Opinions on US Drone strikes - casualties and legality

[sparklingway]

The truth about drone attack fatalities​

By Farhat Taj
The writer is currently writing a book, Taliban and Anti-Taliban (farhat.taj@tribune.com.pk)

May 27, 2010

Three US researchers, Matthew Fricker, Avery Plaw, and Brian Glyn Williams have written a paper on US drone attacks in Fata. It contradicts the widely held view in the media and academia that the attacks lead to large-scale civilian casualties. Their paper titled ‘New Light on the Accuracy of the CIA’s Predator Drone Campaign in Pakistan’ will be published in the Sentinel, the magazine of the US Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Centre.

The authors analysed media reports from a multitude of sources on the US drone strikes in Fata over the last 10 months and compared the coverage of each attack. Where the reported numbers of fatalities differed, the authors favoured the most detailed and updated accounts. Where questions remained, they favoured newspapers of record, always using the lowest plausible count of militants reported slain. All women and children under 13 were assumed to be civilian. In case it became impossible to determine whether a person killed was a militant or a civilian, they assigned that person to the category ‘unknown’. By systematically applying these simple rules to the available information, the authors concluded that as of April 1 this year, there have been a total of 127 confirmed CIA drone strikes in Fata, killing a total of 1,247 people. Of those killed only 44 (or 3.5 per cent) could be confirmed as civilians, while 963 (or 77.2 per cent) were reported to be militants or suspected militants.

The identities of the remaining 240 individuals who died in these strikes could not be ascertained, and consequently they were placed in the ‘unknown’ category. Even if every single victim placed in the ‘unknown’ category was assumed to be a civilian, the vast majority of fatalities would still be of militants. To be precise, the researchers arrived at a ratio of 3.4 militants for every civilian. The report is revealing because it leads to the conclusion that much of the reporting on these attacks in the Pakistani media and perception created among the general public as a result of such reporting is based on false assumptions — the main being that innocent civilians far outnumbered the militants who died as a result of the drone attacks.

Media reports say the attacks lead to large-scale civilian causalities and public opinion in Fata is against the attacks. The fact is that many understand that the attacks are needed to target the militants and that in most cases they manage to reach the intended target with great accuracy.

I have been questioning misleading reports about the drone strikes through my newspapers columns. But the misinformation continues to come out from both think tanks and media outlets. One recent example is a research report called ‘The Year of the Drone’ produced by a US think tank, called the New America Foundation. The report claims that 32 per cent of those who have died in drone attacks since 2004 have been innocent civilians. The report has been quoted extensively in the media often but is far from the truth, as the one that is to appear in the Sentinel clearly suggests. Furthermore, in a forthcoming research paper I intend to challenge and question the New America Foundation claim.

My hope is that this new report will caution researchers around the world against the ‘conventional wisdom’ that drone attacks lead to large-scale civilian casualties and instant anti-Americanism in Fata, and encourage them to interact directly with local people.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 28th, 2010.

 

[contender]

U.N. Official Set to Ask U.S. to End C.I.A. Drone Strikes By CHARLIE SAVAGE Published: May 27, 2010

WASHINGTON — A senior United Nations official is expected to call on the United States next week to stop Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes against people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, complicating the Obama administration’s growing reliance on that tactic in Pakistan.

Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Thursday that he would deliver a report on June 3 to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva declaring that the “life and death power” of drones should be entrusted to regular armed forces, not intelligence agencies. He contrasted how the military and the C.I.A. responded to allegations that strikes had killed civilians by mistake.

“With the Defense Department you’ve got maybe not perfect but quite abundant accountability as demonstrated by what happens when a bombing goes wrong in Afghanistan,” he said in an interview. “The whole process that follows is very open. Whereas if the C.I.A. is doing it, by definition they are not going to answer questions, not provide any information, and not do any follow-up that we know about.”

Mr. Alston’s views are not legally binding, and his report will not assert that the operation of combat drones by nonmilitary personnel is a war crime, he said. But the mounting international concern over drones comes as the Obama administration legal team has been quietly struggling over how to justify such counterterrorism efforts while obeying the laws of war.

In recent months, top lawyers for the State Department and the Defense Department have tried to square the idea that the C.I.A.’s drone program is lawful with the United States’ efforts to prosecute Guantánamo Bay detainees accused of killing American soldiers in combat, according to interviews and a review of military documents.

Under the laws of war, soldiers in traditional armies cannot be prosecuted and punished for killing enemy forces in battle. The United States has argued that because Qaeda fighters do not obey the requirements laid out in the Geneva Conventions — like wearing uniforms — they are not “privileged combatants” entitled to such battlefield immunity. But C.I.A. drone operators also wear no uniforms.

Paula Weiss, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, called into question the notion that the agency lacked accountability, noting that it was overseen by the White House and Congress. “While we don’t discuss or confirm specific activities, this agency’s operations take place in a framework of both law and government oversight,” Ms. Weiss said. “It would be wrong to suggest the C.I.A. is not accountable.”

Still, the Obama administration legal team confronted the issue as the Pentagon prepared to restart military commission trials at Guantánamo Bay. The commissions began with pretrial hearings in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian detainee accused of killing an Army sergeant during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002, when Mr. Khadr was 15.

