Chomsky takes Obama to task Lawyers in Europe, keen to give the US president the benefit of the doubt, are reluctant to condemn his targeted killings

The presumption of innocence is understood as a cornerstone of both United States and United Kingdom law. But now, according to Noam Chomsky, it is 'long disappeared'. Such an accusation is perhaps unsurprising coming from the most persistent critic of US foreign policy. Chomsky was speaking at the launch of a new academic journal, State Crime, and was referring to the increasingly controversial US tactic of assassination of al-Qaida leaders and associated individuals. For Chomsky, this practice goes far beyond what he called the Bush administration's 'kidnapping' to Guantanamo Bay. The current strategy is, he claimed, developing into a 'massive global assassination campaign'.

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