The kill-list definition presumed combatant status for military-age men unless posthumously proven innocent

Evidence

Deep within the Times article, it was revealed that the Obama administration was able to make claims about low civilian casualty counts in drone strikes because it defined as a “combatant” (against whom drone warfare is sanctioned) any military age male who lived in an area being targeted by drone strikes “unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” Such a definition epitomizes racist dehumanization as it exposes tens of millions to vulnerability to premature death, an important dimension of racialization. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 508

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on algorithmic/procedural racism and presumption-of-guilt frameworks; also resonates with the posthumous-proof inversion of the presumption of innocence in other counterterror contexts.
• SEED: An essay angle: how the drone war’s casualty-counting procedures institutionalized a new form of the colonial presumption of guilt, with the burden of proof borne by the dead.

Related

• Drone targeting presumed every military-age male a combatant unless proven innocent posthumously. (similarity 0.94)
• Administering presumed guilt by area doubles down racialized vulnerability to death. (similarity 0.80)
• The US counted all military-age males in strike zones as combatants (similarity 0.80)