The Pentagon delayed issuing a 281-page manual laying out commission rules until the eve of the hearing. The reason, officials say, is that government lawyers had been scrambling to rewrite a section about murder because it has implications for the C.I.A. drone program.

An earlier version of the manual, issued in 2007 by the Bush administration, defined the charge of “murder in violation of the laws of war” as a killing by someone who did not meet “the requirements for lawful combatancy” — like being part of a regular army or otherwise wearing a uniform. Similar language was incorporated into a draft of the new manual.

But as the Khadr hearing approached, Harold Koh, the State Department legal adviser, pointed out that such a definition could be construed as a concession by the United States that C.I.A. drone operators were war criminals. Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department general counsel, and his staff ultimately agreed with that concern. They redrafted the manual so that murder by an unprivileged combatant would instead be treated like espionage — an offense under domestic law not considered a war crime.

“An accused may be convicted,” the final manual states, if he “engaged in conduct traditionally triable by military commission (e.g., spying; murder committed while the accused did not meet the requirements of privileged belligerency) even if such conduct does not violate the international law of war.”

Under that reformulation, the C.I.A. drone operators — who reportedly fly the aircraft from agency headquarters in Langley, Va. — might theoretically be subject to prosecution in a Pakistani courtroom. But regardless, the United States can argue to allies that it is not violating the laws of war.

Mr. Alston, the United Nations official, said he agreed with the Obama legal team that “it is not per se illegal” under the laws of war for C.I.A. operatives to fire drone missiles “because anyone can stand up and start to act as a belligerent.” Still, he emphasized, they would not be entitled to battlefield immunity like soldiers.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, a Notre Dame University law professor who has criticized the use of drones away from combat zones, also agreed with the Obama administration’s legal theory in this case. She said it could provide a “small modicum” of protection for C.I.A. operatives, noting that Germany had a statute allowing it to prosecute violations of the Geneva Conventions, but it does not enforce domestic Pakistani laws against murder.

In March, Mr. Koh delivered a speech in which he argued that the drone program was lawful because of the armed conflict with Al Qaeda and the principle of self-defense. He did not address several other murky legal issues, like whether Pakistani officials had secretly consented to the strikes. Mr. Alston, who is a New York University law professor, said his report would analyze such questions in detail, which may increase pressure on the United States to discuss them.
U.N. Official Set to Ask U.S. to End C.I.A. Drone Strikes - NYTimes.com

 

[EjazR]

How accurate are US drones? - Focus - Al Jazeera English

The announcement that a botched US drone strike killed 23 Afghan civilians in Uruzgan province is another blow to Nato's promise to protect Afghan civilians - one of several fatal mistakes in Afghanistan this year.

But there was at least a measure of accountability involved: The US military investigated the incident and (publicly) disciplined the soldiers responsible.

No such accountability exists on the other side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where the drone strike program is run by the CIA. The strikes - successful or not - are never publicly acknowledged by the US government. Mistakes are never admitted, death tolls never confirmed.

The Pakistan drone strikes almost certainly kill civilians, but exactly how many is the subject of much debate. Pakistani analysts claim the strikes overwhelmingly miss their targets: A study published in April 2009 claimed that 687 civilians had been killed, along with just 14 al-Qaeda members, a 50-to-1 ratio. A similar report, published in January 2010 in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, cited more than 700 civilian casualties.

Those numbers are generally dismissed in the US, where the most oft-cited number comes from the New America Foundation, which estimates that between 290 and 387 civilians have been killed by 134 reported drone strikes - approximately 30 per cent of the total reported fatalities.

A forthcoming study, conducted by University of Massachusetts professor Brian Glyn Williams, reaches a different conclusion. Williams finds just 44 confirmed civilian deaths - 3.5 per cent of the total - with another 240 unknown victims. (The rest of the victims are non-civilian fighters, Williams concludes.)

Williams doesn't disagree on the total number of people killed - just on the alleged affiliation of those victims.

Both surveys are based on English-language media reports, which the authors readily acknowledge are flawed: Journalists have little access to the tribal regions where the drone strikes are carried out, forcing them to rely on sometimes unreliable local stringers, or on reports from the very groups targeted by the bombings.

Perception versus reality

The back-and-forth over civilian casualties masks a bigger reality about the drone programme, though: It may not matter whether or not Williams' more optimistic figures are accurate, because they will do little to change Pakistani public opinion.

Polling data is difficult to come by, but the drone strikes are widely believed to be unpopular in Pakistan. There are a few contrary data points, like a study from a Pakistani think tank - the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy - which found mixed support for the drones: 52 per cent of respondents said they believe the strikes are accurate.


But another survey from the tribal areas found 80 per cent of respondents do not support the drone strikes, according to Mosharraf Zaidi, a Pakistani journalist. In an op-ed earlier this month for The News, a Pakistani newspaper, Zaidi described villagers in Pakistan's tribal agencies who were "traumatised" by the constant threat of drone strikes (on the one hand) and Taliban attacks (on the other).

And an Al Jazeera-Gallup poll conducted in 2009 found just 9 per cent of Pakistanis favor the attacks.

