President Barack Obama has defended the use of drones as a "just war" of self-defence against deadly militants, and a campaign that had made America safer.

In a wide-ranging speech on a programme shrouded in secrecy, he said there must be "near certainty" that no civilians would die in such strikes.

In a renewed push to shut Guantanamo Bay (which he promised to do about seven years ago), he also lifted a moratorium on prisoner transfers to Yemen (Woo hoo!).

Mr Obama also defended the use of drones to kill four US citizens.

"We are at war with an organisation that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first," he said in Thursday's address at National Defense University in Washington DC.

"So this is a just war - a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defence." (Admittedly we've got military bases in over 130 nations and have intervened militarily overseas over 80 times since the Second World War, etc, etc, but it's all self-defence!)

He added: "And yet as our fight enters a new phase, America's legitimate claim of self-defence cannot be the end of the discussion. To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance."

Yeah, but.....change. Yes we can and all that. He's black, that must mean he's different from the others.

Obama is an uncle tom.

Sorry to use such a term but he's an embarrassment.