duty right now is the impact that the bombing in boston and how we treat these two men, now one, has on our soldiers on the ground. i mean they re the ones who are there on the front lines trying to make the case for america and we undermine that work. i mean gitmo undermines that work to some degree. on the flip side of that, though, you know, on the one hand, as a good liberal i hate the idea of drones. on the other hand there s a part of me that like if a drone strike means my guy doesn t have to go in? it s a very hard issue. i think would you rather see
easy it is to develop these things as we ve seen now for a decade in iraq and afghanistan. i think the other thing it s important to remember that all of these things that happened to reform policy are not done in isolation. whether we re talking about drone strikes, whether we re talking about you know, islamic cartoons, collection of other things, these things are noticed by people around the world. and you know, a perfect example was the past weekend, i was overseas. the number one lead overseas, the number one and the number two lead overseas, was in europe on bbc was first the boston bombings, something is happening outside the united states and the second thing were the drone strikes, this was on the bbc. these things not happening in isolation and it s important to understand that our foreign policy is being interpreted and understood by people well past our own borders. what s interesting is that take it away, david. there s a dilemma here. one reason that barack obama
has been a motivator for jihadists around the world, particularly the u.s. invasion of iraq in 2003. so this just continues a theme, and it s not even unique to the united states. faisal shazad, the times square bomber, said he was motivated by the ongoing drone campaign in pakistan. wes, as someone who has seen combat, we re having our first hearing on drone strikes, which is interesting given how long we ve been using them as a terrorism measure. generally stanley mcchrystal told reuters, the resentment creates created by use of unmanned drones is much greater than appreciated. it issed perception of american arrogan arrogance. when we look at what happened in boston, first to show that the crude nature of ieds, one of the things it showed is a, how
today as the fbi and u.s. security officials grapple with the issue of home-grown terrorism, congress will address a problem of adifferent sort in the war on terror drones. since the first drone strike was conducted under george w. bush in october of 2001, nearly 4,000 have been killed in killings operations using drones. in afternoon the senate will hold its first hearing on their use abroad. as a candidate in 2008, barack obama rode to office with sharp criticism of president bush and his anti-terror policies. in the days and years since the first strikes, president obama is estimated to have ordered five times as many drone strikes as the bush administration. and although the strikes have been credited with decimating al qaeda, they ve also been executed entirely in secret and without judicial oversite. a policy that differs significantly with what the president has told the american