That unpopularity stems, in large part, from a belief that drones kill sizable numbers of civilians. Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security - and a critic of the drone strike programme - argued on Saturday that such a perception is ultimately more important than research studies about civilian casualties.

"I care, in other words, less about reality as defined by verifiable facts and figures and more about reality as it is interpreted in Pakistan and within Pakistani diaspora communities," he wrote.

As Zaidi has pointed out, not a single study shows drone strikes to be perfectly accurate; thus the Pakistani public retains the (legitimate) belief that the strikes kill civilians.

What is more, because the drone programme is officially secret, there is little that policymakers can do to shift Pakistani public opinion. Even if the reports of civilian casualties are inflated, the US government cannot offer evidence to correct those reports - because doing so would reveal the programme's existence.

Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, the analysts behind the New America drones study, argued for a more transparent programmein an op-ed last month in the New York Times.

"Should the American government’s claims about the small number of civilian deaths be verified, some of the Pakistani hostility toward the United States might dissipate. This would be much easier if the now-classified videotapes of drone strikes were made available to independent researchers," they wrote.

The Obama administration has so far faced little pressure to make the drone programme more transparent. That may change in the coming days: Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, issued a report on Thursday questioning the legality of CIA-directed drone strikes. Alston's report concluded that the military, not the CIA, should run the programme, as a way of ensuring some measure of accountability.

Al Jazeera is not responsible for the content of external websites.

 

[EjazR]

Not sure if this has been posted before but this is one of the surveys that the above article refers. Very enlightening indeed.

Drone attacks -- a survey
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Farhat Taj

The Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a think tank of researchers and political activists from the NWFP and FATA, conducts research, surveys and collect statistics on various issues concerning the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorism and human security there. AIRRA research teams go deep inside Taliban- and Al-Qaeda-occupied areas of FATA to collect information. Most of the areas are not accessible to journalists.

Between last November and January AIRRA sent five teams, each made up of five researchers, to the parts of FATA that are often hit by American drones, to conduct a survey of public opinion about the attacks. The team visited Wana (South Waziristan), Ladda (South Waziristan), Miranshah (North Waziristan), Razmak (North Waziristan) and Parachinar (Kurram Agency). The teams handed out 650 structured questionnaires to people in the areas. The questionnaires were in Pashto, English and Urdu. The 550 respondents (100 declined to answer) were from professions related to business, education, health and transport. Following are the questions and the responses of the people of FATA.

-- Do you see drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No 55%)

-- Do you think the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%)

-- Do you think anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently? (Yes 42%, No 58%)

-- Should Pakistan military carry out targeted strikes at the militant organisations? (Yes 70%, No 30%)

-- Do the militant organisations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%)

A group of researchers at AIRRA draw these conclusions from the survey. The popular notion outside the Pakhtun belt that a large majority of the local population supports the Taliban movement lacks substance. The notion that anti-Americanism in the region has not increased due to drone attacks is rejected. The study supports the notion that a large majority of the people in the Pakhtun belt wants to be incorporated with the state and wants to integrate with the rest of the world.

The survey also reinforces my own ethnographic interactions with people of FATA, both inside FATA and the FATA IDP’s in the NWFP. This includes people I personally met and those I am in contact with through telephone calls and emails. This includes men and women, from illiterate to people with university level education. The number is well over 2000. I asked almost all those people if they see the US drone attacks on FATA as violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. More than two-third said they did not. Pakistan’s sovereignty, they argued, was insulted and annihilated by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, whose territory FATA is after Pakistan lost it to them. The US is violating the sovereignty of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, not of Pakistan. Almost half the people said that the US drones attacking Islamabad or Lahore will be violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan, because these areas are not taken over by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Many people laughed when I mentioned the word sovereignty with respect to Pakistan.

Over two-thirds of the people viewed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as enemy number one, and wanted the Pakistani army to clear the area of the militants. A little under two-thirds want the Americans to continue the drone attack because the Pakistani army is unable or unwilling to retake the territory from the Taliban.

The people I asked about civilian causalities in the drone attacks said most of the attacks had hit their targets, which include Arab, Chechen, Uzbek and Tajik terrorists of Al-Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban (Pakhtun and Punjabis) and training camps of the terrorists. There has been some collateral damage.

The drones hit hujras or houses which the Taliban forced people to rent out to them. There is collateral damage when the family forced to rent out the property is living in an adjacent house or a portion of the property rented out.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda have unleashed a reign of terror on the people of FATA. People are afraid that the Taliban will suspect their loyalty and behead them. Thus, in order to prove their loyalty to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, they offer them to rent their houses and hujras for residential purposes.

There are people who are linked with the Taliban. Terrorists visit their houses as guests and live in the houses and hujras. The drones attacks kill women and small children of the hosts. These are innocent deaths because the women and children have no role in the men’s links with terrorists.

Other innocent victims are local people who just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

People told me that typically what happens after every drone attack is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists cordon off the area. No one from the local population is allowed to access the site, even if there are local people killed or injured. Their relatives cry and beg the terrorists to let them go near the site. But the Taliban and Al Qaeda do not allow them. The Taliban and Al Qaeda remove everything they want from the site and then allow the locals to see the site.

The survey conducted by AIRRA and my ethnographic interactions contradict the mantra of violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan perpetuated by the armchair analysts in the media. I have been arguing on these pages that analyses of those analysts have nothing to do with the reality of the FATA people. For some reason they take FATA for granted. They feel they are at liberty to fantasise whatever they like about FATA and present to the audience as a truth. Some of those armchair analysts also have a misplaced optimism about themselves. They believe my challenge to their fantasies about FATA is because I like to give them time! I give time to the land I love--FATA and the NWFP--and to the state I am loyal to--Pakistan.

What is happening in FATA is destroying the lives and culture of the FATA people, threatening the integrity of Pakistan and world peace. Fantasies of the armchair analysts are helping no one but Al Qaeda and the Taliban--enemies of the land and culture I love, and our state. I will therefore continue to challenge the fantasies of the armchairs analysts, whenever possible.

 

[Fracker]

-- Do you see drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No 55%)

-- Do you think the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%)

-- Do you think anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently? (Yes 42%, No 58%)

-- Should Pakistan military carry out targeted strikes at the militant organisations? (Yes 70%, No 30%)

-- Do the militant organisations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%)

The question might be asked from the people who can't understand english, otherwise Ground reality is quite opposite from the surveys

 

[FreekiN]

The question might be asked from the people who can't understand english, otherwise Ground reality is quite opposite from the surveys

I don't think they go out on the street to ask illiterates what they think about the "Great Satan" bombing everything.

But seriously, if they had an intention of doing a proper survey, they would go for the educated. Which I think they did.

 

[EjazR]

The question might be asked from the people who can't understand english, otherwise Ground reality is quite opposite from the surveys

"The questionnaires were in Pashto, English and Urdu."

and the other relevant section is

The survey also reinforces my own ethnographic interactions with people of FATA, both inside FATA and the FATA IDP’s in the NWFP. This includes people I personally met and those I am in contact with through telephone calls and emails. This includes men and women, from illiterate to people with university level education. The number is well over 2000. I asked almost all those people if they see the US drone attacks on FATA as violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. More than two-third said they did not. Pakistan’s sovereignty, they argued, was insulted and annihilated by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, whose territory FATA is after Pakistan lost it to them. The US is violating the sovereignty of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, not of Pakistan. Almost half the people said that the US drones attacking Islamabad or Lahore will be violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan, because these areas are not taken over by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Many people laughed when I mentioned the word sovereignty with respect to Pakistan.

Over two-thirds of the people viewed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as enemy number one, and wanted the Pakistani army to clear the area of the militants. A little under two-thirds want the Americans to continue the drone attack because the Pakistani army is unable or unwilling to retake the territory from the Taliban.

 

[fatman17]

Drones fuel the fire

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Mir Adnan Aziz

In The Strategies of War, Robert Greene writes: Rommel once made a distinction between a gamble and a risk. Both cases involve an action with only a chance of success, a chance that is heightened by acting with boldness. The difference is that with a risk if you lose, you can recover. With a gamble, on the other hand, defeat can lead to a slew of problems that are likely to spiral out of control. You realise that the stakes are too high; you cannot afford to lose. So you try harder to rescue the situation, often sinking deeper into the hole that you cannot get out of. Taking risks is essential; gambling is foolhardy.

The United States’ occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, initially deemed not even a risk has become a gamble that is spiralling out of control. Drones are the latest card seen as an ace, that the deck is well stacked against them figures nowhere on their video monitors.

The Brookings Institution, one of the most powerful and influential think tanks in the United States, published an analysis by Daniel Byman on the US drone policy in Pakistan. It stated that more than six hundred civilians (till June 2009) have been killed by US attacks. It also went on to say that for every militant killed more than ten civilians also died. This assessment is highly significant – ninety per cent of those killed in US drone attacks in Pakistan have been innocent civilians. The percentage may significantly increase given the higher number of civilian casualties quoted by local sources.

Using Pakistani tribal areas as a testing ground, the US industrial-military complex has elevated robotic warfare to the highest levels of cynicism. Operated through video screens from Creech and Hancock air force bases in the US, drones indiscriminately slaughter the civilian population. Obama’s presidency brought a significant (more than a hundred per cent) rise in these attacks, the first four months this year alone seeing thirty four of them. Joe Biden announced at the onset that he favoured fewer troops on ground as opposed to a significant increase in the use of assassination drones.

Last October, UN’s special rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston warned: “My concern is that these drones, these predators, are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The onus is really on the government of the United States to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary executions and extrajudicial executions are not in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons.” The US responded by greatly intensifying the attacks.

On January 13, 2006, one of the earliest drone attacks saw ten missiles fired on Damadola. The purported target was Ayman al Zawahiri at a dinner on Eid al-Azha. US officials declared that up to four Al Qaeda members were killed. ABC News gloated over the killings and described the gathering as a “terror summit.” When their euphoria subsided, it was learnt that twenty two people, including five children and five women, had been killed. Fourteen of the dead were from the same family gathered for an Eid dinner. US officials later admitted that no Al Qaeda leader was amongst the dead and those who perished were local villagers.

On September 8, 2008 drones fired five missiles on the madressah of Jalaluddin Haqqani. At least twenty three people, including eight children and Haqqani’s wife, sister, perished. Haqqani himself was not present in the madressah at that time. On Tuesday, June 23, 2009, hundreds of Pakistanis attended a funeral in the Makeen district of South Waziristan for a suspected Taliban leader. Two US drones fired at least three missiles directly into the funeral gathering. The death toll was put at eighty including ten children between the ages of five to ten. Subsequent reports were unanimous that no militant leader was harmed in the attack.

The drone attacks violate international laws and conventions and as a strategy, are extremely counter-productive. They lack both in terms of technical efficiency and the human intelligence they depend upon. Western media sources such as Time magazine, the Guardian and even people within the CIA admit this fact. The Wall Street Journal has reported: “Militants in Iraq have used $26 off the shelf software to intercept live video feeds from US Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor US military operations”. Hired local people, out for a quick dollar, drop microchips randomly and at compounds and abodes housing their tribal rivals. The drones then lock onto these chips to fire their missiles. The thermal cameras on which drone operators rely to verify their targets are notoriously imperfect. Even under ideal conditions, images can be blurry. In a chilling revelation, Time wrote that “in one of several stills from drone video seen by Time, it is hard to tell if a group of men are kneeling in prayer or they are militants in battle formation”.

To tell the United States that the drone strikes violate the UN Charter, the Geneva Convention and the principles of the Nuremburg Tribunal and a plethora of international laws would be a futile exercise. We have seen the US flout these laws and conventions with utter disdain. That these strikes add fuel to fire and are detrimental to its own security would be a narrative easier for it to understand and hopefully digest.

The writer is a freelance contributor. Email: miradnanaziz@gmail .com

 

[fatman17]

Raising the Curtain on U.S. Drone Strikes

Interviewee: Micah Zenko, Fellow for Conflict Prevention, Council on Foreign Relations

Interviewer: Greg Bruno, Staff Writer, CFR.org

June 2, 2010

The apparent killing of al-Qaeda's No. 3 in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, underscores the Obama administration's stepped-up use of unmanned drones to target militants in Pakistan's tribal areas. But despite the successes, drones remain a controversial tactic in the view of some experts. Senior UN officials are challenging the use of unmanned drones by U.S. intelligence agencies. CFR's Micah Zenko, who has studied the use of drones in the Afghan-Pakistan region, says while the technology does have its place in war, the Obama administration must shed new details on the tactic to justify their continued use. "Predator strikes are the worst kept covert secret in the history of U.S. foreign policy," Zenko says. "ince they are such a significant part of U.S. national security strategy, they should be debated, not simply applauded."

Predator drones have been credited with the removal of top al-Qaeda and Taliban figures from the tribal areas of Pakistan, the most recent example being the apparent killing of Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, al-Qaeda's No. 3. How critical are these unmanned strikes to the mission in the Afghan-Pakistan war zone?

Unmanned drone strikes are an essential tool for killing terrorists who provide guidance and operational support for international terrorism. The apparent killing of al-Yazid represents an important small victory, given his connections to terrorist plots abroad, and his declarations last summer that al-Qaeda would use nuclear weapons against the United States (RFE/RL). Such targeted killings, however, are only one element of national power that is part of the Obama administration's six-month-old Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy.

As the al-Yazid strike suggests, the Obama administration has picked up the pace of using drones in Pakistan. How did the United States manage to expand its unmanned drone program into a sovereign state that is not a declared warzone?

The decision was made after 9/11 by President Bush to authorize the CIA to capture or kill a small number of high-value al-Qaeda targets. This happens with CIA-controlled drones in November 2002 in Yemen, where a suspected mastermind of the USS Cole bombing is targeted and killed. And then in 2004 or 2005, the CIA also is put in command and control of drones only for Pakistan, as opposed to the Pentagon-controlled drones in Afghanistan. Today, some of the CIA-controlled drones are flown out of Pakistan and reportedly some others from Afghanistan. But these are somewhat compartmentalized from Department of Defense strikes, which happen in a declared warzone, which is in Afghanistan. Pakistan is not a declared warzone, but a sovereign country. So these can only happen with some level of cooperation with the Pakistani government.

What kind of cooperation?

If you're taking off from Pakistani airfields, the Pakistani government knows this is going on. The Pakistani media has also shown photographs of drones [on the ground in Pakistan], and there's lots of reporting of U.S. contractors and U.S. officials at some of these airfields. Early on, the U.S. government received permission from Islamabad to go after a very small number of people, primarily Arabs or Uzbeks. Only non-Pakistanis were permitted to be targeted, and if you look at the people who were targeted through the first dozen drone strikes over the first three or four years, they're almost all non-Pakistani. There was some intelligence support provided by the Pakistani government reportedly at the time, but what happens is in the summer of 2008 the U.S. government starts pushing it and going after targets on their own.

The question is whether or not [drone attacks] prohibit more comprehensive and coordinated strategies that are required to deal with the underlying problems of why foreign terrorists are allowed to operate from [Pakistan].
The Pakistani government can resist and say, "This is our own sovereign territory." But if the United States launches strikes without the Pakistani government knowing, it looks bad. So there's a very careful dance where the United States then starts going after some targets which are a threat to the Pakistani regime in Islamabad. In the summer of 2008, the CIA becomes, in effect, the counterinsurgency air force of the government of Pakistan, going after individuals and organizations that are dedicated to the overthrow of the regime in Islamabad, more so than they are dedicated to attacking the United States or U.S. allies abroad. This is clear to the Pakistani government, and they begin to provide greater intelligence; they provide a little more cover for the United States to do more drone strikes. It's estimated that at the end of the Bush administration, there were only six or seven Predator drones in Pakistan. Reportedly, this has doubled in the last year or so of the Obama administration, all with the explicit authorization of the Pakistani government.

So you're saying Pakistanis have begun to see drone strikes as in their interest?

It does benefit the Pakistani government, and evidence of that is that they've asked repeatedly for armed drones [currently, the United States only sells unarmed drones to Pakistan]. There are specific U.S. laws which prohibit the export of lethal military equipment to some countries for certain purposes since this is a highly classified technology which the U.S. doesn't want to export. There are also some concerns about Pakistan's ability to not kill civilians [as well as] who they would really go after if they had it. So the United States has provided increased surveillance drones to the direct control of Pakistan, and now it looks like they'll be selling them directly to the Pakistani government.

You mentioned targeting of civilians. How good is the United States at targeting terrorists and avoiding civilian casualties?

It's very difficult to know how many civilians or unintended targets have been struck by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Within minutes [of a strike], casualties are withdrawn by militants and they're all buried by sunset in accordance with Muslim law. The United States in some instances is able to get DNA samples or people on the ground who can identify exactly who was killed, but it's very hard to know. I was told recently by a very senior U.S. official that in the last six months, they knew that only one civilian had been killed. So it's likely that, one, we're better at doing it; and, two, the intelligence provided by the Pakistani government is significantly better.

Are insurgents figuring out ways to defeat them?

Targeted Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents in northwest Pakistan have responded to the increasing efficiency of the drone strikes by developing standard defensive tactics. [They've begun] killing suspected informants who provide intelligence, destroying communication towers that can better intercept satellite and cell phone signals; they've dispersed into smaller cells; they've moved into heavily populated areas where it is very unlikely that the United States will attempt strikes. So they've adapted defensive strategies in response.

So then what's controversial about the drone program?

As the senior counterterrorism official in the State Department Daniel Benjamin said in early 2010, the tribal areas of Pakistan remain the beating heart of al-Qaeda. Despite the reporting that there are growing elements within places like Somalia and Yemen, al-Qaeda's central core leadership remains in Pakistan. This is after eight years and roughly 125 drone strikes. The question is whether or not [drone attacks] prohibit more comprehensive and coordinated strategies that are required to deal with the underlying problems of why foreign terrorists are allowed to operate from there.

You're suggesting it's a short-term fix then?

It's a tactic, not a strategy. That's nothing people disagree on. The question is whether these strikes are in any way coordinated with a comprehensive campaign. And there's no evidence in my opinion that there is.

It's very difficult to know how many civilians or unintended targets have been struck by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Within minutes [of a strike], casualties are withdrawn by militants and they're all buried by sunset in accordance with Muslim law.

What are the legal issues surrounding the increased use of drones in Pakistan?

In March 2010, Harold Koh, who is the legal advisor for the State Department, made the first public defense of whether or not [drones] are legal. He gave a long speech at the American Society of International Law. At the very end of it, he had a little section on the uses of force and he said that they follow both U.S. domestic law and international treaty obligations. It's unclear to what extent this is true. There's a special representative to the [UN] Human Rights Council, Phillip Alston, who has tried to dig into what the legal justification (NYT) really is on this issue. Some of this will be resolved by the end of 2010, when the United States is required to appear before the Human Rights Council . . . to do what's called the universal periodic review. One of the issues that will certainly come up is the legality of uses of force outside of warzones. So we'll see a little about what the Obama administration's position is on their legality at that session.

You've called for public debate on drones (WashTimes). What would that achieve?

Predator strikes are the worst kept covert secret in the history of U.S. foreign policy. They've been reported on significantly in Pakistani and U.S. press. There have been slips of the tongue by many administration officials about their existence. There's been photographic evidence provided by Pakistani journalists as well as others. The only time the administration acknowledges them is to talk about how successful they are. As we know, any national security program which involves human beings is fallible.
Nothing that compromises operational security should be declassified, but the scope, direction, and dimensions of the program--how they fit within U.S. national security strategy--are very open to public debate. I like to describe it in terms of U.S. nuclear weapons. I know roughly the size of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, their type, the warhead lifecycles, where they're deployed, what the military doctrine is for them. I don't know how to make a bomb. I shouldn't know how to make a bomb--that should never be public. War plans for how bombs are going to be used shouldn't be known. But since they are such a significant part of U.S. national security strategy, they should be debated, not simply applauded.

Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.

 

[GUNNER]

TO MODS: Can we have a poll on whether people on this forum oppose or support drone strikes..?
[Reasons may be given]
CIA officers against drone strikes
By PPI
June 08, 2010

CIA officers have privately expressed their opposition to the drone strike program.
WASHINGTON: Some Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in its drone strikes program in Pakistan and elsewhere are privately expressing their opposition to program within the agency, because “it is helping Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies recruit new jihadist militants,” according to a retired military officer in contact with them.
“Some CIA operators are concerned that, because of its blowback effect, it is doing more harm than good,” said Jeffrey Addicott, former legal adviser to US Special Forces & director Center for Terrorism Law at St Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, in an interview with Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Addicott said the CIA operatives he knows told him that drone strikes are being used effectively by Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders to recruit more militants. CIA officers “are very upset with the drone strike policy. They’ll do what the boss says, but they view it as a harmful exercise. They say we’re largely killing rank and file Pakistani Taliban, and they are the ones who are agitated by the campaign.”
Because drone strikes kill innocent civilians and bystanders along with leaders from far away, they “infuriate Muslim males,” said Addicott thus making them more willing to join the movement. The men in Pakistan’s tribal region “view Americans as cowards and weasels.”
Addicott retired from the US Army as lieutenant colonel in 2000 after serving for six years as senior legal adviser to Special Operations Forces but is still a consultant for the US military on issues of terrorism and law. He said CIA officers expressing concern about blowback effects of drone policy are “mid-grade and below.” They learned about the impact of drone strikes on recruiting by extremist leaders in Pakistan from intelligence gathered by CIA & National Security Agency, which intercepts electronic communications.
They informed high-level CIA officials about their concerns that the program is backfiring. “People at the top are not believers,” said Addicott, referring to the CIA. “They know that the objective is not going to be achieved.”

Drone strikes helping Al QaedaThe complaints by CIA operatives about drone strikes’ blowback effect reported by Addicott are identical to warnings by the military and intelligence officials reported in April 2009 by McClatchy News Service.
McClatchy quoted an intelligence official with deep involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan as saying Al Qaeda and Taliban had used the strikes in generating propaganda to “portray Americans as cowards who are afraid to face their enemies and risk death.” Official called the operations “a major catalyst” for jihadi movements in Pakistan.
A military official involved in counterterrorism operations told McClatchy that the drone strikes were a “recruiting windfall for Pakistani Taliban.” CIA operatives’ opposition to the drone strikes program extends to Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, all of which now have confirmed deaths from drone strikes, according to Addicott.
Official goal of the geographical expansion of drone strikes is to destroy or disrupt Al Qaeda. But Al Qaeda today is less of a major organization than “a mentality” in most Middle Eastern states, Addicott said, and CIA officers fear strikes will only reinforce that way of thinking.

Drone strikes against a short list of high-level Al Qaeda officials
He said the drone program has been driven by President Obama, rather than CIA. “Obama’s trying to show people that we’re winning.” The program was originally authorized by President George W Bush against a relatively short list of high-level Al Qaeda officials, and with highly restrictive conditions on approval of each strike. The strike could not be approved unless the target was identified with high confidence, and a complete assessment of “collateral damage” had to ensure against significant civilian casualties.
In early 2008, however, Bush approved removal of the previous restraints. As recounted by David Sanger in his 2009 book, “The Inheritance”, Bush authorized strikes against targets merely based on visual evidence of a “typical” Al Qaeda motorcade or a group entering a house that had been linked to Al Qaeda or its Pakistani Taliban allies.
As a top national security aide to Bush acknowledged to Sanger, shift was “risky because, you can hit the wrong house or mistakenly misidentify a motorcade.” It also meant that anyone who could be linked in some way to Al Qaeda, Taliban or “associated forces” could now be targeted for drone attacks.
The Obama administration continued to justify the program as aimed at high-value targets, suggesting it can degrade Al Qaeda as an organization by a “decapitation” strategy, according to Addicott. Administration officials now privately admit the objective of program is to “demoralize rank and file. That won’t work, because, these are tribal people. They don’t view life and death the way we expect them to.”

Doing something

Within the Obama administration, it appears the logic behind the program is that it has to be seen to be doing something about Al Qaeda. “Argument I get from people associated with the program,” said Micah Zenko, a fellow in conflict prevention at Council on Foreign Relations, “is the same as the one (CIA Director Leon) Panetta gave last year.”
All other tools that might be used to try to reduce Al Qaeda’s influence in Pakistan and elsewhere take a long time, require cooperation among multiple actors and have no powerful political constituency behind them, Zenko observed.

 

[TruthSeeker]

The drone strikes are the most humane way to fight a force such as al Qaeda or the TTP ever employed. Their accuracy saves civilian lives but, just as importantly, the lives of Pakistani soldiers who are not asked to sacrifice themselves by attacking fortified compounds defended by hundreds of hostile Taliban or terrorists.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Drone doubts strike CIA ranks​

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - Some United States Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in the agency's drone strikes program in Pakistan and elsewhere are privately expressing their opposition to the program within the agency because it is helping al-Qaeda and its allies recruit, according to a retired military officer in contact with them.

"Some of the CIA operators are concerned that, because of its blowback effect, it is doing more harm than good," said Jeffrey


Addicott, former legal adviser to US Special Forces and director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, in an interview with Inter Press Service (IPS).

Addicott said the CIA operatives that he knows have told him al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are effectively using the drone strikes to recruit more militants.

CIA officers "are very upset" with the drone strike policy, Addicott said. "They'll do what the boss says, but they view it as a harmful exercise. They say we're largely killing rank and file Pakistani Taliban, and they are the ones who are agitated by the campaign."

Because the drone strikes kill innocent civilians and bystanders along with leaders from far away, they "infuriate the Muslim male", said Addicott, thus making them more willing to join the movement. The men in Pakistan's tribal region "view Americans as cowards and weasels", he said.

Addicott retired from the US Army as a lieutenant colonel in 2000 after serving for six years as senior legal adviser to the Special Operations Forces. He is still a consultant for the US military
on issues of terrorism and law. Addicott said the CIA officers expressing concern about the blowback effects of the drone policy are "mid-grade and below".

They learned about the impact of drone strikes on recruiting by extremist leaders in Pakistan from intelligence gathered by the CIA and the National Security Agency, which intercepts electronic communications, according to Addicott.

They have informed high-level CIA officials about their concerns that the program is backfiring, Addicott told IPS. "The people at the top are not believers," said Addicott, referring to the CIA. "They know that the objective is not going to be achieved."

The complaints by CIA operatives about the drone strikes' blowback effect reported by Addicott are identical to warnings by military and intelligence officials reported in April 2009 by Jonathan Landay of McClatchy newspapers. Landay quoted an intelligence official with deep involvement in both Afghanistan and Pakistan as saying al-Qaeda and the Taliban had used the strikes in propaganda to "portray Americans as cowards who are afraid to face their enemies and risk death".

The official called the operations "a major catalyst" for the jihadi movement in Pakistan.

A military official involved in counterterrorism operations told Landay the drone strikes were a "recruiting windfall for the Pakistani Taliban".

The CIA operatives' opposition to the drone strikes program extends to Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan, all of which now have confirmed deaths from drone strikes, according to Addicott.

The official goal of the geographical expansion of drone strikes is to destroy or disrupt al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda is less a major organization than "a mentality" in most Middle Eastern countries, Addicott said, and the CIA officers fear that the strikes will only reinforce that way of thinking.

Addicott said President Barack Obama is driving the drone program, not the CIA. "Obama's trying to show people that we're winning," he added.

The program was originally authorized by president George W Bush against a relatively short list of high-level al-Qaeda officials, and with highly restrictive conditions on approval of each strike. The strike could not be approved unless the target was identified with high confidence, and a complete assessment of "collateral damage" had to ensure against significant civilian casualties.

In early 2008, however, Bush approved the removal of previous restraints. As recounted by David Sanger in his 2009 book The Inheritance, Bush authorized strikes against targets merely based on visual evidence of a "typical" al-Qaeda motorcade or a group entering a house that had been linked to al-Qaeda or its Pakistani Taliban allies.

As a top national security aide to Bush acknowledged to Sanger, the shift was "risky" because, "you can hit the wrong house or mistakenly misidentify the motorcade".

It also meant that anyone who could be linked in some way to al-Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces" could now be targeted for drone attacks.

The Obama administration has continued to justify the program as aimed at high-value targets, suggesting that it can degrade al-Qaeda as an organization by a "decapitation" strategy, according to Addicott. However administration officials now privately admit that the objective of the program is to "demoralize the rank and file", he said.

That won't work, according to Addicott. "These are tribal people. They don't view life and death the way we expect them to," he said, noting that in effect, the drone strikes program has become an "attrition" strategy for Pakistan.

Such a strategy in Pakistan's tribal region appears to be futile. Madrassas (seminaries) in the region have churned out tens of thousands of young men with militant views, and their activities are spread across hundreds of sites in the region. A US military intelligence official told Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal in 2009 that there were 157 training camps and "more than 400 support locations" in the tribal northwest.

Within the administration, it appears that the logic behind the program is that it has to be seen to be doing something about al-Qaeda. "The argument I get from people associated with the program," said Micah Zenko, a fellow in Conflict Prevention at the Council on Foreign Relations, "is the same as the one [CIA director Leon] Panetta gave last year."

"Very frankly," Panetta declared on May 18, 2009, "it's the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al-Qaeda leadership."

Zenko, who has studied the bureaucratic in-fighting surrounding such limited uses of military force, told IPS that drone strikes have appealed to the Obama administration because they offer "clear results that are obtained quickly and are easily measured".

All the other tools that might be used to try to reduce al-Qaeda influence in Pakistan and elsewhere take a long time, require cooperation among multiple actors and have no powerful political constituency behind them, Zenko observed.

Dissent from those who are involved in the program itself has little effect when it is up against what is perceived as political pressure to show progress against al-Qaeda - no matter how illusory.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

(Inter Press Service)
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
====================

 

[M8R]

 

[Avatar]

lmao.. onion news.

 

[Jigs]

My heart goes out to the citizens of Pakistan. This is a hard blow to recover from.